At 22, shouldn’t the OP be interested in women, not girls?
And about the telemarketing approach, are people suggesting that one should make these requests based on little more than sight? Am I wrong to think that’s important to get to know someone a bit, in order to weed out glaring ethical deal-breakers and things like that?
…
Just roll with it, bro. Half the time you’ll get a yes, and half the time they’re not into dudes.
I’ll agree with the others that you are getting a little too stressed out over this, especially at the age of 22. I was in grad school at 22 and a girlfriend was well down the list of things I worried about.
In the mean time, perhaps you can find one of the lady Doper’s to “Friend” you. 
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is quintessential negging.
Regardless of the truth of the matter, your ex sounds like a jerk. Any chance she was just saying all that in order to prevent you from thinking you could do better elsewhere? It’s not uncommon, particularly in abusive relationships. Maybe you’re really the moronic troll she describes (although I seriously doubt it) but it’s a big world out there and if you’re even a remotely decent human being the dating pool is non-zero.
She thinks this and yet she wants you back? I’m not sure what that says about her, but I’m not convinced you should trust her judgement about your attractiveness.
Jragon’s ex, IMO, for that act of what **Gyrate **has identified as blunt-force negging, may be referred to with a word that we try not to use in the Dope. Now she’s ostensibly seeking to reestablish contact to see how desperate is he to be her floormat… then again it may be she has discovered SHE is the one who can do no better?
For some of us it’s a high average over a low total (because, if you ask someone and it clicks and you date exclusively for a couple of years, then you hit 100% but did not even try for the next two years). For others it’s a low average over a high total attempts (if only 1 out of 10 says yes, but you ask 50, that’s 10 hits). It works out.
Hey, Chicks these days dig nerds, dontcha know? Was surprised myself.
Being convinced no-one would ever possibly want to date you is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy there.
Speaking as a boob-wielder, few of us tend to go for the Eeyore approach, save the occasional manipulative asshat.
You posted a picture on a similar thread before, Mr Jragon, and pretty much everyone in that thread agreed you’re pretty decent looking. Better looking than one of my friends who’s slept with half the town and is currently engaged to a very nice girl, I’d say. What’s holding you back is attitude, not looks. That can be changed.
But beware the broken bat blooper to shallow right field.
Conversely, swinging opens the door to all kinds of things you can get - crabs, scabs and penicillin jabs among them.
If anything, it’s the fact that he believes this to be true that may make him “undateable.” Such a supreme lack of love of himself as a worthwhile human being will send many candidates running for the hills.
Jragon, I suggest this: She did not, in fact, love you. She preyed upon you, used you for her own purposes, then while breaking up with you decided to pulp your heart as well.
There are many reasons why people generally fall back on the “it’s not you, it’s me” cliche when breaking up. Most of them involve things like still having fondness for the person and realizing that there is simply incompatibility in areas that others might be OK with. Even people who find themselves with an asshole and are willing to express that may provide examples like “you never supported my dreams” or “you hate my parents and friends” or something similar.
Gloating about how unloveable you are? Absent any other extra data? You hooked up with an emotionally-abusive sociopath. Count yourself fucking lucky that you’re out, sneer at her attempts to get back with you (either she’s not done tormenting you yet, or everyone else keeps kicking her to the curb when she shows her true colors), and get yourself some therapy to reconstruct that self-worth.
That’s because everyone who doesn’t moved the hell out of Ohio as soon as they could. Same went for my hometown in Indiana.
Jragon, ever heard of gaslighting? Do some reading and get some therapy. There is some guy out there who is stupider, uglier, and worse in bed than you, and he’s still getting laid. The only thing preventing you from dating is yourself. If you decide you don’t want to take the risk of heartbreak and stay single, then fine. That is your choice. But don’t let someone else make that choice for you, dammit.
"No"s are great! They build character.
And remind yourself, at least you had the balls to ask. Which is a lot more than you can say for a lot of folks out there. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Be proud of yourself.
I will offer the best advice I can; which is to tell a story that many people here can back me in their own experiences…
When I was in high school there was this guy that got laid more than anyone thought was possible, especially because this was kind of a dumb ass; and wasn’t good looking. He followed a simple philosophy: “It’s a numbers game.” That’s it. He didn’t care if he got turned 1,000 and was only successful 10 of those times. That pretty much made him 10 X more successful than any of us other idiots, half of which (if not more) were probably still trying to lose their virginity.
So, my two rules to live by (and can be applied to a lot of other circumstances)
It’s true, I totally am.
God, you’re vain. She meant me.
I’m very introverted myself, and I used to take rejection very hard because it would take a fair amount of effort to put myself out there like that. Worse, because of my introversion, I’d never just approach a girl and ask her out, so there was always some sort of connection that had already been established that had given me enough incentive to want to put myself out there in the first place. So, yeah, it can be rough. However, I’ve gotten some advice that has made it a lot easier; there’s still times where I get a little too psyched up and it still really sucks, but that’s a different issue than just getting turned down.
The first and most important one I got was just really driving home that there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain. That is, if I ask a girl out, the worst that happens is she says no, in which case I’m in exactly the same place I would be if I said nothing. So, it’s a change of perspective in rather than seeing no as a rejection, it’s just maintaining the status quo.
That still doesn’t really help with the disappointment that much, though, and that’s where the second part comes in. And the best way that I can say it is that rejection is not a reflection on either of you. That is, if one is rejected, it’s easy to take it personally, as a rejection of some fundamental part of who he is or worse, take the sour grapes approach and look for some justification about why you’re really better off anyway. Well, if the one rejecting is a jerk about it, then maybe that’s justified, but other than that, it’s just a recognition of perceived incompatibility.
For instance, using myself as an example, I’ve rejected women who have approached me because of things that I consider important for my own compatibility, like I’m passion about music, and in a conversation seeing that she has little or no interest in it is pretty much a deal breaker. It may in fact seem like a minor thing to her, understandably since she’s not that interested in it, but that just goes farther to say that we have an incompatibility, because we aren’t even in agreement over what aspects are and are not important for compatibility. And it’s not a flaw on her part either, there’s nothing inherently good or bad about that. Similarly, I’ve been rejected for things that seem relatively inconsequential to me, one that sticks out is because I’m introverted, another because I’m not into fashion, another because of differences in our beliefs. The fashion is congruent to my feelings about music, it seems like a silly thing to me to be rejected over, but obviously it’s important to her means we’d have an uphill battle on compatibility. And certainly, the other two, introverted vs. extroverted or differences in beliefs are pretty straightforward things that could affect compatibility.
So, after looking at those things from that perspective, it makes many of those cases I would have taken hard as just as simple that it would have been difficult to work things out in the first place, and I’m glad that she was more present to it and saved us both the time and effort. I’ve still had a few times where I’m baffled trying to figure out why I was rejected, so taking it from that perspective isn’t always very clear, but I figure that means that we probably had some kind of fundamental incompatibility in communicating if it wasn’t clear too.
Now, that all said, that only helps in dealing with rejection, it also helps to use what you learn about that to take a better approach to who you approach and how. So, for instance, after being rejected for the same thing a couple times, I realized that that was obviously an issue of compatibility I wasn’t present enough to observe, so it’s something I paid more attention to. Similarly, when I’ve rejected someone else, I try to analyze what my reasons were for it, so I can be more clear about the importance of those things or how I present them.
Sitting down over a cup of coffee or a drink is a good way to start to get to know someone a bit. So what if he goes on a date or two with someone only to find out that she kicks puppies in her spare time? He doesn’t have to see her again.
Unless you think that having a date equals starting a serious relationship.
What a difference 5 years makes. Couple of my friends, all newly of legal drinking age, showed me Tindr. My reaction was this: :eek:
OP, dating boils down to just a few things: you have to be a desirable person to date, you have to be realistic about your expectations, and you need to constantly be meeting new people in a variety of settings (meetup.com, tinder, dinner parties, the list is infinite). Most people fall short in one of these categories. Me, I don’t really like people on the whole, so #3 was always my weakness.
Men on the whole tend to be completely unrealistic about their physical expectations of women. OkCupid had an article a year back that was circulating around the inter webs - and I’m paraphrasing - saying that 80% of men contact the top 20% of women in terms of attractiveness. That’s called being delusional.
My boyfriend was not what I consider boyfriend material when we met. And I let him know this (although most women are not direct). While intelligent, funny, charming, career oriented and handsome, he was overweight, a smoker and drank heavily.
I gave it a shot. He subsequently lost weight, quit smoking and drastically cut back on drinking. We both feel we’re at the “top” of each other’s league.
Since then, many of his single female friends who “turned him down” have come out of the woodwork in droves, whining that they should have given him a chance. He reacted each time with surprise. I reacted with vindication.