Reading this thread makes me so damn glad matchmakers still play a vital role in Roma culture because it seems so many of the unhappily single seem to be so because they simply didn’t have the opportunity to meet someone who was actually interested in finding a partner. With that in mind, a question for the perpetually single, if matchmakers did exist for your social group, would you have used one or more to look for a partner?
The short answer is it’s self-perpetuating.
I did not have a serious girlfriend until I was approx 30. But I’ve had many relationships since then.
“I’m a shy guy who can’t talk to girls” was just part of my identity, and something I thought impossible to change. Every now and then I’d stumble out, try to go on a date or something, and as soon as anything didn’t go perfectly I’d feel like I was still “broken” and go crawl back under my rock. And my rock got pretty comfortable: To this day I don’t need the company of other people.
There’s a lot more to it than just those couple sentences, but I’m not going to yap on about my life story.
While this kind of situation may seem alien to some people, the kind of psychological tricks that make someone unable to change some aspect of their life for years: their career, their fitness, their friendships etc are of course very common.
Also, obviously, some people just don’t want relationships, period, and it’s not a matter of being *unable *to start or sustain relationships. I’d guess they are the minority though, until old age anyway.
Something physically happens that prevents you from having sex?
Obviously, I’m not being clear, here.
If I have sex with someone, I’m going to feel bonded to him. It’s not voluntary. That’s just what happens. I’m going to lose some of my ability to make objective decisions about him, because I’m going to assume that we’re now really close and want to snuggle and be good to each other. I don’t suddenly turn stupid, but oxytocin takes over for me.
I’ve learned the hard way that having sex with someone I don’t feel a connection to already leads to a lot of pain. So casual sex, or sex with someone I don’t know I can trust, is an invitation to a lot of unhappiness, no matter how attractive that person might seem at first. It just isn’t an option for me.
I see. So it’s not that you CAN’T, you just don’t want to because casual sex leads to emotional pain for you. Fair enough, that sucks though.
That’s not too different from the married person who claims to love their partner and married life one week, and then the next week they paint a far less rosy picture. People are full of contradictory and fleeting feelings.
Another thing to consider: Single people may be more likely to talk about feeling lonely. I imagine someone who is married with children may not be confortable confessing to those feelings because they seem inappropriate and wrong. The same with someone who is in a long term relationship. But single people can feel shitty without it being a red flag of anything.
I rarely ever feel lonely. But whenever I get sick or have something crappy happen to me, I am reminded of my aloneness and I feel a pang of sadness over it. But 99% of the time, I’m cool. It would be wrong for someone to conclude that just because I’m not happy-happy-joy-joy 1% of the time, I’m not really being honest about my contentment.
ZipperJJ had asked me to clarify what I was talking about earlier, so I provided clarification. That’s really all that was about.
That’s fair. I think most of my married friends seem much more enamored with their spouses some weeks than others.
Scribble, I think I may have read this wrong. I read it as “I can’t have sex unless I have bonded with the person I have sex with” when it seems clear to me now that’s not what you meant. Sorry.
I don’t think **wind of my soul **is saying that people who genuinely don’t want a relationship, don’t exist. I think he/she is saying that there are many other people who will claim, outwardly, that they don’t want a relationship and have no need for one, but deep down, really do want one. And such people do exist, too. And their pretend-game makes it harder for people, like you, who sincerely don’t want a relationship, to be believed by the rest of society.
Is “pretend-game” really fair?
I mean, I can’t think of anything I need right now. And I don’t think I’m in “want” of anything either.
But every day I am born anew. Maybe tomorrow I will discover needs and wants I don’t know I have. Maybe I will meet a person who lights up my switches or something.
I would be bothered if someone were to take that as evidence that I have been playing a “pretend game”. People should be able to change their minds about something without the peanut gallery calling out “gotcha!”
I suppose it depends on what people mean by “perpetually single”:
People who grow old and die a virgin, never knowing the touch of another human?
People who just sort of jump from one casual relationship to the next?
People who had long-term relationships but never married?
People who have been married (possibly multiple times) but it didn’t take?
My point is simply that, much like dealing with a baby, being in a relationship takes a certain amount of work and sacrifice. It seems to me that an otherwise normal and attractive person who maybe doesn’t want to fight over the remote, doesn’t want someone sharing their space, doesn’t like having to coordinate plans or do stuff they don’t want to do might find that they are unable or unwilling to maintain a relationship beyond “casual date”.
I don’t use tinder or online dating sites; why would I use a human matchmaker? In both cases I would expect a 0% success rate in finding a person who would put up with me.
Sounds to me like you are a demisexual. [I more or less am too so welcome to the club.]
A human matchmaker because they are another human being might have more insight into what would make a successful couple versus an algorithm at a dating site. Also I have noticed that shyness and social awkwardness seems to be a factor for many people that consider themselves perpetually single. One advantage of a matchmaker is having someone to make introductions. Also, in most cases, both parties that come to a matchmaker to make introductions are arriving with the same potential commit level goal in mind. There’s less guess work about someone’s intentions.
people just misunderstand (or distrust) anything that goes against what you’re “supposed” to do. You’re “supposed” to find your first GF/BF in middle or high school, you’re “supposed” to go to Homecoming and prom, you’re “supposed” to get married once you have a decent job, you’re “supposed” to buy a house and settle down, you’re “supposed” to have at least one or two kids, etc. You know, like everyone else.
I’m one who just never really felt any burning need to be with anyone.
This seems an odd categorical statement to make. I have no experience with human matchmakers but I found no significant difference between a first date after meeting someone at a party vs meeting someone on a dating site.
Well, okay, but that doesn’t change the fact that I believe there are no potential matches for me. In fact, that being the case, an online system seems more likely to succeed simply due to a larger pool of potentials to pull from. Though if I’m doomed to failure it would probably be significantly quicker and easier for me to just present myself to a matchmaker and have them, after an appropriate pause, simply say “Nope, sorry. (No refunds.)”
Well, I don’t meet people at parties either. But forgetting my categorical statement for a moment, wouldn’t you be more confident about compatibility with person if you met them at a party? Coming from the dating site, you barely have assurance that they’re really human. The internet is a sordid web of lies after all.
While dating sites are fraught with problems, once you manage to agree on an actual date, you very quickly find out who’s been lying and who’s been honest in their profile and initial messages exchanges. So it’s not too different from an introduction to someone at a party followed by an actual date at a later time. The advantage of on-line dating sites is that you KNOW people are there to date. In live social situations, that’s not always the case.
But that’s been my personal experience with respect to dating sites. I’ve only had a couple of on-line arranged dates where a person very obviously lied about their appearance/age. Most weren’t much different from IRL introductions. The last on-line date I made lead to my current marriage.
In theory, yes. A matchmaker would expand my circle of potential contacts, and it might be very informative to get an honest and informed perspective on what I’m doing right and what needs improvement. I wouldn’t want it to get to a point where I felt pressured to trust the matchmaker’s choices over my own; I’m the one who has to live with whoever I pick.
In practice, there are matchmaking services, but I’ve never used one. As it is, I’m looking for someone I can love and trust and develop a relationship with. I could try a matchmaker, but how do I know which one of them to trust and listen to? Seems like I’d be just replacing one search with another.