I’ve only been involved in one romantic situation in my life (it didn’t last very long) and I’m 22 years old. The thing is while I want to be in a relationship, I simply always seem to have other priorities.(schooling, work, etc) and so I never seem to pursue a relationship. When I do pursue them usually the people I’m interested in don’t reciprocate. I’m pretty picky when it comes to choosing to pursue a lady. I’m not depressed or anything , though sometimes I feel a bit lonely. I still have many aspirations for my life so I will be very busy for the next few years. Do I need to relax and have some fun? Will things work out in time? Has anyone else been in a similar situation?
I’m 22 and have had no serious relationships so you’re doing better than I am.
While the loneliness can get to you sometimes, it’s really not that huge a deal unless you’re really trying and keep getting shut down. Otherwise, just relax and let things happen… they eventually will.
Eh. Not that I’m any love expert or anything, but sometimes there are other things going on in your life and therefore romance is not really high on your list. You’re young, and it sounds like you’ve got reasons to be busy. As long as you don’t freak out when someone attractive is interested in you, or are oblivious (a lot of us have problems with that) when a “good catch” is looking your way, then I don’t think it’s that huge of a deal at this time.
It seems like society wants to pressure us into a set timetable of what we ought to do and at what age we ought to get it done. Sometimes it’s just too much. People “blossom” and develop at different stages and have different phases in their life. I wouldn’t worry about it too much yet. There’s plenty of time.
I’m gonna tell you what I tell every kid your age that (thinks) they want a serious realation ship at your age:
DUDE you’re 22! Unless you have moral issues with this you should be dating lots of girls and not just wasting your time on one. Do it now while you’re young. (fcol) That way when you get older you wont be curious about other women and you’ll be better informed as to what you want in a woman.
Because trust me, you may THINK you know what you want right now; but chances are, if you’re like 98% of the other men on this planet, you don’t. And the only way to find this out is to go out there and date.
And don’t by any means think just because you start dating a woman it has to lead to something serious. But DO be up front about this with anyone you get invovled with.
The one thing I always tell a friend of mine, who reminds me a bit of you, is that you have to be open to relationships. Not lower your standards, or anything like that, just give people a chance. For instance, when you meet a bunch of new people doing all the things you love to do, stop and consider them as potentials, not just friends.
You’ll still have lots of people who don’t work out, (that’s inevitable, I promise you) but by giving everyone a chance, your chance of success goes up too. Pursuing goals in life and keeping your eyes open for some “good catches” are not mutually exclusive.
Not finding many “good catches” is completely normal, which makes you normal in my books, too. Just make sure you keep making the effort to give things a chance.
I thought he was talking about realationships in general. Where did he say he wants a serious one? It looks like a problem getting dates not a problem being serious.
There is no Golden Rule for dateing. It depends on the person. If you’re happy the way things are, then don’t change anything. If you think you would like a relationship, then make time for one. Whatever you do, have fun.
The vibe I got was that he doesn’t have a problem getting dates, just hasn’t been that motivated to pursue dating with most of the people he meets. And he’s describing it as being “too picky.”
I agree with SHAKES. (Holy shit! How did that happen?) I’m no dating expert either, but I get the impression that nobody really is: there’s no set way of doing everything. We get this artificial notion in our head of how relationships are supposed to work, from movies and books and TV and the people who do manage to find their one true love and get married at 23. Sometimes it works out that way, a lot of times it just doesn’t. You can’t get locked into thinking of how things are supposed to go and what you’re supposed to be doing and what your schedule is. Just concentrate on what’s going on right now.
If you’d rather be by yourself, do that. If you meet people you like and want to hang out with them, do it. Don’t concentrate on where it’s headed or what it all “means,” just ask yourself whether you’re having fun at the time and want to do it again. The whole point of it is to be happy, so don’t do it if it doesn’t make you happy. And dating is about finding out whether you are compatible with another person, so you’re likely to have more misses than hits – it doesn’t all have to go perfectly with the first date. As long as you’re completely honest and upfront about it, not saying that you’re in love if you’re not, not saying that you’ll call the other person if you have no intention of doing so, the worst that could happen is you make new friends and have fun.
The thing is I don’t really know if I have alot of problems getting dates or not, it’s mostly that I’m too busy to pursue them. Some girls have pursued me though they were not exactly what I was looking for. I guess my main question was if I should be actively dedicating some time for this endeavor. My fear is that If I am so focused on academics and work over the next 5 years that I don’t date, will it make me socially unprepared/inexperianced for it later? I sometimes wonder If I’m too mature for my age (if that means anything) But again, I’m not depressed. I guess I’m just wondering if I can make my life more enjoyable than it is.
Apparently this isn’t wise. I used to think like that (and still do and always will) but when I made this point about a girl I was getting to know in a thread I had started, I got a reply from a woman saying that she would be extremely offended if she knew I was thinking of them as a “potential.”
If you need a cite I’ll have to go digging for it.
This is the most confusing thing for me. There seem to be two camps of thought. Your camp is about just going along with the flow of life, and somehow “things will just happen.” But for every person who tells me to not worry about it and just let things take their course, there is another person who tells me that nothing will ever happen for me unless I actively pursue them.
So…which is it? Do I go to every kegger and frat party (even though I loathe the very thought) just so that I can pursue as many women as possible? Or do I just do whatever I feel like doing, which will obviously lead me to meeting far fewer new people?
There’s no time limit, there’s no schedule, it’s not a race, and it’s never “too late” to start dating. The stuff you’re learning now is the stuff other people have to pick up later, and vice versa. I didn’t start dating “for real” until this year (I’m 33), and I’m awkward and clumsy and obsessive about it, going through the same stuff that most people figure out in their late teens, but I don’t regret it – it’s just all part of the process. And I figure I just have more stuff to talk about on dates, because I spent so much time focused on other stuff.
So don’t do it because you feel like you “should” do it, just do it if you want it. And since you’re asking for advice and this is IMHO, my advice is yes, make time for it. Pursue the women you’d normally be “too picky” for. If for no other reason, than to find out for yourself if your life could be more enjoyable instead of asking a bunch of strangers on a message board. You don’t have to drop everything and devote all your energy to dating, at least until you find someone you’re really serious about. Until then, get out, meet people where you can, see what it’s like. Don’t get discouraged if there are dry spells or if there are bad dates, because you’ve got a full enough life even without it. And don’t feel that you’re making too much of a commitment to someone you don’t want to be your lifelong partner, as long as you’re completely up-front and honest about what you want out of the relationship.
Um, you just answered your own question. If you loathe the very thought of going to every kegger and frat party, then just don’t do that! Sure, if you were just “playing the numbers,” then statistically speaking, you’d have better luck going to all the frat parties. More women = more opportunity = happy Soapbox Monkey.
Unless, of course, going to frat parties and having go-nowhere dates with the types of women who hang out at frat parties, doesn’t make you happy. And it sounds like it doesn’t.
All I’m saying is that if you keep the mindset “gotta get a girlfriend gotta get a girlfriend gotta get a girlfriend,” no matter what the cost, you’re going to be unhappy most of the time. All the time in between dates, you’re going to be lonely. All the time at parties or out meeting people, you’re going to be “on the make” instead of just out having fun.
And most likely, you’re not going to be that happy when you finally do meet “the one.” Because you’re going to have spent so much time thinking, “As soon as I meet her, I’ve won the game,” when the truth is that that’s just the beginning. If you spend all your time on the make, you’ll just end up with a codependent or unsatisfying and possibly cheating relationship, because you don’t have a satisfying life outside of dating and the next conquest.
There’s a middle ground there; it’s not all one or the other. When people tell you you have to pursue it, they’re just saying that you can’t sit in your room and expect women to form a queue outside your door. You’ve got to make some effort to meet people and let the ones you like know that you’re interested. The other side of it: make sure that you’ve got enough of a life outside of dating, that you have something interesting to contribute to the relationship once you’re actually on the date.
When I was 22, I had dated a total of three men in my life, for much the same reasons that you don’t date (I had four majors in college). I had pretty much given up on the whole concept of romantic relationships. I took it as an axiom that anyone I was interested in was bound to be either gay or already taken. That year, I started exchanging emails with the future Mr Neville, just as friends, with NO thought of making more of it. I’m sure if someone had told me then that I’d end up married to him, I would have laughed bitterly at them.
He had only dated one woman before me, because of shyness and being too busy (he had four majors in college, too, which is how we heard of each other).
A year later, when we started seeing each other, I thought of warning him off- I didn’t think I could make a relationship work, and didn’t want to lose him as a friend.
We were married last August, and we’re both very happy in our marriage.
I’m not close at all to the usual standard of “good-looking”- Mr Neville thinks I am good-looking in his opinion, at least. I dress for comfort, not style, and have since I was 16. I couldn’t even tell you what’s in style now. I don’t go to parties or bars to socialize. If I do go to parties, I wind up being the one hanging around the food all evening. I am a geek girl, and I think guys tend to think of me as “one of the guys” if they’re not scared of me. If I can go on to a happy relationship from that background, you almost certainly can too.
When Mr Neville and I were seeing each other, we very, very rarely went on formal “dates”. We’d both generally rather hang out at home and watch TV or play computer games. But that suits us fine. I think having less dating experience actually helped us- we had fewer preconceived ideas about what we “should” be doing, so we just made things up as we went along and did what we wanted to. We also didn’t have problems comparing the other to previous boyfriends or girlfriends.
I would advise you to look for someone outside the traditional venues- look for someone in your classes, or at work. You might find someone else without much romantic background who is a good match for you. Oh, and you might also consider which of your “picky” standards are most important, go with that, and forget the others. For me, it was most important to find someone who puts up with my pondering questions that have no relevance whatsoever to my daily life, and who is willing to ponder things like that with me. Everything else was negotiable.
Remember, it’s not a game or a race. AFAIK, you don’t get points for dating more people or settling down earlier.
And, of course, we’re all better off romantically than the Anne Neville from whom I took my doper name. I think about her a lot- I wonder if she actually loved either or both of the men she married…