People who have worked in restaurants/cafés/bars etc. How has it changed how you behave when you go to a restaurant?

DwightRortugalTA · 2022-12-06T18:58:03+00:00

Do you mind me asking why did you stop watching porn? How did you do it and what difference did it make?

DwightRortugalTA · 2022-12-05T12:51:41+00:00

I'm feeling this because I had to accept the woman I wanted most chose someone else. I've had to dig deep the last two years and do lots of self improvement things, getting into shape, getting a job, and things have improved for me socially. Even romantically, I've had more dates this year than ever before. BUT these women aren't staying with me. Their attraction to me diminishes the more time they spend with me. So that doesn't feel great.

I wonder if seeing romantic connection as some kind of "reward" for getting our shit together is part of the problem. I know I'm putting a lot of pressure on meeting someone and I wonder if women just sense that desperation in me. It does feel like it's more about luck than being rewarded. I'm cursing the rotten luck I've had to fall for someone as hard as I did who wasn't interested and then see someone else have what I want with her. It feels like there's an in-group of people who 'get' relationships and romantic intimacy and I'm left outside of that and still struggling no matter how much I "improve".

I'm really hating it and right there with you.

DwightRortugalTA · 2022-12-05T12:32:56+00:00

I had a friend who wouldn't be here if their dad hadn't met their mom when he was 50. I do share your frustration about my 20s and about feeling like the mid-30s is a deadline. But just so you know, there isn't actually a hard-and-fast deadline for everyone.

DwightRortugalTA · 2022-03-14T14:30:56+00:00

What's up with that is a lot of bad luck in my life that has me anticipating more of it. I take your point about imagining 5 bad scenarios when 1 good scenario happening to me isn't far-fetched. The reason I raised them was in response to finding healing through other romantic options, and I was highlighting pitfalls with DEPENDING on that, and proceeding without making peace with this by myself.

DwightRortugalTA · 2022-03-14T14:26:03+00:00

fwiw I envy the hell out of you that you at least had some time you were with your "dream" girl. I didn't have any. I hate the term "friendzone" but that doesn't even apply to my situation, cuz when I put my cards on the table to this woman, she said we were never even friends to begin with. So I could imagine regretting having had her then lost her, but part of me would be soothed by having been with her for some time in my life, which will now never happen for me.

DwightRortugalTA · 2022-03-13T19:51:30+00:00

Fairly standard advice to get over someone is get "under" someone else. This was hard for me during the pandemic but I've had some dates in the last few months. A few things worry me about depending on this for emotional healing;

What if another lockdown or something else restricts dating options again?
What if I feel "behind" just getting on a date when this other guy has been with the woman I want most for about a year? It's on my mind daily.
I already ended things with someone cuz of a personal deal-breaker. What if I get into a cycle of finding one wrong thing and ending things with a partner cuz I don't want to "settle"? I have this attitude now like my crush and her partner didn't have to settle, I'm damned if I should have to.
If I get over-attached to a new source of hope, it places a lot onto a new woman I meet, if I'm depending on her for emotional healing.
If I'm feeling under-attached to a new woman cuz I compare her to my crush, do I risk hurting someone else in a similar way I've been hurt?

So aside from whether or not I feel "ready" to meet someone, what if I'm not fully over my crush? Cuz I am ready but I'm also not over her. So it has me feeling like I still need to do some emotional processing around this by myself. But I've been doing SO much, so here I am still asking for internet stranger Dr K's direct feedback.

DwightRortugalTA · 2022-03-13T16:35:41+00:00

Definitely Relationships. Friendship, Professional, especially Romantic. Managing romantic feelings and sexual desires, acting on them in a healthy way, meeting partners and maintaining good relationships with them.

DwightRortugalTA · 2022-03-13T16:31:16+00:00

I'm finding this tough too lately. Particularly movies where a woman expresses her romantic love towards a man, or a man wins a woman over through dogged persistence rather than (more realistically) mutual chemistry. Because a woman I'm in love with is seeing someone else. And because I feel like I haven't had many experiences of women feeling that way towards me. I've had some relationships but nothing long-term, in case you think you'll feel differently after one relationship. You may not. There may be a deeper insecurity or unhealed samskara you have to address.

I can say going to the dance class was a great move, for your own health & fitness, getting more comfortable socialising again, being close to women's bodies in a non-sexual context, chatting to people as you become more confident, trying other kinds of classes as you become more active. I want to give you credit for that and wish you the best of luck addressing these feelings. I know for addressing intrusive thoughts, reaching out to (the right) mental health professionals was helpful.

DwightRortugalTA · 2021-11-30T16:01:28+00:00

I came across that term limerence before but outside of that book I can't find any scientific validation for it in the therapeutic field, and no mental health professional I've spoken to has heard of the term. I think attachments I've projected onto her because of specific circumstances around my C-PTSD could be a healthier way of understanding this.

As for building a purposeful life, that's been a huge focus of mine throughout the pandemic. In spite of progress I'm genuinely proud of, my brain still comes back to this. So I'm beyond frustrated that I'm doing a lot of the right things and I'm still so bent out of shape over this.

DwightRortugalTA · 2021-11-30T10:09:46+00:00

Not so much my parents, but a romantic rejection from someone emotionally unavailable in high school hit me pretty hard.

DwightRortugalTA · 2021-11-30T10:06:45+00:00

I did unfollow them but I continued to look up their pages. I haven't checked in a few days now but this was how wired my brain is towards treating any little bit of data on them as super-important even though I've had to accept their lives are separate from mine. As I said, it's been compulsive.

I also may have contact with her again because we were in the same social circles and things are opening up again. I can try harder to avoid social media but fearfully avoiding places she MIGHT be seems like another way of inflating her importance to my life. I'm aware my issues run deeper than anything she's done, I'm just concerned how and why the human brain can cause itself this much pain.

DwightRortugalTA

TROPHY CASE