26M and it’s almost just not even worth the stress and anguish. I want to figure out how to control my sexual energy and become a nomad. I want to stop having a sex drive and stop being attracted to women. Its almost torture. I am a good looking guy too. I can’t imagine how hard it is for other guys out there. I don’t want to keep trying. It just sucks to try to make a connection. I want out of this game. I truly think finding love is hopeless. Then if a woman is not into me I’ll think it’s my height. I’m like “oh maybe she likes guys taller than 5’10.” Or maybe my nose is a tad bit too big. Or maybe if I had prettier eyes. Like most the time I will think I am good looking because I have had a lot of feedback then I will second guess myself based on the interaction. My dating life is fucked. I can’t form a connection. It always dissolves my self-esteem. I am just making this post to hold myself accountable to be done with dating.
29 comments
Dude what’s wrong with being alone?
Once you’ve been in enough relationships you realize it’s not much better than being alone
Nah, you’ll be back. You are biologically wired to overwhelmingly desire a mate. The ones who can truly not care are outliers.
Just take a break for a bit, and concentrate on self care. When you get your confidence back up, hit it again. You’ll find someone you click with since you are already getting traction like you said.
Chin up, nothing is a bigger turn off than a man with a defeated attitude. It bleeds into every interaction, even if you think you’re hiding it.
You’re probably hot. Relax and live for you, and enjoy yourself. And the perfect girl will come to you.
Honestly I’m taking a break from actively looking for someone.
It’s just frustrating being on all these dating apps and trying to connect with someone just for them to not reciprocate or just ghost you. Even trying to meet people in person is more effort.
I’m just focusing on myself for the meanwhile. Maybe someone will come along. Who knows.
Mate, im 35, had 3 “major” relationships, with 5year breaks inbetween (not by choice). Im starting to give up
“Everything will be ok when you learn to be ok with everything”. The problem isn’t dating or women, it’s you. And I’m saying this as a man who also deals with rejection, ghosting, etc while dating women. If you take a break and don’t change anything about how you think, you’ll come back and feel the same way. Learn to enjoy life for what it is and not resist reality. Objectively your life is just a series of events. Your mind is filled with fear and desires that blow up some of those events and make them more than what they are. It’s really all not a big deal. It’s just life. We’ll be dead soon. Have fun.
I’m in the same boat with you OP. I want a deep connection with someone, but it’s been hard. I like someone, they don’t like me back. Vice versa. Rinse and repeat. I’m on the verge of giving up. Everyone around say that I’ll find the right person eventually. But when? I’m scared that I will be alone for the rest of my life. I try to focus on other things to feel better. Take long walks, eat good food, hang out with friends. But sometimes the fear won’t go away and I cry. I can only wish you good luck. Take care of yourself.
Focus on dating yourself, learn to know what you want and need from a partner, don’t chase what you don’t NEED, but NEED to take care of yourself better and try living your life, don’t attempt connections with an end game in mind, and just enjoy meeting people for the potential to meet new cool people.
“The one” always shows up when you stop looking! That’s how it happened for my husband and I. We had both just stopped searching and bam. We met in April & was married by June. We’ve been happily married over 4 yrs now!
Do like you said and focus on yourself and I bet the perfect girl for you will fall in your lap.
Dating apps make it worse. Get off the apps, meet people irl, make friends of both genders . And within a year you’ll be In a relationship.
Nah, I’m always on the lookout for a great woman, if she wants to be a nomad then of course I would join her
This is my personal opinion, i feel it is easier to be done with it, when you’re older (i’m 46), *and* have had fulfilling, loving relationships under your belt. You know what you bring to the table then. So i can absolutely understand that frustration with dating as it is now. There’s a youthful impatience to it all because of all that sexual energy.
Thankfully at 26 you can invest in yourself in so many ways, to get the outcome you want. I’ll not repeat what others have said here, but dating yourself (something i still do) is massively, massively important.
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Self improvement always yields a positive result, so always strive for that; However i feel works in a different way when older perhaps.
See for me, nowadays self improvement is that “self care” day. That leisurely walk in the hills, or that afternoon just sat watching that film, playing that game or reading that book. Instead of seeking something, i largely achieved anyway…Don’t stagnate of course, but know when you can “switch off” too.
Here’s the thing:
I really do feel, you have to be physically attractive, have your own passions and have confidence to even be visible, in the dating world.
You can still self-sabotage, and have a poor profile (i did) when you have this key trifecta covered of course, but these are the basics to stand a chance of getting noticed.
Yes the “physical” part is subjective to a point, there’s always a chance you’re someone’s physical “type” for example….but it plays a massive part, even though it’s sometimes an awkward thing to admit outright, as we do like to believe we’re “deeper” than that.
The women in my life, or i’ve met through dating, have told me this directly or indirectly (“I like that you’re happy in yourself, saw you enjoy hiking too, not to mention you’re bloody gorgeous”).
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Finally, one of the most important factors in all of this. Is luck, and timing.
When you’ve done the work, and reached that standard where there’s a crossover of you being satisfied with who you are, and potential partners being able to recognise that in you.
You can’t discount how big a part luck plays in all of this. You’re reliant on being in the right place at the right time, or putting yourself out there enough, and ensuring you making someone pause briefly enough to swipe in the other direction.
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In this day and age, be the best option for yourself and be happy with that. As only at this point, do you become one of the options that potential partners have.
That way, you won’t take it personally if you don’t appear right at the top of the pile always.
You’re hyper-aware of your looks and don’t even seem to consider other possible factors, like personality
Bro I feel that so much. I honestly, truly, wish I wasn’t attracted to girls. I wish it was a switch that I could just turn off. It would do me WONDERS in life to not be so distracted by female beauty. It’s such a waste of my energy, and I’m getting really sick of it at age 30. The best I can do is work myself into the ground every single day to forget about it.
Same here man, ive never had what i wanted in a woman all my life…. I know im only 24 but at the same time i could at least get a solid sex life or a attractive mate to hit it off with whenever but nooo. I always think its my personality, which never seems to attract anyone. I have hope tho, that one day i will run into my crowd of people which will introduce me to the females that want me
It’s not your looks, it’s not your height, if someone goes on one date with you they find you attractive, if they don’t go on the second date, there is something incompatible with your personalities.
Just focus on yourself and try to make genuine friends with woman. Because another reason guys really struggle to stay in relationships is cos they don’t understand how to just chill out and be around women.
I’ve basically given up. I still have a profile on one app that I’ll swipe on for a few minutes every now and then but it just makes me depressed seeing the profiles in front of me and knowing that even if I matched with someone it would still probably go nowhere. I’ve been looking for a relationship on apps and irl for over a decade and the best I ever managed was one lasting a few months. I’ve lost track of how many first dates I’ve been on where a woman will say to my face that this was nice and we should see each other again, only to text me later saying she just isn’t feeling it.
I try and console myself with the fact that in other ways my life is pretty good. I’ve got good friends, I’m close with my family, I have a good job and I’m in a grad program that should open a lot of doors for my career. I tell myself that there are worse things in life than being single. Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that my perpetual lack of success in dating and romance was the single greatest source of pain and anxiety in my life. Past a certain point it’s basically impossible not to internalize the message that you are fundamentally unwanted by the group of people you’ve spent your adult life trying to seek out.
Can’t seem to land a relationship. I seem to have success with hookups only. Had one female say you have the face of a nice guy but everything else about you screams just looking for a hookup.
The price for liquidity is volatility.
After introduction OLD, we made it a liquid market. Means anyone can buy and sell in a flash. This creates tremendous volatility. It will stay.
Stocks vs real estates. Stocks trades all the time and volatile (OLD). The other does not and much more stable(IRL dating).
Unfortunately IRL dating is competing with OLD on the same turf. People on average favor liquidity.
The problem here is not dating, the problem here is your mindset. You overthink a lot, have low self-esteem and are anxious about everything. You need to stop thinking about it and start thinking about how you feel, why do you feel this way. Get to the root of the problem. Why do you overthink? Do you even care about what others think about you? Perhaps you could look into therapy. Not getting into dating apps or whatever. Pause dating for a few months and get to know yourself better. Enjoy being by yourself and living your life without the need to have someone else. Once you’ve learned to be by yourself and realize you enjoy it, everything would be easier. Also, work on giving yourself the respect you expect from others, don’t become arrogant, just know your worth to avoid certain situations and people.
Can’t love till you love yourself.
Can’t love yourself if you feel worthless.
So find something to master and get to it.
No.
28m here. Dude I totally feel you on this. I recently moved to the west end of canada 5 months ago to escape all my shitty relationships back home. I worked out in small remote places in camps which was basically just all men. I came back to town a few weeks ago and decided not to go out to bars and stuff like that. The other night I went out and saw a lot of attractive woman and found myself feeling emotionally and physically starved of woman to the point when I got home I masturbated.
Post nut clarity hit and I just felt shameful of myself. Hate it.
Pretty much. I hate feeling the need to be close with someone in a romantic/sexual way. It’s stupid. If I could hypnotize myself to stop having these feelings, I would.
I feel you bro. All I want to do is just fall asleep and not wake up. I spend all my time sleeping because life really isn’t worth spending awake. My life now consists of going to a job where no one understands me because there’s language barriers and age gaps with the girls, and going home to a completely empty and cold apartment. There is nothing else. I’ve put away my piano, my notebooks, and all my other creative projects because there’s no point in creating anything because literally no one is interested. I hope I get hit by a car one of these days or die in my sleep or something because it’s fucking miserable out here and there’s no way out.
Just remind yourself to “not take it personally”
Broooooo I feeel you 1000%!!
I am female 40(f)….NEVER managed to meet a guy who wanted to work at having a relationship. Closest I managed was at 36 dating a guy for a month and then a huge 3 years pass again at 39 we made it two months. It was all pretty surface level stuff.
I wanted a family…that didn’t happen for me.
I WILL NEVER GIVE UP but I do plan to enjoy my life and when the opportunity comes along to talk to a guy or to date I will take it. We are not all guaranteed to meet someone.
Live your life and enjoy it. Take breaks and then try again. Listen to Motivational videos on Youtube that can help you to realize what you might want to know do with your life and who you want to have in your life. Sit down and write out who you want in your life from wants and needs. Realize you can’t have it all so focus on the most important. Figure out your love language and then the type of love language you want for yourself.
Just have a better idea of who you want in your life and then if you run into her while living the best life you can for yourself…great but if not you can look back when your an old man and say ” I enjoyed my life, I did what I could when I was able but… I had a good life.”
I been through a lot of disappointment and still want to fall in love and care. My main issue was patients, couldn’t find a guy who wanted to be patient and someone who cared about my well being and could make me feel safe when with him. Someone who wanted to grow a relationship together and work on it together. I just didn’t meet that but I will never give up hope that I could have that one day. It just might be when I am rally old and very brief but I might get to experience it. So in the mean time want to live a good and happy life… so I am.
Make friends, travel, learn new stuff…enjoy your life. It’s going to fee good not to worry all the time. Yes it does show up form time to time but then you get over it and your realize…man I really like what I am doing right now.
Are you good looking enough to be a fashion model ? Or, good looking in the eyes of your mom? There’s a difference.
I too want to get rid of my hormones. It’s soooo annoying to be attracted to people you can’t date.