Why I'm still single

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

xgxlx, I could have written your post word-for-word to describe my situation with dating and why, at age 33 I am still single with absolutely no prospects whatsoever of ever being married or even dating in the near future.

I don’t like most social settings where there are large numbers of people I don’t know. I stay away from bars and other clubs. I’ve also learned to not rely on friends to set me up with people they know-- this never works. At the opposite end of the spectrum, people always tell me that I can meet women at church, but that doesn’t seem to work for me, either. I tend to assume any woman who goes to church probably has too strong of morals (i.e. won’t want to have sex until she’s married).

My tastes in women are not conventional. That is, I like larger women than most guys do, and I prefer to go for the ones who are “plain looking”, that is, they don’t wear makeup or do up their hair or wear the latest fashions. There’s no socially acceptable way for me to advertise the fact that I have these preferences, as I know there must be lots of big women out there who feel insecure about themselves and their appearance but would be appreciative of someone who saw them to be attractive in spite of how society dictates they should look.

I thought for sure the last woman I met for a date would appreciate the fact that I liked her the way she was (heavyset), but she didn’t seem to have much interest in me. I have to admit, though, she seemed like one of those “happy all the time” types that I also avoid, plus the fact that she had lots of friends, and people with large social circles don’t work well with me.

I have to concede that I’m probably the reason for my dating woes and not that I’ve just had bad luck. I don’t do a lot of “guy” things that women may look for in a man (likes sports, fixes cars, builds things out of wood, etc.) I’ve learned from reading other threads that “nice guys” like myself are more likely to fail with dating because they don’t show an aggressive side.

And then I have my own personality flaws which would probably piss off a lot of women, such as my impatience and my short temper and a very stubborn disposition, unwilling to change my ways about most things.

Please don’t tell me I’ll find the “right one” someday. At this point, I really doubt that will ever happen.

Well, I could go on all day about this, but I need to get back to work.

22

Internet dating sites have “worked” for me in the past and I’ve been toying with the idea of signing up with match.com again. Maybe when I have more time.

But the thing that gets to me is that it shouldn’t be necessary. Most people seem to hate the bar or club “scene”, but I don’t. I never really had the chance to get tired of it I guess. I’d love to go hang out at a place where boy/girl meetings happen, maybe stay out all night and have as much fun as I can possibly stand, and I’d probably meet a lot more women that way.

But I have very few friends and they’re all boring. No, they’re not boring, they’re great people, but they’re not the type you can just go out with looking for trouble ;). Plus, I have no single guy friends. I get a little sad every time I see that “Wing Man” beer commercial. I have no Wing Man. And I’m nobody’s Wing Man.

And women don’t want to talk to guys who go to bars or clubs alone. They like men who advertise their social abilities by hanging out in groups. So I stay home. And I stay single and bored.

23

I generally have the luck of a dead slug when it comes to finding a good man that I can see myself spending the rest of my life with. I’ve gotten to the point where I think I may be better off not getting married, and just having a child with a willing donor.

JOY. :rolleyes:

24

dwc1970… how you doin’?

25

I think I should clarify here that I’m referring to RL as opposed to online friends, ones I actually see in person on a regular basis.

26

I’m single because I had the unenviable task of rejecting a drinking buddy of mine this weekend, and I still feel terrible about it, despite the fact that I know damn well that we’d make each other miserable if we started dating again (we did once, years ago; he ended it then. I remember feeling rather bad about it at the time, but I knew less about him and less about myself and it wasn’t yet obvious that we were a totally impossible fit. Strange it is to stand beside you, many years, the tables turned …)

No doubts that I did the right thing, but I still hate having to do it. The whole game sucks and I wish I were well out of it :frowning:

27

For me, it was the crippling wrist holds I would apply that drove women away. It’s probably for the best, though – it probably wouldn’t have worked out in the long run. Who wants to date some crippled chick?
:smiley:

28

Dead slugs have better luck than I do. At least people pour salt onto them… that level of attention would be a step up.

I’m also at the point where I have to ask myself whether I really want to have kids, because it is fairly obvious the only way that’s ever going to happen is going to involve intentional single parenthood - which is not for me.

So, why am I single? I’m not physically attractive, I’m incredibly shy, and once I finally open up, I’m slightly to extremely odd. I’m relatively sure that this is not what men are looking for (or at least, it’s not what any of the men I’ve ever met in my entire life have been looking for, which is a wide enough sample population that I’m willing to extrapolate.) I am so undesirable that I could have gotten my money back from eharmony.com.

That’s pretty bad.

Of course, my RL friends say there’s nothing wrong with me, and that I’m wonderful, and shouldn’t change (which is what friends are for). But as I’ve gotten to the point where it’s either me that’s flawed, or every straight guy I’ve ever met that’s flawed, odds are it’s me.

29

I guess I’m shy. If you told that to any of my good friends, they would laugh in your face–it’s just who I’m talking to, I guess. When talking with girls I have no interest in, I have no internal censor, I say what I think, act on impulses, etc. Then these girls I have no interest in become interested in me.

Sometimes I have to deal with mild depression, sometimes I have to deal with harsher depression. Lots of the time, I think about The Future. Mine looks bleak to me. I don’t dream about possibilities like when I was younger. My aspirations for a job? I don’t think about it. A wife? Mostly I think I’ll be alone forever.

Like we’ve discussed on these boards, jerks are aggressive and get the girls. When I’m with a girl who I’m interested in (usually not just the two of us, my friends are always in bigger groups) that’s where the shyness comes out. I’m not sure it’s really shyness, but all of those thoughts I have when I’m alone… they all just come back to me. Usually I’m happy when with friends. But I’m just here with friends and a girl, and I’m just thinking about how great she is, and how I would never have her. So my friends are talking, but I’m kind of tuning it out and staring at the wall. I guess you can tell if I like you by if I act depressed around you.

And of course, I’m nowhere near being aggressive at this point. A female friend and I had a discussion about relationships, and my problem, and she says that’s the problem with a bunch of guys she knows. Guys are supposed to be outgoing, and get the girl. Girls I know aren’t like this. Definitely not to me.

And I’m a little chubby, and average-looking.

I’m going to go for a walk.

30

Hey, I was like you folks until I was 37. I thought there was no way it was ever going to happen for me. Then one day, a letter turned up in my mailbox from a woman who wanted to buy one of what I was selling. We became friends over two years, and we’ve been married now for five.

I’m not saying it happens to everybody eventually, or even that it will happen to you. But it happened to me, so that’s some kind of proof that it does happen. So don’t give up on it entirely, it just might happen to you.

31

I can’t believe I have more to say…

In the end, my standards are way too high. I want the perfect girl. If someone gets past all of the barriers I mentioned in the previous post, she usually won’t be of interest to me. I’ll need to lower my standards, because no one that great would want me. But I just refuse to. I tell myself that I’d rather be alone, but I’m not sure.

That’s the biggest problem.

32

Why I’m still single… I was sick as a dog for most of the high school years when most people are learning the dating game. So, I’m 20 now, healthy enough to get out and about once in a while, and just starting to learn all the little nuances and signals that other people seem to pick up on automatically. “Hey QB, that guy was hitting on you!” “He was?” :smack:

Tried an Internet dating site, met a couple guys, didn’t really work out. I concluded that boyfriends are one of those things in life that you NEVER find when you are specifically looking for them; rather, they will show up when you’re not expecting it.