For reference, I’m 26f, Puerto Rican, from NYC. I have dated 3 men seriously in my life, we lived together and everything. All 3 of them abused me one actually held me hostage and tried to kill me multiple times. I’ve been cheated on by them as well as men I’ve dated casually. I’ve been in therapy for years and really wanna date someone seriously but it’s like everyone is just “looking for vibes” or they lie about being in a relationship or they have kids or are drug addicts etc I can go on and on. I’ve tried dating apps, I’ve tried going to bars but I don’t drink, I meet friends of friends and friends of family etc I’ve joined groups and taken social classes with others and done meetups. But, no one wants anything serious. I’m starting to think I’m hideous.
I have some health issues but one being and autoimmune disease, if I catch certain STDs I can die. Men won’t even take an std test for me. I can’t do casual/fwb/hookups bc men usually sleep with multiple women and that increases the risk of me dying basically. I feel so lost. Ive been trying to find someone for a few years now and I haven’t had sex in a year now bc I’m so scared. Where are people meeting each other?? How do you find someone real??
7 comments
Try eharmony
perhaps you’ve low self-confidence, low self-esteem? as you seem to have been consistently attracting (or are attracted to) abusers / cheaters (am I wrong?)
I suggest your first step is to reduce your general anxiety levels (which ought to boost your self-confidence, and improve the quality of men interested in you):
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**anxiety prevention tip:**
I think you’d likely benefit from practising ‘quiet times’ of 20-30 minutes of just sitting and Not dwelling on anything (a form of meditation). Very difficult at first (I needed to watch a DVD of nature scenes / a fireplace as an anchor/distraction to keep my mind from wandering). youtube has lots of fireplace videos. Others intone ‘mantras’ or focus on breathing.
There are several benefits: better sleep, easier days (upsets do not hit nearly as hard), and I think that likely after practising “not dwelling” on anything, you’ll have better control of your thoughts and acquire the ability to ‘turn off’ your anxiety reaction to situations.
At first doing this daily should work best. After awhile, only as needed. I’ve been doing this for about two decades and lately have only felt an urge to do it a half dozen days of the year.
A useful lesser calming practice is to do housework routines for say five minutes at a slower (70-80% rate) pace — a form of ‘walking meditation’, which you may find similarly soul refreshing.
Your question isn’t so much “How do I date?” but “How do I find someone worth dating?”.
The sad reality is that there is no easy answer. Guys have to face this all the time, with the only real exception being that they can do everything right and still get nowhere, girls will have a lot more opportunities and will only really ruin their chances based on how many… let’s call them “barriers to entry”, that you put up.
Let me be clear, it’s fine to have those barriers. It’s okay to admit that you’re scared. These feelings you have, well, a lot of guys feel that way too… sometimes constantly, even when they keep putting themselves out there over and over.
The truth is that no matter what you’ve got between your legs, or how you look, or anything else… finding someone worth the effort is ***hard***. With your situation, it’ll be even tougher, I hate to say that but it’s honest and what you need to hear.
When it comes down to it, all you can do is put yourself out there and see what happens. You’ll have to decide for yourself if the effort of doing so is worth it to you though.
I’m sorry you had to go through all of that, I hope you find peace in your life sooner rather than later
It might help to take a break from dating entirely. Real people are hard to find these days because the dating game is so structured and superficial. The cycle of abuse you’ve seen is, *first of all*, not your fault and, imo, a consequence of dating in general and online algorithmic matching in particular. Socializing in irl and meetups help a lot, and I recommend looking up any local events on something like meetup.com to socialize. But saying that, I will say a lot of people who are “real” these days are pretty hurt, and that’s why they’re just “feeling for vibes.” If you’re meeting somebody irl that’s not like everybody else online, recycling pickup lines and acting like a player, chances are they’ve been burned a lot and aren’t all that excited about jumping into dating.
Do you mediate or have tried before?
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