Be My Dating Coach

In My Humble Opinion
21

As many other posters have said, you’re stating you’re not interested in looking for marriage material, so why force it?

Also - your profile looks smart, attractive, ambitious and thoughtful - finding guys who are similarly well-positioned AND sincerely searching for a mate that is a peer can take time - hard news, but really not a surprise, is it?

So - do you hang out where smart, attractive, ambitious and thoughtful guys hang out? Have to tried to identify these places - bars, social-interest organizations, certain recreational locations and/or interests?

If you are getting yourself out to places where those guys are likely to be AND you are focusing on fun relationships, it will be a lot more likely that you will be doing what you want for now and, over time, you would end up meeting a guy worth working on a relationship with.

My $.02
Hope it helps - but honestly, I think you are in a temporary lull that you could get out of with some minor focus and effort on your part…

22

Thanks guys. There is a lot of good insight here, and I’ve got a lot of good stuff to work with. Win one for the armchair psychologists!

The book isn’t available for Kindle! I’ll have to get it when I get back.

Ultra I’m not sure why I get in relationships. Looking back, they’ve rarely mad me happy long. But I’ve also been functionally single for a long time, and that’s getting old too. At the bare minimum., it.s nice to have a steady sex partner. I hate spending my young pretty years only getting occasional action. I’ll have to mull this one over.

I also hate the phrase “Mr. Right.” Assume I mean “somebody I have some kind of actual future with.” Spending you enery on dead ends makes you miss opportunity.

Right now I’m strongly considering staying around DC for a few years after graduation. It has been really nice living a young person’s life in a big city and not some far flung village where everyone is married by 16 and you’ll get stabbed leaving the house after dark. My adventuring days are probably not over, but it’d be nice to go back with a family and do the settled-down expat thing. I suck at dating abroad, and it’s just too damn frusterating to live like a nun for years on end, and the constrictions it puts on your life are tough when you are forced to be a homebody but don’t have a family to fill that home with. And if I want to have kids, I don’t have a huge abundance of years to spend where dating isn’t even possible.

Which isn’t to say I’d only move abroad if I got married. If it was a viable place for a single woman to have a life, I could. But I’m realizing most of Africa- where a woman alone can hardly safely walk down the street- is going to be too lonely for me to do on my own full time.

There are tons of heavy-travel consulting jobs where I can get out but still be based in DC.

[b[Blaster**, good observation. I know I’ve picked up some gnarly ideas about dating. Basically I see it as a pretty naked competition, and the attractive girl wins. I know I’m not a head-turner, but I feel like I need to capitalize on what I have, and make up for the rest with mystery, class and sexiness. And it works…I gave myself a bit of a makeover based on this, and it’s been very effective. I guess I’m not sure if I’m being realistic or warped.

As for the gym, I’ve been plucked down in an ultra-rural village with a sporatic work schdule and no transport that can get me out of the house, much less town. I can go most of a week without being able to leave the house, and when I do leave it’s to sit with African grandmothers I don’t understand. I can’t go anywhere alone and there are no recreational activities. For an on the go city girl, it’s a bit rough (the work is good and meaningful, though.) Oddly, my house has a nice home gym, and all the energy and frusteration from being cooped up go to that. Thr effect on my body is remarkable, but mostly it’s to keep myself sane.

Multiple people have called me emtionally unavailable. I got a book on avoiding emotionally unavailable guys, and I saw myself all over it. I think it’d be good for all aspects of my life to learn to recognize and exress emotions normally. Somehow, I didn’t pick up a lot of that growing up.

23

Whenever I’ve read your relationship threads I am always left with the impression that you’re pretty invested in seeing yourself as this, strong, hip, daring young woman, who doesn’t need monogamy or commitment, even in face of strong evidence to the contrary. Sometimes crushing hard on men who were mere booty calls, initially, but heartbroken and devastated when they don’t want more.

Is it possible you need examine who you really are today, letting go of how you perceived yourself previously? I would look toward how you view other women seeking partners, and mature relationships. Perhaps you’re just a little afraid to own that you’re one of them.

I was struck by the mention of keeping up to your friends, this is an attitude you should be past by now, in my opinion. Also, you feel the clock ticking, are looking for marriage material but also just want to ‘date around’. These things indicate to me that you have some self awareness issues to address.

You won’t find marriage material coming into your life if you’re continuing your booty calls. You also won’t find Mr Right, with half hearted indecision about which side of the fence you’re actually on.

The search for true love is a fool’s journey. Do not seek true love, seek to be worthy of true love. My advice would be stop putting pressure on yourself to get to, this or that place, in life. That’s not how life works. Work on deciding what you really want, and what you really don’t want. Don’t even think about another relationship until you resolve your indecision, it’s not fair to your partner.

By putting in the time alone, to separate who you think you should be, from who you really are. A big piece of maturity is about self awareness.

Of course, all of this is just my opinion, and worth what you’re paying for it!:smiley:

24

…and yet you open up pretty well here on the 'Dope…hmm…no clue what to make of that.

25

That is really good advice for everyone.

26

Have you considered non-monogamy?

“Because I should be” is not a good answer to “Why are you looking for a long-term relationship?” If you don’t want to date one person in the long-term, don’t. It doesn’t matter that everyone around you is pairing off. There are plenty of people in your age range (and mine, as I’ll be 27 soon) who don’t do exclusive commitments. My mom’s almost 50 and there are plenty of guys in HER age range that are still looking for booty calls (hate that word, but whatever).

Consider that if you’re always an emotionally unavailable partner, maybe it’s because you don’t WANT to commit–at the risk of begging the question, you shouldn’t feel a “should” about this. Do you really want to get married? Do you want to have kids? Can you support yourself in an endeavor for children without a partner? Because if this is just the ticking of your biological “mom-clock,” there’s no reason you HAVE to be in a long-term relationship to have them.

***Everything ***you say absolutely screams “I don’t want to get married but I think I should.” Stop that, right now. You won’t get anywhere if you can’t be honest with yourself about what YOU really want. If your wants change as you get older, if it turns out you want to be married when you’re 45, get married when you’re 45. Don’t do it now out of some misguided starry notion that you might regret not being married “someday.”

27

About living abroad…I guess I worry that I’ve been gone too long and starting to cross that linewhere you get too weird to go back. Reintegration has been tough, and I actually took icomparitively well. But it took time and lots of misteps. The military comparison is a good one. It’s this big chunk of your life that nobody relates to.

Take, for example, people reminscing about Christmas. Do I tell them about my Christmas in Chonqing, where tens of thousands of people take to the streets wearing light-up devil horns on Christmas Eve in a mob frenzy and beat each other with giant inflatable baseball bats? Or about the year I got malaria, decorated my tree with empty Coartem boxes, and then mysteriously turned blue over Christmas dinner? Even last Christmas was about me coming home- how my Grandma got old without me being there, now much things changed and how much my family misses me.

Who the hell can relate to this stuff? But it’s all I got.This is the life experience I have, and I don’t have some store of normal memories to draw on. Yet if I draw on my life, it’s a lot for people to make sense of. IAnd it’s not just Christmas. I guess I worry too much of my life is way out there.

Luckily DC has a good international set, and for this reason we tend to seek each other out. But that narrows the pool.

Ok, bedtime for me. Thanks all of you. Please excuse the typos- I have to post from my Kindle.

28

Well, I’d invite you over if you would tell those stories.

29

Everyone has experiences no one else can relate to - isn’t that central to the Human Condition and the difficulty in finding a partner? I don’t see the point of your last post.

30

Going to bed at 5 p.m. is going to be an obstacle to dating. :stuck_out_tongue:

31

I mean this in the nicest way possible: You’ll have a much easier time of it if you get over yourself.

32

Time for a little more armchair psychology. You’ve got this idea in your head that dating is a competition, and I’d bet good money that you think of a relationship as the prize. You’re in it to win it, but your notion of winning is getting the relationship, not being in it. It’s just like a little kid who begs and begs and begs for a puppy at Christmas, and has no idea how much work is involved in taking care of a dog.

Are you just frustrated by lack of sex, or do you use it to calm your insecurities about your appearance? The former is healthy, but the latter is cause for concern.

33

A hell of a lot of us can relate to this kind of stuff. State department, military, Peace Corps, scientists.

I tell stories about hanging off a Chinese research vessel soaked in bilge water, and Imp of the Perverse responds with the time the bears destroyed her research site. Meet people, talk story, don’t worry.

With regards to Mr. Bootycall (Eduardo) I would only point out that being involved with someone complicates getting involved with someone else.

34

I don’t think I’ve ever sat around reminiscing about Christmas with people such that a different Christmas experience would isolate me and cause them to shun me.

35

Rabbit, it’s cool. I’ve heard it before here, and have taken it seriously. Any advice on how to “get over myself?” I am asking this with honesty. I am always grateful for someone who can give me some honest perspective.

Word, the question is how and when do I let people know about this part of my life? To please the Rabbits I’ve been avoiding mentioning it until something relevent comes up naturally and then just discussing the relevent parts. But once this happens a couple times, I think it becomes intimidating because it seems like I have this huge other life I’m not talking about…At the same time, it’s not something you can casually sli in to a first date. What is a good time to give a quick, simple rundown and get it out of the way?

Elbows, it’s possible but not likely. I’ve been in three multi-year relationships headed towards marriage with decent guys. I was the one who ended all of them. And while I feel terrible for hurting them (and have matured and wouldn’t do it like that now), I’ve never looked back or said what-if. Not once. I’ve had marriage-ready guys interested in me, and I’ve always passed them up. I do have a heart, I believe in love, and I can and do make bad decisions that get me hurt. But I don’t think I have much more to me than what I am telling you guys now.

Rachel I get jealous and it’s not good for me. If I could find a guy happy to be monogomous while I sleep around, it might work. I lack the emotional maturiety to handle polyamory.

36

See this does nothing to convince me that you’re doing it right, I have to say.

Never saying ‘what if…’, isn’t the same as never reexamining your past for lessons moving forward. Sometimes it keeps one from repeating the same mistake 2 and 3 times.

It’s sounding now, like it’s a main stream/fringe thing. You don’t really want to marry, but think, ‘Garsh, maybe it’s time!’. You seem way more intelligent than that, so I’m not getting it.

You have concerns about sharing how unusual your life experience has been? Kind of comes across as mock modesty, as you ought to be mature enough, at your age, to not really care about such shallow things.

Of course, what the hell do I know? I’m just going by what I’ve read, of course.

37

Sven could have cards made up, laminated, and hand them out with magnifying lenses.

38

Scratch that. You need a wordpress blog, you need to write down your travels, you need to end each entry with a codeword. Tell any okCupid interested people that they MUST review your blog. If, after reading that, they’re still interested, to look you up.

(and I’ve been following your adventures for years, never apologize for taking the path less travelled.)

I know a guy you’d probably relate to…unfortunately, he just retired…is twice your age…and is nowhere near DC.

39

My biggest overall impression from this thread is that you don’t know what you’re looking for. That’s a pretty good way to guarantee that you won’t get it, but you might be surprised - maybe just keep dating and don’t take it all so seriously. You’ll find a guy who is just what you’re looking for (or guys - who knows!), or you won’t - worrying over it won’t make it or not make it happen.

40

Perhaps a softcover coffee table book, the adventures of Sven. Gifted to each man she thinks she would like a second date with.

“Here is your homework” :smiley: