I (20M) have been trying to date for a few months now and things haven’t been going great, admittedly, but I’m talking to this girl (20F) and we got onto the topic of stuff we’ve done in the past and now I’m not sure what to do.

This has always been a touchy subject for me because of pre-existing confidence in general and with sex (as I don’t have the most experience) but ever since I’ve failed to rebound from my last relationship, the problem has gotten a lot worse. I know I shouldn’t be judging her for how many or even who their past partners were, I know that I’m probably making a bigger deal of things than need be, and yet I can’t help but feel inadequate in my social and sexual abilities whenever they talk about their experience. Its like I feel as if I’m competing against everyone shes ever slept with and ultimately she judges me based on my performance, and I hate the idea of that. Again, I know that’s very unlikely but it gnaws at me constantly to the point that it gives me anxiety to even talk to her and I start questioning if I even wanna keep talking to her bc of how nervous or in my head I get.

I also think that my dry spell has skewed perception of how women act (at least in the dating sphere) as a whole, including the girl I’m talking to. From my perspective, it really feels like I have to put in a lot more work into showing interest or trying to ask a girl out than they give back. Like there are certain things that women find attractive that of course I feel like I don’t have and so I’d have to work on myself and then put myself in uncomfortable situations just to…what? Impress some random person who gets to be the arbiter of judgement bc they have boobs, just so I’m not lonely? So I can get an ounce of attention that I crave before more crippling loneliness? Doesn’t seem worth it to try sometimes; go through all that change just to hopefully be accepted by someone who probably wouldn’t give me the time of day beforehand anyways. It feels so surface level and exclusionary, and I think I end up blaming this girl or women in general for it and my pain. But I know that’s wrong, I know there’s a lot of nuance and most women are just reacting to the environments they’re put in.

So now I’m just sitting here, feeling bad about myself bc of insecurity, feeling guilty I’m unfairly judging this girl, and not having anyone to turn to for help (because unfortunately friends are almost harder for me to find) and I’m scared that by just sitting here unable to move I’m gonna turn into a “nice guy” or some incel. So what am I supposed to do? Aside from therapy, what can I possibly do so that I can stop acting this way?

Tl;dr: my dating life sucks and I think I judge the women I talk to unfairly for it. As a last resort, I’m going to see if internet people have any sage advice for my problem.

2 comments
  1. If your goal is to have sex with a bunch of women just head to Nevada and drop 10k, this is effectively no different than acting as a promiscuous woman. If marriage is your goal, then judging her behavior is perfectly reasonable to decide if you want a relationship with her or not.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like