Unable to Connect

[The Lone Fred]

I am a middle age male who has never been married and has not had any real relationship with a woman for years. I work all the time and spend a lot of time by myself. I do have friends and I visit some of them every week. I want to get back into the dating game and find someone, but I seem to avoid this unless I become VERY attracted to someone. When I mean VERY attracted, I mean that I want to spend some serious time in getting to know them, but I always seem to mess up any possible relationship by being too open about my attraction. I am not a handsome man and I do believe that most women are NOT attracted to me. I also believe that since I am not very subtle about my attractions, I scare off women. I feel frustated and lonely even though I think I am a pretty good guy who is looking for a nice relationship. For example, last night, I went out to party with a woman that I became attracted to, and her boss, who is a good friend. I was looking forward to doing this as she was going along. As the evening went on, she spent more and more time talking to my friend, who is married, and whom she has known for much longer than me, until I was no longer in the conversation. Also, she is much younger than me and is really closer in age to my friend, and she has more interests in common with him. Eventually I became frustrated that I was not talking to her and this became quite obvious to both of them. She asked me if there was something wrong and I told here that I was looking forward to this evening so that I could talk to her. She said that she was sorry that I felt left out. I told her that I was sorry that I did not know the topics that she was talking about with my friend, but that I wanted to find common topics between her and I. At this point, we talked for several minutes until my friend decided that he needed to go home. As we left, I was going to take him home but instead she offered to do it and he accepted. I drove home feeling very foolish about how I acted. I felt that there was no way that she could ever be interested in me, especially after this. I was embarrassed. What should I do now with this situation? I will see this woman again in a work environment. I plan to be nice to her but not overly friendly as I do not want to scare her. I definitely want to remain her friend. Thanks for your help.

[Tony T]

I don't see any problem with you remaining friends with this girl you took to the party last night but I would write her off as anything more than a co-worker. She's somewhat rude but she also didn't see this as a date and felt free to talk to others it was more to her benefit to impress. You have to understand that many younger people are more centered on themselves and that's just the way it is.

 

Your biggest problem is your attitude towards yourself. You've got to start thinking more highly of yourself. You've got to travel in circles where you have things in common with others and can carry on a conversation. If you're at a party and feel locked out of a conversation, excuse yourself and cooly move on to talking to others. The lady last night would have been far more intrigued with you had you broken away to talk to others. But forget that now.

 

You need to be very cool about all this. The best way to meet nice ladies is to have your friends introduce you to them. And it's far better NOT to date people from work. Be relaxed around ladies and have the attitude that if they don't like you, no big deal...there are more. Don't let them know you like them right off the bat. Keep them guessing for a while.

 

Just stop caring so much about whether you have a lady or not. Get out more, go places, do things. I promise you, if you're cool about it and you just stop caring so much, women will be all over you.

 

If you're in a situation where a girl is paying more attention to somebody else, just move around to another activity and leave her alone. If she is very rude, go get in your car and drive home and let her find her own ride.

 

While I'm here, I may as well tell you this girl last night is not interested in you so just be nice to her but don't involve yourself socially with her anymore. No big deal. She's rude and you don't need her in your life.

 

You might even try a local dating service. They match people up pretty good sometimes. Same rules apply. Don't go overboard in being nice and don't seem so needy, expecially in the first 50 years of the relationship.