Have your friends ever tried to act as a dating service??

Well, this being close to Valentine's day and everything, several of my friends got a little too interested in my personal life. They're married and I'm the only single guy in that group.

It's like it suddenly became their "mission" to set me up with a girl. And this was all unsolicited I might add. Everything from dating advice to places to meet people and so on. It was really going too far. Even to the point of them calling other people to try to "put the word out"!

Now, I wouldn't be opposed to doing some more serious dating in the future, but right now I have NO desire to get into that. I'm trying to start my career and I need to save money and focus on my job instead of spending time and money on some girl.

Besides, lately I've been finding some peace in finally coming to terms with myself and my relationship status, and being content with that and having no plans or desire to get married. But episode like this kinda sink all that and put me back to feeling inadequate again in some way.


Well anyway, thanks for reading. I just felt the need to vent (whine/gripe/bitch etc.)

 

Most the people I know are married and they always bust my chops about marriage, they know my stance on marriage but they continually tell me I need to get married, like it is some club or that I am just supposed to go and just get hitch because it's "the thing you have to do" like some fad.

 

I think your friends are doing something beautifull trying to get you together with a girl, take this advice dont waste time.. love is more important than jobs and money etc.. love now dont waste time !!

 

Of course it sounds as his friends are looking out for him and only trying to help him, but if that's not what he wants to do or the direction he wants to go then it's pretty safe to say that he shouldn't, and shouldn't pretend to want to be in a relationship or get married when he doesn't want to. That's not fair to anybody.
Don't waste time? Relationships, dating, love, marriage are not like picking out a brand of toilet paper..
People are different when it comes to love, you can't hurry love and relationships just for the sake of being in one, you know what I mean?

 

^Amen. If I were in his place I'd be very annoyed. It's one thing to encourage me to go out on dates - but don't get carried away.

I remember when I was still single, I snapped at my friend (my sister's long term boyfriend) because he just kept bringing up the issue of my years-long celibacy. Finally I had enough and said, "You know, the more you push me to do something the less likely I'm going to do it." That shut him up. It's not that I didn't appreciate my friends' and family's concern - it's just that none of them seemed to realize that I CHOSE to remain single. I chose to be alone. For reasons that I'd rather not say here, I didn't want to have a girlfriend for the longest time though I did get attracted to girls.

 

Well, it's a relief to know that some people out there actually understand. Thanks

I'm kinda at the stage where it seems like "everyone" is gettin' married. My co-workers are all married, friends, cousins, etc. etc.

Musikero,

about the celibacy thing, I hear where you're coming from. It's the same for me. On rare occasions it's kind of "come out" that I'm a virgin; people seem somewhat horrified (and confused) that a guy my age would be one. Btw, it's not that I advertise the fact or anything, but sometimes some nosey person will ask, usually with other people around(!!!) and I hate lying, but regardless what I say, my slight pause and the "uhhh" kind of give it away you know.

Well, as long as I'm spilling my guts, I might as well say that I've never had a girlfriend either. Don't ask why, it's just one of those things. I beat myself up about it terribly for years, until finally, just this year I started to realize that I had no reason to do so. Why try to persue something that just causes myself misery? Once I started to "allow" myself to believe that it's okay not to date and not to get married, it brought peace instead of anxiety.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback. It is therapeutic to be able to talk to someone about this stuff. Everyone I know is on the "dark side" already! (I definately couldn't discuss it with my parents -- they want me to get married! Like, soon!) Lol. I bet you know what that's like.

 

If you want to be alone, tell you friends not to try any more and continue living the way you really want to.

 

I have the same situation dude, but the question is, do you realy want them not to care about you. If you would want to, you would have told them off a long time ago.

 

Maybe your friends sense the sense of inadequacy?

I don't mean what they feel about you, I mean what they pick up on what you feel about yourself, at least on some level.

Good luck!

 

Musikero, you know I'm usually interested in what you have to say.

What you describe you went through, seems like what I'm going through now. Do you mind saying more?

I don't feel very understood at this point, and I think I'd benefit from listening to someone else's experience.

PM would be fine if you would rather. Thanks.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience.

But I'd wanna know about competing motivations you might have.

What is the part of you that desires to be with someone?

What is the part of you that doesn't?

What gets in the way of either?

 

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"I have the same situation dude, but the question is, do you realy want them not to care about you. If you would want to, you would have told them off a long time ago."
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Well, I know they're just trying to help. I didn't really have the heart to tell them to F**k off.

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"Maybe your friends sense the sense of inadequacy?

I don't mean what they feel about you, I mean what they pick up on what you feel about yourself, at least on some level.

Good luck!"
---------------------------

I pretty much don't ever bring it up in discussion. This time I made a comment in jest about finding a girl (since the other guys were joking about wives and exes) and that's what started everything. I was sittin there thinking 'man, now I've done it!'. I never expected they would react the way they did.

The inadequacy thing was something I had gotten over, but people jumping on me about dating/marriage brings it back; that's what I meant.

 

---------------------
"Thanks for sharing your experience.

But I'd wanna know about competing motivations you might have.

What is the part of you that desires to be with someone?

What is the part of you that doesn't?

What gets in the way of either?"
------------------------


Oh damn, an essay question! Just kidding!

Well, I don't think it's really all that complicated. As far as 'desire to be with someone', pretty much everyone has that innate desire, and it's reinforced by society (friends, family...).

But after years of total lack of success in any kind of relationship with females, it seemed that the lesser of the two evils was to stop beating a dead horse and accept things (and myself) the way they were.

Relating to this is the fact that I've always been a "lone wolf" kind of guy. I'd say most people's desire for group time vs. alone time is 80% and 20% respectively. I tend to prefer more like 80% alone and 20% group (sometimes maybe 90% / 10%). Not counting work/business interaction; strictly social interaction.


One important side point I want to make. I hope no one is interpreting these postings of mine as a play to get pity from others. I hate getting pity for being single.

Mainly I wanted to discuss this because it was eating at me and I believe it's healthier to get it out than keep it bottled up.

 

It doesn't sound like you're playing a pity game. Good for you!

I am interested in all this because lately I've been feeling "uninterested" in women. I mean, drop-dead gorgeous women are all around me, sometimes initiate toward me and I go "tee-hee."

I think a lot of it is fear of intimacy, in my case. I also began questioning, not too long ago, what my role in my relationship failures has been.

I've pretty much have gotten away from social thought or generalizations about gender. They are helpful, of course. But right now I want to focus on what I can do myself.

Ever feel that way?

 

I don't know. In all honesty I find that usually the less I think about this stuff, the better.

Obviously this strategy breaks down sometimes, as evidenced by my numerous rambling paragraphs above!

 

Actually I actually lost my virginity ten years ago - but after girlfriend number two, I decided to lay low for a while. Before I knew it "a while" became five years (EDIT: it's actually almost seven years. I can't believe it was actually that long! If I hadn't counted it I wouldn't have realized it lol):&.

I kinda wish I got laid more often in college, but it's all good. I had lots of fun anyway.

Yeah, my dad was the worst. Like it got to the point where he'd be joking about locking me and my 38-year-old colleague (we both work for my dad) in a room and not letting us out until I got her pregnant.

 

Oh boy, this is going to be long. Ummm... For a long time, I just wasn't ready for it emotionally. When my first girlfriend broke up with me (and I later found out she'd been cheating on me before that) it really hurt. But when I looked back on our time together, I found myself wondering, "Was it love that I felt? Or was I just in love with the idea of being in love? Or maybe it was just teenage hormones?"

Anyway, even after I got over her, I knew I wasn't ready for commitment. That's why I broke up with my second girlfriend. I realized that I just wanted to have sex (which almost but never quite happened with her because we didn't last that long, although we did have some hot makeout sessions:&) and she wanted a committed relationship and it wouldn't have been fair to either of us if we continued our relationship. This was in late 1999.

After that, I decided to just have fun in college - go out, get drunk, get high, that sort of thing. Romance? That could wait. Sex? If the opportunity arose, sure! But I wasn't going to actively pursue it (it just seemed to me like so much work to get a girl to just have sex with you). There was nothing soap opera-ish about my choice. I don't think I was severely traumatized by my first relationship. I just wanted to have fun. I think I wanted to make up in college what I felt I lacked in high school, which was a real social life with friends and parties and stuff. I mean, i had those in high school, but I was still very shy at that point. It was only later that I became really sociable. So my priority in college was friendship. Because that's what I didn't have a lot of in high school. And I had a lot of female friends, and some of them were pretty hot, but I was contented to just be their friend (although I did fantasize about them every now and then).

Then a few years later I fell in love with one of my best friends. Which would have been great if she didn't have a boyfriend at that time. I finally found a girl I was willing to have a loving committed relationship with - only she didn't want to be anything more than friends. It took me a long time to get over her, and by that time it was already 2006.

I hope this all made sense.

 

Thanks Musikero. I can't reply in kind right now since I'm at work.

But I've identified some collusion with my experience. Even the stuff about falling in love with a friend and not quite working it out.

Right now I'm utterly uninterested in women. Probably because of fear...thogh KC says otherwise. It's a terrible feeling. Worse than the feeling of rejection.