How do I keep from getting stuck in the "acquaintance zone"?

In My Humble Opinion
81

Since you really don’t want to become a creepy guy, I think it’s worth reiterating that what you’re describing isn’t a game. It’s just what all non-creepy people do. My wife is very introverted and she has a much smaller circle of friends than me who she feels the need to see a lot less frequently than I want to see my own friends. She still has one though. In short - great goal. Glad you got the message. It would behoove to not think of it as a game or a strategy.

Start going to social events with your one friend. Tell him you really want to have more friends and ask him to help you work on it by also being friendly at these events.

By the way, in my experience making new friend out of an acquaintance doesn’t necessarily have a lot to do with having deep conversations. I’ve found it’s more about one of you suggesting that you two actually do something together, rather than just running into one another or being friends of a mutual friend. Once you hang out a few times, you’re friends.

If I meet someone new I’ve never found myself thinking, “Is this person capable of deep emotional conversation?”, I find myself thinking “Is this person fun and enjoyable to spend time with?”

You can’t suppress your emotions. You’re 16. 30 is almost 100% of your current life away from you. I think you need to work on accepting that the way you’re thinking is actively harming your objective and making it ever so slightly more likely that the thing you are obsessing about will come to be.

Honestly it’s really rare to be that old and have no romantic success. But obsessing over it and acting really desperate and creepy has got to be one of the best ways to help ensure it does happen.

82

I don’t really have any advice, except to say that at your age I was in the same boat. Boys (I’m straight female, and yes, it happens to us too) would not go anywhere near me. I was invisible in that respect.

The bad news. I had some flings at uni, but I continued feeling this way till my late twenties.:eek:

The good news. I did eventually get it sorted. I learnt have to talk to guys I like without crippling fear or awkwardness. I also feel I at least got something out of it, which is the skill of being happy without being in a relationship. Some of my more “popular” classmates are now always with someone, for good but often for bad, just because they never learnt how to be by themselves. I know it isn’t much comfort, but I think it will come right if you have the courage to learn from your mistakes.

83

Not it’s not! I had zilch zero success at that age and I’m a knockout now. :wink: Sort of like.

But really, you’re neither helpful nor right there. I’m sure there are plenty of late bloomers both on this board and in general.

84

I honestly don’t mean to make you or anyone else feel bad, but you’re very very wrong. Here’s one study (http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/pregan/PDF%20files/Regan%20et%20al.%20(2004)%20-%20First%20Sexual%20and%20Romantic%20Experiences.pdf) that looked at an ethnically diverse group and found that 96.2% had been on a first date during their high school years.

Do you seriously think a lot of those 3.8% left over still had never had any romantic success 12 years later by the time they were 30? I’ve honestly never met anyone in real life who had no success by the time they were 30.

Single at 30? Totally normal. Never had any romantic success at all by 30? Vanishingly rare.

Worrying about being completely unsuccessful at 30 when you’re only 16 is ridiculous.

85

Where did I ever say that?

I was just saying something like “don’t worry, I was the same at your age and it came totally right for me later on”. Some people are late developers, it’s okay.

86

Eh, not really. Clinical social anxiety, for example, is a thing.

87

R3d Anonymous said it. If you read what he has said carefully he’s not actually upset about being an unsuccessful 16 year old, he is plagued with crippling fear that he’ll become a 30 year old never having found success. Most 16 year olds are crappy at dating. Very few have still not figured it out AT ALL 14 years later.

88

Well actually I am upset about both.

89

Yeah but most 16 year olds worry about being unsuccessful at dating at 16. **PookahMacPhellimey **'s advice is spot on. Some people figure it out a little bit later. You just don’t have the perspective to realize how normal it is.

On the other hand, being petrified that things will still be the same 14 years from now is really counter productive. You’ll be a whole different person. VERY few people are like those guys you see online who are 30 and have never kissed anyone.

90

Stressing about it is not going to help anything, it’s only going to make things worse.

Find some activities that will help you make friends. The start of a new school year is the perfect time for that, so you have an opportunity coming up. I’d recommend some sort of sport or physical activity – it will add another dimension to your life and help get you out of your head so much. Plus it gives you a reason to spend enough time around your peers that you can get to know them without having to try so hard, you just do the thing together and eventually you can hang out at other times. Or join the school band or a study group or whatever. Make the effort to create situations where you can get to know people. But then don’t force it, just see what happes.

91

Well, yeah, if you want a date next week, the cold approach is your only option.

But slow down already! Seriously. Let’s just look at it this way: when we’re talking about normal human development, things like height, weight, puberty and social skills all develop along a bell curve. At 16, that bell curve is pretty wide. Using girls and menstruation as an example; there are some girls who’ve been having their periods for 6 years now, and other girls who just started in the last year or two. There are probably even a few outliers outside of that range. They’re all normal. So you need to just trust that you’re growing. As long as there’s nothing actually wrong with you, just have patience with yourself and take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.

(And if you think there is something wrong, seek out some professional help. There are anxiety disorders that can be treated with medication, but techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy may also help address some of your unrealistic attitudes, like the assumption that being alone at 16 translates to being alone at 30.)

Now… circle of friends again. I’m not sure how you’re not hearing us on some of our suggestions. Go join a club! Music, athletics, chess club, church group, Boy Scouts, volunteer organizations, whatever. You’re in high school - you can’t go ten feet without tripping over a social group organized around some kind of activity. Even if you don’t meet any girls, this kind of involvement is good for you as a person and good for your college applications.

As far as my wife goes: on her very first meeting in person, she only had a few hours because she had a business trip that took her through my town, so she stopped for the afternoon. We had lunch, talked, etc. Now, I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it amounted to “I really like you. When can we get together again?” sometime shortly before she left.

One her second trip up, she was planning to spend the weekend, with at least the possible out of sleeping in a room that one of my roommates wasn’t using that weekend. But we were up still talking at 2 am and I’m thinking “OK, she wouldn’t be here at all if she wasn’t as serious about this as I am” and so I asked “So… where do we go from here?” She said “You could kiss me.” And well… the rest is TMI.

Now I’m not holding myself up as some example of being suave with the ladies. Actually, I’m the opposite. I’d had one previous girlfriend in high school (at age 16) and she had to pursue me. That night with my future wife, I was actually still a virgin at 21. And you know what? It all worked out just fine - at least as just fine as these things ever come out in real life, where “happily ever after” involves couples arguing about who has to clean the dirty dishes. :slight_smile:

92

I think the reason I suck at flirting is because I suck at talking to girls at a platonic level. Once I can get comfortable with that and start having flowing conversations with girls just as friends, flirting will come a lot easier.

Now, as for the whole “asking her about herself” issue. I am still unclear on that. It’s kind of confusing because every time I went to go get advice they would always tell me to ask her questions and about herself. Just look in my last thread - the second response:

Even in this thread, if you look on the first page.

However, you people are also right in that the problem is that it starts becoming an interview which even I don’t like. I want (and she probably does too) to have a nice fun conversation.

But then I don’t know what else to do or say…

93

Here’s an example of a conversation that’s more like an interview:

Person A: What did you do this weekend?
Person B: I saw the new Planet of the Apes movie.
A: How was it?
B: I liked it.
A: What was your favorite part?
B: I liked the part where blah blah blah.
A: What other movies do you like?
B: I like the movies X, Y, and Z.
A: Do you like watching TV?
B: Yeah, sometimes.
A: What TV shows do you like?

And on and on. That’s not a conversation, it’s a weird interview. Person A isn’t really participating, they are just asking questions. Person B could also maybe ask some questions, give longer answers, get the conversation going more. But they are definitely not being helped by how Person A is going about things.

Here’s an example of someone asking questions, but it not being as much like an interview:

Person A: What did you do this weekend?
Person B: I saw the new Planet of the Apes movie.
A: How was it? I saw the first one and really liked it, but haven’t had a chance to see the new one yet.
B: I liked it. Different than the last one, but it was good.
A: Do you go out to the movies a lot?
B: I don’t know, maybe a few times a month.
A: Have you seen any other good movies recently?
B: I saw movie X last month, it was pretty good.
A: I saw that too! It was pretty great, although I love any movie that actor Y is in.

This is a general example. Someone else could maybe give a better example. In this example Person A is showing interest in Person B, but is also participating and letting Person B know something about Person A.

Even with the second approach, it’s possible that you won’t be able to get the conversation going. Nothing wrong with either of you if that’s the case, just move on. But hopefully you’ll have better luck than with the first approach.

94

Frankly I think advice about what to talk about is a little advanced for you.

For the vast majority of people, if we are talking to someone then you can assume there exists some nexus between us, no matter how fleeting. Even if it’s something completely inconsequential, like they take English class with us or are presently washing our hair for us at a salon, we both know why we’re speaking to each other.

In fact, if you had a large college class and the girl you liked had no idea you were in it with her, you’d start off by saying, “Oh hey Suzie, we’re both in the 9:00 AM English lecture, right?” You would do that because having someone we don’t know walk up to us and start having a conversation is a little weird.

From what I’ve gathered, you’ve decided to ignore this cultural norm. Your crushes are basically female humans you find attractive and you simply sidle up to them and start talking to them. This is your problem. It’s not going to be solved by asking better questions or making the conversation more fun. It’ll be solved when you stop doing it entirely and meet people for real, through friends or by doing new activities.

By the way, there are plenty of really friendly people who are actually good at conversation and do make a habit of just talking to strangers. Lots of us find it fairly off putting even when it’s done by people who’re supposedly good at it. Yes, say Hello, comment on the great weather, but I don’t want to talk to complete stranger when I’m out in public. People are even more likely to feel that way if you’re awkward and creepy about it. I feel that way even though I’m a fearsome looking 30 year old man. I can’t imagine how strongly I’d feel if I were an attractive teenage girl.

95

I think this advice has been given in earlier threads you’ve started, but IMHO, you really need to focus less on the “girlfriend” and put more effort into finding / creating a social circle.

A lot of your issues seem to be centered around confidence. If you can become part of a “group,” it might help your self-esteem, putting you more at ease when it comes to meeting girls. You’ve made comments in the past that make me think you picture yourself as some sort of outcast, and that’s why you have trouble meeting / wooing girls. I think you need to place less emphasis on dating and focus on establishing friendships.

I’ve told you this in the past, but you really need to realize that not having a girlfriend at 16 is not the end of the world. It’ll happen when it happens, but you seem to jump from one “crush” to the next, making me suspect that you’re more in love with the idea of being in love, than anything else. I know people like that, and their relationships never end well. You’ll be going to college soon, and that will open up a whole new world of opportunities and prospects. Being single right now may not your ideal situation, but it will hardly define your life.

96

The best I can do is say I’ve been there. I’ll tell you what I’ve told a couple of other guys on the board with the same issue. I didn’t date at all in high school, although I did ask some girls out. Unfortunately, I heard a lot of “sorry, I don’t like you that way.” I’m sure there was someone in my high school who did, but I never found out about it. I had friends, including girls. I grew up in a part of the country where I never quite fit in, though. A few early rejections made me very insecure, and this stayed with me, well, until I met my wife at 30. I went on my first date at 20, had my first girlfriend at 22. Here’s where I can say, “don’t do what I did.” My first girlfriend was a nice enough person, and physically attractive. However, we had nothing in common. I knew after one date that we had nothing in common. But I was desperate for a girlfriend, and she believed that marrying a college graduate would be a good idea even though we had no common interests. I let it go on for a few months, which was very unfair to both of us. It made me feel better that she was dating someone else pretty quickly after we broke up, and I decided I’d never date anyone out of desperation again. In my twenties I went years between dates. Friends would say they knew someone they were going to introduce me to, but it never happened. At 29 I moved to New York. I dated someone for a few months, but it didn’t last. I’m sure I came across as needy. That convinced me that I was undatable because anyone I’d be interested in would be turned off because I’d had less dating experience that a lot of high schoolers. When I looked at personal ads, I saw that the number of men was much higher than the number of women. I figured that it was too late, that I never acquired the social skills social skills that a person my age should have. I got tired of hearing unavailable women telling me what a keeper I was. I thought they didn’t know what they were talking about. I gave up. I remember telling the women in a therapy group I was in that I wasn’t someone the vast majority of women would want to date. They scoffed. I was gainfully employed, easy on the eyes, in excellent physical condition (I used training for a marathon as something to help keep my mind off my problems with women), and seemed to be a nice person. Ain’t gonna happen, I said. I dropped out of the therapy group, because of the will/will not dynamic. I met someone at a party 2-3 weeks later and was married within a year.

Here’s my point: if you try too hard, and spend to much time thinking about how badly you want to meet someone, you diminish the odds of it happening. Don’t join groups just to meet girls. If you wouldn’t want to join the group if you were already dating, or weren’t interested in dating, find something else. Don’t date someone just because she’s willing to go out with you. I don’t mean don’t go out once and see how it goes, but it’s no fun having a girlfriend who you only date out of desperation. It’s not fair to either of you. “Easy for you to say; you’ve been married for a long time,” you might say. You’re right. One thing I would suggest, if you’re at the point where you can barely think about anything else, is find a professional to talk to. I waited until I was pretty far gone, and I wish I’d gotten help earlier. A therapist who specializes in adolescent issues will have heard many, many similar stories to yours. If your problems with girls are affecting other areas of your life, I’d suggest you ask for help. I hope it gets better for you sooner than later; hang in there.

97

I expected him not to like it…I don’t either. AA, this is *horrible *advice. What has got into you???

98

I was kind of wondering if he was going after the popular girls who are knee deep in guys chasing after them.

Besides, plenty of the plain girls in High School, suddenly blossom over night to become absolute stunners.

They always remember the guys who gave them the time of day before they transformed into beauties.

99

You’re over-thinking this. Dating is a game of percentages.

You hit on every one who is remotely interesting. One of them will go out with you. Then you practice going on dates and fishing around for mutual interests that you both like to do and talk about. Either you develop it, or you don’t. If you don’t develop it, you hit on everyone else and get them to go out with you. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Everybody has exactly this problem when they are 16. It gets better.

Regards,
Shodan

100

R3d, I’d like to recommend two sites to you. One is Dr. Nerdlove, and the other is the wonderful Captain Awkward. Both of them have lots of good, real, thoughtful advice on the subject of dating and awkwardness and being happy in your own skin that you are not going to find on a site like Yahoo Answers.

But in particular, I want to highlight this post from Captain Awkward, in which the good Cap’n makes two suggestions.

One is to **seek out creative work written by women - ** books, movies, comics, blogs, music, whatever you like and are willing to explore. At the very least, you’ll discover some interesting and cool media that gives you different perspectives on the world…but a larger goal is to stop thinking about women so much in terms of romance and dating and rejection and insecurity, and start thinking about them more as individuals that you can relate to on the level of their own interests and concerns. (And if anyone, guy or girl, gives you crap for exploring media that gets coded as “female”, screw 'em – they’re saying much more about their hangups than they are about you.)

The second suggestion is hard to hear, but I think it’s really important since you’re so concerned about it:

So maybe, just maybe, you get to 30 and you haven’t had any success with women. Maybe (and this is very unlikely), you’ll never have any success.

What then?

[QUOTE=Captain Awkward]

If you knew that was a real possibility, what would you do with your life to make it as awesome and happy and fulfilling as possible? What kind of time would you invest into your friendships, family, community? What hobbies and activities would you pursue to make yourself feel more connected and less lonely? What kind of care would you take with yourself in terms of exercise and eating good food and reading good books and constantly learning and growing and making yourself interesting and happy? How would you go after your dreams? How would you approach your career and work to become truly great at something?

Cool. Go do that stuff… Remove the pressure to be a guy who “approaches women” from your life for a while. See who you meet when you are in pursuit of becoming your most awesome and happy self.

[/QUOTE]

This is the exact same thing a lot of people have been saying in this thread. Work on you, see what happens after that.