Perspective

[SoulCat]

10 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

If she wants to contact me she can, frankly I can't be bothered. She's very chatty when she thinks I can help with something so it's just another one of these situations I always find myself in. It's ok I can live with it, I'll inevitably give her what she actually wants from me and then I'll disappear.

 

10 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

In my world it's the only value I have, I've got nothing else to offer so the only way to any any romantic connection could ever start would be with the other person needing something I have. Otherwise there is frankly no reason for anyone to have anything to do with me, this has been proven true time and time again.

Again I've lost nothing here, for the first time probably ever I found someone I really enjoy spending time with, could be myself with,  communicates well, knowledgeable, warm personality and basically someone I would date without feeling like I'd over compromised. Add to which she has an interesting life. 

I'll just carry on with my exercise routine pretend to everyone everything is fine and bury myself in work.

At least I don't have to go back to dating apps which inevitably make me feel even worse.

 

These are nothing but the current batch of invitations to your latest woe-is-me pity party.

Grow up, ffs.

[Gebidozo]

2 hours ago, FredEire said:

It's extremely difficult and frustrating and you realise the more you struggle and overthink about the "right" moves, beat yourself up etc etc the more you will lose without your opponent really doing anything, you essentially beat yourself.

Well, my profession is something most people consider so complex and requiring so much skill and constant exercise that anyone who practices it full time is often viewed as a genius screwball, a heroic nerd who valiantly fights a lifelong battle he ultimately cannot win.

What you say about jiu-jitsu can be applied to my profession verbatim. And, as I’ve told my students many times, the same mental rules we must apply to it should also be applied to romantic relationships. 

In the end, any profession is more or less like that. I’m surprised that the OP, who seems to be intelligent and good and what he does, can’t use in his love life the same maxims that surely help him in his work.

[FredEire]

1 hour ago, Gebidozo said:

Well, my profession is something most people consider so complex and requiring so much skill and constant exercise that anyone who practices it full time is often viewed as a genius screwball, a heroic nerd who valiantly fights a lifelong battle he ultimately cannot win.

What you say about jiu-jitsu can be applied to my profession verbatim. And, as I’ve told my students many times, the same mental rules we must apply to it should also be applied to romantic relationships. 

In the end, any profession is more or less like that. I’m surprised that the OP, who seems to be intelligent and good and what he does, can’t use in his love life the same maxims that surely help him in his work.

Yes, jiu-jitsu can change your mentality because the same rules that apply to it apply to every aspect of life, as you mentioned your job for example.

On a very basic level, if you relax and flow (with purpose) what's meant for you will come to you, if you move with tension and anxiety and try to force the issue going on head trips shitty things (or lessons you can learn from in a more positive sense) will come to you, and if you throw a strop and quit nothing will come to you except chronic depression and anxiety.

OP has made some positive posts recently about getting into the gym/a better routine going etc. He's just a stranger online at the end of the day but I've posted a lot in this thread doing my best to help and if he started posting about how he was going out and approaching women he liked without reading too much into the situation I'd be really proud of him, even if it was just pure rejection stories at first. Ruminating about situations which are almost entirely in his head and overthinking a maybe possibly meeting with some woman who hasn't shown a whole lot of concrete romantic interest this far is just frustrating.

[ZA Dater]

3 hours ago, FredEire said:

Yes, jiu-jitsu can change your mentality because the same rules that apply to it apply to every aspect of life, as you mentioned your job for example.

On a very basic level, if you relax and flow (with purpose) what's meant for you will come to you, if you move with tension and anxiety and try to force the issue going on head trips shitty things (or lessons you can learn from in a more positive sense) will come to you, and if you throw a strop and quit nothing will come to you except chronic depression and anxiety.

OP has made some positive posts recently about getting into the gym/a better routine going etc. He's just a stranger online at the end of the day but I've posted a lot in this thread doing my best to help and if he started posting about how he was going out and approaching women he liked without reading too much into the situation I'd be really proud of him, even if it was just pure rejection stories at first. Ruminating about situations which are almost entirely in his head and overthinking a maybe possibly meeting with some woman who hasn't shown a whole lot of concrete romantic interest this far is just frustrating.

Both you and I know cold approaches are a total disaster, you could maybe pull it off as you have a sense of humour and confidence. I certainly cannot pull it off at all and I have tried it often enough at social gatherings. 

My best friend got engaged yesterday so there was indeed something to celebrate today, am very happy for him. If nothing else the success others have at relationships I appreciate the more for having virtually none of my own. 

[ZA Dater]

4 hours ago, Gebidozo said:

Well, my profession is something most people consider so complex and requiring so much skill and constant exercise that anyone who practices it full time is often viewed as a genius screwball, a heroic nerd who valiantly fights a lifelong battle he ultimately cannot win.

What you say about jiu-jitsu can be applied to my profession verbatim. And, as I’ve told my students many times, the same mental rules we must apply to it should also be applied to romantic relationships. 

In the end, any profession is more or less like that. I’m surprised that the OP, who seems to be intelligent and good and what he does, can’t use in his love life the same maxims that surely help him in his work.

Sounds like my dating life, again my attempt at humour.

I fundamentally disagree, work projects, sure nobody gets it right all the time but in time one does become better BUT as many people have pointed out to me there are no set rules with dating and there is no way to actually improve as its would be misguided to expect to get constructive criticism. Add the fact no two people are alike and its basically impossible to approach it like I would work. What does help though is if there is some shared interests, shared life values, it makes it much easier to communicate with someone if there are those commonalities. 

 

[FredEire]

10 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

Both you and I know cold approaches are a total disaster, you could maybe pull it off as you have a sense of humour and confidence. I certainly cannot pull it off at all and I have tried it often enough at social gatherings. 

My best friend got engaged yesterday so there was indeed something to celebrate today, am very happy for him. If nothing else the success others have at relationships I appreciate the more for having virtually none of my own. 

Why do "both you and I" know that? It's not something most people are naturally good at immediately. You have to get thicker skin and embrace being shot down and accepting the objective is simply to try, and learn.

Also I wouldn't count approaching a woman at a party as "cold approaching", it's just making conversation in a fairly normal social setting.

[ZA Dater]

7 hours ago, FredEire said:

I feel like I can relate to OP somewhat in that I'm also a chronic overthinker and ruminator about the past, blaming myself for what I did "wrong" etc, but it's something I've worked on a whole lot and I'm a while lot better than I used to be.

On thing that helped me massively was taking up Brazilian jiu-jitsu (something I'd strongly recommend to OP). It's extremely difficult and frustrating and you realise the more you struggle and overthink about the "right" moves, beat yourself up etc etc the more you will lose without your opponent really doing anything, you essentially beat yourself.

But the more you practice the more little by little you are able to break out of this mindset, just be still and react calmly when you need to react, observing the situation and being present in it.

If you're to use this analogy what OP is doing is coming in, over-analysing and trying way too hard, but instead of accepting where he is he wants to sit on the mat and go on over and over again about all the reasons he could never get good and it would affect him too much mentally for the black belts to tie him into a pretzel, so he may as well never try. But at the same time it's massively unfair that he's not a higher rank.

Alright, I'll share a bit more, my job entails dealing with people are mostly fundamentally unreasonable, confrontational and the situation often needs to be talked back to prevent a major pointless confrontation with me so I need to be able to remove emotion from the situation as more often than not conflict is the result of flared emotions. Add to this the often seemingly impossible task and getting numbers to work with some semblance of understanding. There is lots of thinking required here each day. Much of it is analysis of some degree and multiple task.

You know I have tried, countless times in fact, this was just yet another "no attraction, not good enough scenario" as have been every single person I have ever had an interest in and this goes back 25 years. The point of disagreement is really seemingly I should have tried with people I had no interest in for sake of getting "practice", morally that never interested me BUT I did go on many dates, actually the vast majority were with people I had virtually no interest in. What would you have done differently?

 

[ZA Dater]

1 minute ago, FredEire said:

Why do "both you and I" know that? It's not something most people are naturally good at immediately. You have to get thicker skin and embrace being shot down and accepting the objective is simply to try, and learn.

Also I wouldn't count approaching a woman at a party as "cold approaching", it's just making conversation in a fairly normal social setting.

I have only EVER seen it work with people who have

1: massive confidence

2: superficial attraction

3: vast economic success

Again we find ourselves in leagues which for me causes me to totally wash my hands. Why would a person want to get intentionally shot down and made to look stupid, how is this suppose to build confidence? Again every time I have done it its never worked and in most instances I got to see the person selected and immediately could rationalise why I got shot down, again not a very pleasant feeling. Why would a person want to go through that over and over again?

[ZA Dater]

8 hours ago, FredEire said:

What's sorely missing all over this thread is real emotion. I think it's because of being cut off from it through previous trauma, a psychologically related issue, or most likely a mix of both.

The problem with living in constructed ideals is that its almost all bollocks, seperate from the real world, when this meets what's really happening, it falls apart.

Real emotion, OK, i'll give you one, each day I wake up disappointed, I got to sleep disappointed and its rinse and repeat. I meet someone I really enjoy spending time with and that disappointment is largely gone. Each day I look around and there are couples, talking, laughing, arguing, smiling, kids laughing, crying, running around and I look at me, I have none of that and its literally never going to happen for me, heck I cannot even get a coffee with someone I do enjoy spending time with. This is not a pity party, its my putting emotions down.

Do people around me see these emotions, no because showing them is not helpful and ultimately what would be gained, I hate being the "project" so its easier to just as best as possible pretend all is normal.

There are no ideals, I have met these people who  made me feel something, last time I expressed that on this forum I was roundly ridiculed but nevertheless. I am sorry but someone I am not attracted to does not make me feel anything which probably answers the posters question about falling in love.

[FredEire]

21 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

I have only EVER seen it work with people who have

1: massive confidence

2: superficial attraction

3: vast economic success

Again we find ourselves in leagues which for me causes me to totally wash my hands. Why would a person want to get intentionally shot down and made to look stupid, how is this suppose to build confidence? Again every time I have done it its never worked and in most instances I got to see the person selected and immediately could rationalise why I got shot down, again not a very pleasant feeling. Why would a person want to go through that over and over again?

Because every time you get shot down you realise it actually doesn't matter a damn and life is best lived with a sense of humour and a willingness to try your hand at anything that takes your fancy, without care for the result.

The person who is hammering yourself here is you, it's not women and it's not society and it's not the universe.

[ZA Dater]

43 minutes ago, FredEire said:

Because every time you get shot down you realise it actually doesn't matter a damn and life is best lived with a sense of humour and a willingness to try your hand at anything that takes your fancy, without care for the result.

The person who is hammering yourself here is you, it's not women and it's not society and it's not the universe.

Sorry for me everything is about the result. It's the only thing that matters to me, rejection does matter because it's means I am not good enough and then it's time to understand the why. When it happens all the time confidence erodes, as does to a degree self worth.

Very few people appeal to me but those who do really do appeal. It's just about accepting I'm not good enough for those people. It's fine, I'll give what I have of value because I want to. 

[FredEire]

3 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

Sorry for me everything is about the result. It's the only thing that matters to me, rejection does matter because it's means I am not good enough and then it's time to understand the why. When it happens all the time confidence erodes, as does to a degree self worth.

Very few people appeal to me but those who do really do appeal. It's just about accepting I'm not good enough for those people. It's fine, I'll give what I have of value because I want to. 

Nobody is ever good enough when they start. That's why the process of everything begins with falling down over and over again, getting back up, and learning.

If one decides never to try because they are so afraid of failure then yes they will stay exactly where they are, stuck.

You have to make failure your friend, have a laugh and get along with it. Because you can be damn sure anyone who is the best at anything has failed a million times over.

[FredEire]

By the way anyone who says they never fail is a liar.

When I was younger I had a flatmate who thought he was Gods gift to women, and indeed he did do very well with women.

But he got rejected over and over again, I saw it whenever I'd go out with them. And each and every time this happened he would say the woman was just crazy, to protect his ego. He couldn't admit that he'd just been rejected.

He wasn't a particularly nice guy either. Don't believe the hype from these high-flying players you might hang around with.

[basil67]

13 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

You keep saying regular guy and regular girl, sure but they find each other attractive I would imagine? Or are you simply implying people settle for 'oh that will do'''

I know this was addressed to @Gebidozo, but we've all been telling you this.  I'm a regular girl with a regular guy and I find him very attractive - and vice versa.  

Here is your evidence that regular Jane and John find each other attractive:  "Each day I look around and there are couples, talking, laughing, arguing, smiling, kids laughing, crying, running around"   I bet you also see regular couples holding hands or hugging or kissing in a quiet corner of a park

Edited May 31 by basil67

[basil67]

4 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

I have only EVER seen it work with people who have

1: massive confidence

2: superficial attraction

3: vast economic success

Again we find ourselves in leagues which for me causes me to totally wash my hands. Why would a person want to get intentionally shot down and made to look stupid, how is this suppose to build confidence? Again every time I have done it its never worked and in most instances I got to see the person selected and immediately could rationalise why I got shot down, again not a very pleasant feeling. Why would a person want to go through that over and over again?

You only ever see it work with people who have these traits because these are the people who you choose to hang out with.   

If you had friends who are just regular people you'd see a whole different picture. 

[Gebidozo]

5 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

Sounds like my dating life, again my attempt at humour.

I fundamentally disagree, work projects, sure nobody gets it right all the time but in time one does become better BUT as many people have pointed out to me there are no set rules with dating and there is no way to actually improve as its would be misguided to expect to get constructive criticism. Add the fact no two people are alike and its basically impossible to approach it like I would work. What does help though is if there is some shared interests, shared life values, it makes it much easier to communicate with someone if there are those commonalities. 

 

There is one rule with women, and it’s the same one as with work: you have to love them. I already pointed out to you that you don’t really love women, and that’s why you can’t succeed with them. You treat women like valuable objects you have to get following some set of rules. That’s really unattractive, my friend. You must change that.

[Gebidozo]

5 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

Each day I look around and there are couples, talking, laughing, arguing, smiling, kids laughing, crying, running around and I look at me, I have none of that and its literally never going to happen for me, heck I cannot even get a coffee with someone I do enjoy spending time with. This is not a pity party, its my putting emotions down.

This is a pity party. That’s all you do, throw self-pity parties. You’re destroying yourself with this s***. 

For the love of God, man, I hope you have good friends who’ll drag you to a good therapist.

[Gebidozo]

4 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

Sorry for me everything is about the result. It's the only thing that matters to me,

And that’s exactly why you’re losing.

Anyone who does anything in order to get something will fail. Only doing something out of love for it might lead to success. It’s tenfold, hundredfold true when applied to romantic relationships, because it’s not about getting something at all, it’s about loving someONE. 

You’re too selfish to be dating. All your ideas about dating are completely wrong, your entire mindset is wrong. 

Get some therapy, get some quality time alone for yourself, learn to love, and things will change.

[basil67]

23 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

One person. Wow. Again one person. I'd hardly say that can be considered successful at all. Again there was no mutual attraction so again how can that be considered a success? It's exactly this which I was hoping to try ignore.

It is what it is, I'll go walking, do more weights, distract myself as best I can. All I've really gained here is yet more proof of how undesirable I am.

You said that the only value you have are professional skills, but the fact that you've had a relationship shows that you do have the skills required for a relationship And you found you found that person and she was kind and loving towards you.

Of course you will struggle dating above your league because EVERYONE struggles above their league. You're not an anomaly.  But they don't come here and spend thousands of pages moaning about the consequences of their choices.

Edited June 1 by basil67

[ZA Dater]

5 hours ago, Gebidozo said:

There is one rule with women, and it’s the same one as with work: you have to love them. I already pointed out to you that you don’t really love women, and that’s why you can’t succeed with them. You treat women like valuable objects you have to get following some set of rules. That’s really unattractive, my friend. You must change that.

No surprise I don't agree with this. Love people I am not interested in? For what purpose?

There are no rules I've said that many times, everything is subjective.

[ZA Dater]

9 hours ago, FredEire said:

Nobody is ever good enough when they start. That's why the process of everything begins with falling down over and over again, getting back up, and learning.

If one decides never to try because they are so afraid of failure then yes they will stay exactly where they are, stuck.

You have to make failure your friend, have a laugh and get along with it. Because you can be damn sure anyone who is the best at anything has failed a million times over.

What does rejection teach? No reason's are supplied so it's impossible to determine why. Do you believe in leagues?

Do you not think there is a point where a person looks at only failure with little success, how do you rationalise that?

[basil67]

5 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

No surprise I don't agree with this. Love people I am not interested in? For what purpose?

@Gebidozo didn't say anything about loving women who you're not attracted to.  

Have you ever experienced loving someone who you are attracted to?  Do you know the feeling of love? 

[ZA Dater]

3 minutes ago, basil67 said:

@Gebidozo didn't say anything about loving women who you're not attracted to.  

Have you ever experienced loving someone who you are attracted to?  Do you know the feeling of love? 

No because they aren't attracted to me. 

[basil67]

Just now, ZA Dater said:

No because they aren't attracted to me. 

So you've never loved someone from afar?   Unrequited love? 

[basil67]

21 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

What does rejection teach? No reason's are supplied so it's impossible to determine why. 

Do you not think there is a point where a person looks at only failure with little success, how do you rationalise that?

What about inventors?  Or perhaps, medical researchers?  They spend years trying to find a cure or make a new thing which nobody else has done before.  They don't have someone telling them where they went wrong.  All they know is that they failed and they have to figure out themselves where it went wrong.  And what to tweak.  Dating is really no different.  You think the rest of us have had people spell out our mistakes to us?  I promise you that most of us have had to figure it out for ourselves

My first big dating epiphany happened in my teens.   Quite a few times, I'd make out with a boy and think this meant that he was interested in romance.  But they never did ask me on a date.  One time, I turned up on the doorstep of a boy I'd been kissing.  He looked at me like a deer in headlights and said "I think you've got the wrong idea" and promptly drove me back to the train station.  I was mortified.   Nobody explained what I was doing wrong.  I just had to figure out for myself that the fact a guy gets kissy and handsy doesn't mean he wants to date.  So then I realised that I'd have to change my actions or my expectations.   

Occasionally, some kind soul will tell a person what they've been doing wrong, but it's also fraught with risk because the other is likely to get defensive or go into denial.  

Edited June 1 by basil67