Catfish

[SumGuy]

19 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

I never seem to find that.....

You have never felt chemistry, desire, sexual attraction for a woman who also interested you in other ways?  I can see if you have never found mutual chemistry, otherwise you would likely not be here; I'd also believe you have a hard time recognizing it in others.   

But if you never felt that at least on your side, you are seeking the wrong women or perhaps you just don't feel sexual chemistry for someone until much, much later.  For me, chemistry is a combination of physical and mental attraction.

[SumGuy]

14 hours ago, Weezy1973 said:

Even a passion for video games? See posts in divorce / separations for reference…

Yes.  Then there is passion versus obsession/near addiction.   Sure some passions will turn others off, and some people are jealous of a person's passion or have a need to control and what better way to know you control someone than to shut down their passion.   

A good filter in dating in my view is to not hide your passions, show them.  If they are of the kind that turn people off then such folks are not for you.

Assuming, of course, ones passions are not amoral, illegal or tyrannical...then you should just get help and stop engaging in them  

[SumGuy]

6 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

....Yes I do go through the motions at times, especially when the person in front of me seemingly is passionate about nothing at all, I also do this when I can see I have absolutely no hope on earth at winning someone over, this mostly applies from a social point of view, there are always guys with more than me and the ladies gravitate toward them so I frankly do not even bother. ...

Chicken-egg man, Catch-22.   Based on what you say here, can pretty much guarantee you she is thinking "he seemingly is passionate about nothing at all"...just bringing up topics of great interest to you does not convey passion.  You keep things really tightly wrapped, extremely.  Not anything new, but really you are hoping for some woman who will take on the challenge of laying siege to you walls indifference and insecurity, and after many moons you may come out.  There might be hope if deep down you were not holding onto a transactional worldview yourself, then if she was perceptive enough she may try.  Way it is if she is perceptive enough she will figure what is deep down is not what she wants.   

A better strategy is to bother, to take a risk and engage, and stop thinking you have no chance (you don't have perfect knowledge) because can guarantee you when you think you have no chance you are always right.  Forget about winning her over, wrong mind set, think about getting to know her.  I get the impression these social skills (with men or women) are completely foreign to you, as you tend to denigrate them and make caricatures of them thinking they all are just the extremes of "chads" telling tall tales or slavering flattery.   You stick to business speak/corporate communication (which turns off most except for transactional types).

[SumGuy]

3 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

...Maybe I take this all far to seriously. Perhaps instead of being irritated by unattractive matches I should simply just laugh it off. Irony is again on on arrangement websites and well the choice is endless because there your attractiveness is linked to how much you are prepared to spoil.

Yes.   If anything have sympathy for those "unattractive" matches.  If you are really thinking why would they ever think they have  chance with me, then you should respect their risk taking and the rejection they are willing to face.  Given what you live it just boggles my mind you don't think there but for the grace of god go I.   A true "nice guy" in all the good meanings of the term would react with sympathy and not irritation.

Yes those kind of match making sites (or really all i have seen) are all about transactional relationships, sure they hide it but the litmus test to get in is money.

Quote

Foxhall did hit the nail on the head though with one of the things that I do find attractive, people who can talk.

Me too, they are not hard to find and the "models" that are looking for a non-transactional person, this is top on their list too....as I think you have encountered...they are sick and tired for men who just care about their face.

[SumGuy]

3 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

....There is a LOT I can talk about but sometimes I just look at the situation and look at the person, gauge the conversation and simply decide, well she wont be able to relate to that so lets not go there.

Not sure any of this makes any sense.

Makes perfect sense,  You are jumping to judgment and not taking a chance (not even a tiny tiny chance).   Just bring it up and see if she relates...stop prejudging.   Also how you bring up topics and segue is a social skill, if one does it poorly it can come across as not listening and shutting people down.

[Miss Spider]

4 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

This amused me even more. Its rather unfortunate I guess that a great many of the wealthiest people I know are not particularly tall but then I guess they have other attributes. I am the same height as A and seeing she has done pretty well as an international model I guess I am tall enough! (PS I my 5.9 was more a guess than an accurate measurement)

Maybe I take this all far to seriously. Perhaps instead of being irritated by unattractive matches I should simply just laugh it off. Irony is again on on arrangement websites and well the choice is endless because there your attractiveness is linked to how much you are prepared to spoil.

Foxhall did hit the nail on the head though with one of the things that I do find attractive, people who can talk.

I went to the wedding of my gorgeous friend who is 5’9 last month and her husband is like 5’2” no joke.  I love it. I love unconventional stuff like that, but it is a bit uncommon, that’s why I noted it so much. The thing is the guy has this just rad personality, really happy and confident. He just seems like an all-around great person.  He’s also successful in his career which I’m sure helps too. But you can tell she just loves him and vice versa

Edited July 20, 2021 by Cookiesandough

[CaliforniaGirl]

7 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

Well you know I find this highly amusing.

When I go on about looks its a case of  "but hey you must give the person you do not find attractive a chance" when I exclude people based on apparently trivial things its a case of that is trivial but then I read the above then I just laugh, really I do. 

If nothing else it really does show me who can be trivial and who can be fussy, men are just seemingly expected to "make do".

From what you say, there are women who ARE giving you a chance, or trying to, but you refuse them because they're not up to your standards. So where's the discrepancy  here? 

Are there people who WON'T give someone who's not perfect a chance? Yes. You're one of them. So obviously, yes, that happens. But there was a woman just recently that you refused, who wasn't "an obese single mother." Obviously, women ARE giving you a chance. 

As for people who refuse to give you a chance because you're not tall enough, well, my standard advice would be "then she's just not worth it," but since you do the same thing, refusing to give women a chance because they don't have the "tall" yoga body you like or whatever, I can't really give the same advice, or I'll be saying you're the one who isn't worth it. Right?

[elaine567]

15 hours ago, Weezy1973 said:

Even a passion for video games? See posts in divorce / separations for reference…

 A "passion" may be somewhat desirable in  initial attraction, but in relationships that "passion" can be exactly what kills it stone dead.
Few really want to keep playing second fiddle to a sport, a hobby, a career, a dream... etc. It soon gets old.
A balance is what is needed and very "passionate" people can tend to lack balance.

[ZA Dater]

2 hours ago, SumGuy said:

You have never felt chemistry, desire, sexual attraction for a woman who also interested you in other ways?  I can see if you have never found mutual chemistry, otherwise you would likely not be here; I'd also believe you have a hard time recognizing it in others.   

But if you never felt that at least on your side, you are seeking the wrong women or perhaps you just don't feel sexual chemistry for someone until much, much later.  For me, chemistry is a combination of physical and mental attraction.

That is really the issue I guess. People either interest me or they do not, much like I either interest people or I do not. 

The combination is not impossible to find but it is quite rare because I have now conditioned myself to realizing what I like is not attainable and if this forum is to be believed that would be a very accurate idea. 

[ZA Dater]

2 hours ago, SumGuy said:

Yes.  Then there is passion versus obsession/near addiction.   Sure some passions will turn others off, and some people are jealous of a person's passion or have a need to control and what better way to know you control someone than to shut down their passion.   

A good filter in dating in my view is to not hide your passions, show them.  If they are of the kind that turn people off then such folks are not for you.

Assuming, of course, ones passions are not amoral, illegal or tyrannical...then you should just get help and stop engaging in them  

I have always been undecided on this, tending to look at the company chat and see how responsive the person is to general chit chat before getting into the things I really like.

[ZA Dater]

2 hours ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

From what you say, there are women who ARE giving you a chance, or trying to, but you refuse them because they're not up to your standards. So where's the discrepancy  here? 

Are there people who WON'T give someone who's not perfect a chance? Yes. You're one of them. So obviously, yes, that happens. But there was a woman just recently that you refused, who wasn't "an obese single mother." Obviously, women ARE giving you a chance. 

As for people who refuse to give you a chance because you're not tall enough, well, my standard advice would be "then she's just not worth it," but since you do the same thing, refusing to give women a chance because they don't have the "tall" yoga body you like or whatever, I can't really give the same advice, or I'll be saying you're the one who isn't worth it. Right?

Ok lets look at this and I had to think about this quite a lot. The people giving me a chance all have severe deal breakers for me, trust me I thought long and hard about "do I try or don't I try" and I look at what the end result might be, which is overthinking I admit but 99.9% of the time the conversational part is severely lacking with these people so its very hard to give any benefit of the doubt, the therapist I went out with twice was a good example (yes do not laugh too much), there was nothing wrong with her, she was actually relatively attractive but there was absolutely no conversational connection at all and at 39 I simply did not see much long term there, was I stupid here, maybe I just felt nothing really, that was the deal breaker for me. 

If it was an A or a K it would be a different matter because there the conversational side works really, really well. It also worked really well with the politics lady I went out with and kissed, I get a LOT of value from the conversational side an opening myself up in conversation but ALWAYS the times this works well there is just no attraction to me and conversely when it does not work well the people are besotted with me. Another two examples, I enjoyed spending time with an au pair and a secretary, why the conversation was good, both were attractive to me but I was unattractive to both. The yoga teacher, again I just opened up completely and we had some great chats but again zero attraction to me. A co worker when I was stupid enough to try this idea, we got along fantastically well, once again no attraction to me. 

To answer SumGuy theory about transactional, a LOT of good interactions I have had were underpinned by some sort of transaction. Its rare for someone to take genuine interest in me unless I have something they want or need.

I am very acutely aware of the lack of worth in the dating world but I simply refuse to let that assessment of me determine who I am. 

[ZA Dater]

2 hours ago, Cookiesandough said:

I went to the wedding of my gorgeous friend who is 5’9 last month and her husband is like 5’2” no joke.  I love it. I love unconventional stuff like that, but it is a bit uncommon, that’s why I noted it so much. The thing is the guy has this just rad personality, really happy and confident. He just seems like an all-around great person.  He’s also successful in his career which I’m sure helps too. But you can tell she just loves him and vice versa

I am always a huge fan of those feel good stories, I am really happy for your friend, I am being sincere and not sarcastic in case you may think that  I never ever begrudge people happiness, A is with a guy know who makes her happy, I am happy for her, happy that she has found that happiness and love after some of the tragic events in her life and I am happy that I was able to bring some value to her life even if briefly. K has been with her bf for 4 years and I am happy for her too, despite my opinions on him which I keep to myself, he makes her happy so who I am to judge.

Life is too short not to be happy for others, even if ones own situation is not really what one actually wants. I think what most people do not realize what I type here is what I tell pretty much nobody, I walk around like any other person, yes I get asked why I do not have a GF "well I am busy at work and it takes all of my time" "well I cant seem to find anyone I like" or "you know I did like someone but it never worked out". Inherently people are curious why I am alone but all the other baggage I carry around, few people know what, A does and K does and perhaps a few others but I largely carry it alone.

[Weezy1973]

5 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

Now happy might be stretching the truth a bit far....

What part aren’t you happy with? 

[Weezy1973]

16 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

Another two examples, I enjoyed spending time with an au pair and a secretary, why the conversation was good, both were attractive to me but I was unattractive to both. The yoga teacher, again I just opened up completely and we had some great chats but again zero attraction to me. A co worker when I was stupid enough to try this idea, we got along fantastically well, once again no attraction to me. 

You realize these are all women that have given you a chance and then didn’t feel attraction after spending some time together. Which is normal. That’s why people go on dates. Giving someone a chance doesn’t mean you’re going to commit to someone you’re not attracted to. It means you’ll get to know people before writing them off because they don’t check all your boxes. 
 

And for the record your holy grail of mutual attraction is meaningless if you’re after anything long term. I’ve experienced mutual attraction many times, the vast majority of which went nowhere because we weren’t compatible.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Weezy1973

[CaliforniaGirl]

16 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

 

I am very acutely aware of the lack of worth in the dating world but I simply refuse to let that assessment of me determine who I am. 

But you let your assessment determine who those "rejected" girls are. Do you see yet what I'm saying? YOU believe there's more to you than their assessment, so they should have given you a chance. But you don't believe that about your bin-pile women. It takes empathy to be able to really "get" this.

[ZA Dater]

3 hours ago, SumGuy said:

Chicken-egg man, Catch-22.   Based on what you say here, can pretty much guarantee you she is thinking "he seemingly is passionate about nothing at all"...just bringing up topics of great interest to you does not convey passion.  You keep things really tightly wrapped, extremely.  Not anything new, but really you are hoping for some woman who will take on the challenge of laying siege to you walls indifference and insecurity, and after many moons you may come out.  There might be hope if deep down you were not holding onto a transactional worldview yourself, then if she was perceptive enough she may try.  Way it is if she is perceptive enough she will figure what is deep down is not what she wants.   

A better strategy is to bother, to take a risk and engage, and stop thinking you have no chance (you don't have perfect knowledge) because can guarantee you when you think you have no chance you are always right.  Forget about winning her over, wrong mind set, think about getting to know her.  I get the impression these social skills (with men or women) are completely foreign to you, as you tend to denigrate them and make caricatures of them thinking they all are just the extremes of "chads" telling tall tales or slavering flattery.   You stick to business speak/corporate communication (which turns off most except for transactional types).

I am actually pretty confident and OK in who I am but when the discussion is about who is doing who, who's friend hooked up with who, yea I do not have a lot to add to those sort of conversations. Oddly enough when I have engaged I just had my overall thinking confirmed, its not often I can engage because 99.9% of the time none of them are actually single and there is some BF lurking around so the conversation is pretty much just small talk which I can actually do. 

Oddly I have no issue getting to know people, the issue is nobody getting to know me so after I while I tend to just go back the business speak because its completely uninteresting sitting there and she is making no effort to get to know me at all. 

I do not do the flattery part and my compliments are very guarded and measured to avoid exactly that but again you need to understand the world I live in is a brutal one, very few compliments are even given to me, criticism is more common the compliments so inherently I chase no a compliment but avoiding a needless criticism. Praise and compliments are very rare in the world I live in.

You are not wrong I do struggle with warm communication, I have very little use for it most of the time so its not something I ever get to really practice EXCEPT with kids who I get along with really well, quite a few people I spend time with have kids and all of the compliment how good I am with kids.

[ZA Dater]

2 minutes ago, Weezy1973 said:

You realize these are all women that have given you a chance and then didn’t feel attraction after spending some time together. Which is normal. That’s why people go on dates. Giving someone a chance doesn’t mean you’re going to commit to someone you’re not attracted to. It means you’ll get to know people before writing them off because they don’t check all your boxes. 
 

And for the record your holy grail of mutual attraction is meaningless if you’re after anything long term. I’ve experienced mutual attraction many times, the vast majority of which went nowhere because we weren’t compatible.

Sure they did. Arguably few bothered to get to know me either they asked me nothing about myself. I'd take a short term win in mutual attraction. IF I ever did find mutual attraction that would be one of the few times where I probably would look to heavily compromise. 

[ZA Dater]

6 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

But you let your assessment determine who those "rejected" girls are. Do you see yet what I'm saying? YOU believe there's more to you than their assessment, so they should have given you a chance. But you don't believe that about your bin-pile women. It takes empathy to be able to really "get" this.

If they wanted to reject me, then I am OK with it. I learnt long ago if someone does not like you there is NOTHING you can do to change that, its completely futile and a waste of time. I absolutely HATE rejection people, so what I tend to do in situation where I can see she likes me and I do not feel the same is create something wrong with me (not hard considering my many undesirable dating qualities) which makes me unsuitable. I remember vividly dates where people I did not like really did try, the one brought me a home made muffin and I felt really terrible about just feeling nothing for her. I really do feel this a lot because I know how awful it feels to be rejected and honestly one of things I would want to do in the world is make people feel less of this.

Make no mistake I am often putting myself in the shoes of the person sitting opposite me, I'd rather take the pain than them.

Maybe this would surprise some here lest some think I am some cold hearted monster.

[CaliforniaGirl]

10 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

If they wanted to reject me, then I am OK with it. I learnt long ago if someone does not like you there is NOTHING you can do to change that, its completely futile and a waste of time. I absolutely HATE rejection people, so what I tend to do in situation where I can see she likes me and I do not feel the same is create something wrong with me (not hard considering my many undesirable dating qualities) which makes me unsuitable. I remember vividly dates where people I did not like really did try, the one brought me a home made muffin and I felt really terrible about just feeling nothing for her. I really do feel this a lot because I know how awful it feels to be rejected and honestly one of things I would want to do in the world is make people feel less of this.

Make no mistake I am often putting myself in the shoes of the person sitting opposite me, I'd rather take the pain than them.

Maybe this would surprise some here lest some think I am some cold hearted monster.

Be honest with yourself. If you really accepted that, you wouldn't be obsessing over K and A. AND you would have given up a long time ago as your situation literally has no resolution.

Have you given any more thought to the possibility that you really do not want a relationship and you're going through the motions to "appease family" and "look normal"? There aren't really many other possibilities left, all these years and many threads down the road.

[ZA Dater]

1 hour ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Be honest with yourself. If you really accepted that, you wouldn't be obsessing over K and A. AND you would have given up a long time ago as your situation literally has no resolution.

Have you given any more thought to the possibility that you really do not want a relationship and you're going through the motions to "appease family" and "look normal"? There aren't really many other possibilities left, all these years and many threads down the road.

Giving up is not something I am very good at. I had good experiences with both of them so I am chasing more of the same.

[CaliforniaGirl]

18 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

Giving up is not something I am very good at. I had good experiences with both of them so I am chasing more of the same.

The good experiences were dating experiences? They were into you?

[ZA Dater]

3 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

The good experiences were dating experiences? They were into you?

Largely irrelevant, I got to spend time with people I find attractive who I could communicate well with and share things with, which for me is a win. Yes I can sit around and have conversations with people but being attracted to someone for me just makes any conversation better.

The idea was a good one even if the conclusion was not really what I wanted.

If that is as close as I can get to what I want then I am very thankful to be able to get that close. I get it nobody can relate because seemingly all of you all only found people attractive after a while, that does not work for me, either I find the person overall attractive or I do not which is a significant disadvantage to have.

My only real goal is to recreate that feeling I had with them, its pretty easy for me to take stock and realise I simply wont get to experience so much of what all of you have because for me that feeling is the very foundation of what I want, if its not there, there is no point to any of it.

Nobody is really going to understand this. The bar of what I actually want is low, sure I used to believe I could do the family thing and yes I actually can, I love spending time with kids but for me that time is most likely going to be friends kids. The road I walk and the huge price I pay is really a function of me liking something really hard to find but such is life. 

In short some days are very hard, fortunately I am very strong, a nightmare for 4 years saw to that.

[elaine567]

32 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

The good experiences were dating experiences? They were into you?

Neither were dating experiences, and neither were into ZA Dater...
 

[CaliforniaGirl]

3 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

Largely irrelevant, I got to spend time with people I find attractive who I could communicate well with and share things with, which for me is a win. Yes I can sit around and have conversations with people but being attracted to someone for me just makes any conversation better.

The idea was a good one even if the conclusion was not really what I wanted.

If that is as close as I can get to what I want then I am very thankful to be able to get that close. I get it nobody can relate because seemingly all of you all only found people attractive after a while, that does not work for me, either I find the person overall attractive or I do not which is a significant disadvantage to have.

My only real goal is to recreate that feeling I had with them, its pretty easy for me to take stock and realise I simply wont get to experience so much of what all of you have because for me that feeling is the very foundation of what I want, if its not there, there is no point to any of it.

Nobody is really going to understand this. The bar of what I actually want is low, sure I used to believe I could do the family thing and yes I actually can, I love spending time with kids but for me that time is most likely going to be friends kids. The road I walk and the huge price I pay is really a function of me liking something really hard to find but such is life. 

In short some days are very hard, fortunately I am very strong, a nightmare for 4 years saw to that.

But it's not irrelevant. It pretty much seems to confirm that you only feel safe when you know it's never going to go anywhere and you will never have to be with the girl.

[Weezy1973]

6 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

I get it nobody can relate because seemingly all of you all only found people attractive after a while, that does not work for me, either I find the person overall attractive or I do not which is a significant disadvantage to have.

This is largely due to your inexperience unfortunately. Once you gain experience you learn initial attraction and first impressions aren’t nearly as important as deeper qualities that reveal themselves over time.