Carnatic

I've always thought gay people have gaydar... I certainly don't have it, I don't really need it though, the majority of people are straight. Gay people however never seem to accidentally hit on straight people, I have mates who are straight guys who sometimes to to gay clubs, some are (in the opinion of girls) quite to very good looking and two guys, housemates of mine can even be slightly camp at times. A lot of straight girls assume they are gay but he never gets hit on by any gay guys, even in gay clubs... I can only assume that the gay guys know who is gay from hints which are much more subtle than thinks we straight people take to be signs, such as camp behaviour and going to gay bars.

'I've had 16 year olds hitting on me at church. It's just wrong' LOL KevinT that made me laugh.

I think there shouldn't be anything wrong with this... As a guy I often think that we are underestimated in terms of our capacity to go without sex. I often get the impression from girls that even though they would rather just get to know a guy they think they have to have sex sometime soon, because they think this is what guys want and the guy will lose interest if he doesn't get sex, even when the guy the girl is going out with hasn't tried to get her to have sex with him. Not all guys have this pressing desire to have sex. Like intrigue's ex, I am a virgin at 23. I think being a virgin does make me want sex less, like it would be nice as part of a loving relationship but since I don't know what it's like I'm not hooked. People want sex once they've had it, if they don't know then the only thing making them want it is peer pressure, and at 23 I don't think I'm really subject to that. I said many times before, sex for sex's sake with a girl you either don't love or hardly know is just elaborate masturbation. I once met a girl who I was getting on well with, I was still deciding whether I really liked her or not but confusion and not knowing when to pull away ended up with me being led into bed with her. At this point I said I didn't want sex, and she was disappointed, but also really confused, like she couldn't imagine a guy not wanting sex... got really awkward after that.

Renaissancewoman if you were confused about your feelings for him maybe it wasn't love. I mean I'm in no position to say how you know when you are in love, but I certainly know what signs might indicate you aren't... I only say maybe though because I don't know whether it's possible to love someone, yet become confused about your feelings. Well it is natural that having been together for 2 years, you will be unsure at first whether it was love, because you will have developed feelings for him and these could be confused for love. It could be of course that it was the fact that you were desperate for a bf when you met him, that made you doubt whether it was real love. I have always felt, that having had false alarms in the past, and heard about other false alarms friends have had, that if I do fall in love then I will also be in doubt as to whether I am in love really, and will mainly be wondering if the fact I have been desperately lonely up till now in life has made me too quick to think I'm in love.

I empathise with Caterina in not really knowing what love is. Although I've never had a girlfriend, there have been a couple of occasions when I thought I was in love and then later, after rejection, I realised I wasn't really. One of my friends at the time said I was 'in love with the girlfriend, not with the girl' and this is true, I hadn't really thought through the girls' personalities, looks, compatability, I had only picked up on a slight sign of interest and let myself get excited that I might finally have found a girlfriend. This kind of naivete is dangerous, becuase had I not been rejected then I could have ended up in a relationship I wouldn't have been happy with. Because feelings of 'love' for me have only been false alarms, and because I'm starting to find new optimism and noticing the female attention I seem to attract (completely oblivious as to why I get all this attention), then I am now in a position to worry about next time I 'fall in love' and how I will know that it is a real feeling (people say 'you'll just know' but that's not true, otherwise I'd have known the other feelings weren't love). It seems too complex, people talk about pitfalls of falling in love with the idea of someone, or falling in love with looks alone, and all kinds of other instances of getting love wrong. I can certainly say that love does seem to sound very elusive... and though I have many friends who I can definitely say are in love it seems to be too improbable to happen me, so much has to be right, and people's descriptions of what wonderful people they have fallen in love with seem to be way beyond anything I could achieve. So I don't know what love is, and empathise with anyone who worries whether they are finding love when they think they are.

Never had a girlfriend But I've always hoped that I would fall in love. If I didn't love a girl, or at least feel I was on my way to falling in love then I wouldn't go out with a girl.

I understand that your friend has a lot to contend with, but he is also behaving in a manner that is totally unfair to you and is putting you under a lot of pressure. You maybe have to make that clear to him sometimes. I wouldn't want to be harsh towards him but when he says that he wishes you and H would split up you have to tell him that that isn't on. Maybe he would move on better if he felt he was in danger of losing you as a friend. Unfortunately I don't really know anything about muscular dystrophy, about what capability he would have to get out and meet more people, so I can't offer any more advice.

I think it is also a lot easier to approach someone at work too. You always have something mundane that you could use as an excuse to have to talk to a co-worker you fancy; and there's always that feeling in a working environment that you should be communicating as much as possible anyway. In a public place it takes a lot more guts, and as I have found out, girls don't approach guys as much anyway. Also depending on the age of all your co-workers and the girls you notice in public, it could be more of a case of older women being more confident. I think this has a lot in common with my situation. Well girls do approach me and I don't even think I'm that good looking, but I just don't realise it when it's happening. So I will maybe give a more considered reply later.

Hi... I posted here a while ago about problems/confusion I was having, not with meeting girls, getting on well with them, being chatty or even flirty, but with actually going that extra step and making my interest clear with a girl or even asking her out. You can read it here Thankyou everyone who posted. As you can see, my attitudes did start to change towards the end of that post (as we eventually got there) as I started to realise that if girls were approaching me on a fairly regular basis and if I could make them laugh and smile and have a good time then I was at least doing something right and could at least pay a compliment to them, where previously I hadn't even considered that they might be approaching me because they were interested... Just thought I'd update on my situation since then. All that was during the christmas holidays, when I was at home for most of the time and not really in a position to meet girls, most of the girls who I have met have been in bars or at societies when I am at university. So I was a little worried, due to the unpredictable and irrational nature of my moods, that by the time I was back there, and a girl came up to me somewhere and started talking to me out of the blue, that I would have slipped back into old ways. Things have seemed so mixed since then; it is as easily to boost by confidence as it is to knock it, so when girls smile at me just in passing or in a bar or somewhere, even though I never then approach her (too shy) it lifts my spirits. This will maybe happen once every time I go out, and more if I'm on a night out, so I learned to take this as a good thing when it happened, and not just tell myself that she was smiling at someone behind me or anything like that. So far so good. Then, a bit of a knock. There was one girl who I did like, and who, even before that thread I posted, I thought might like me. It was her I was referring to when I said that I might sometimes even initiate some light physical contact when I am getting on well with a girl (who I still at the time didn't want to assume was interested in me). I was in a bar one day with some mates, it was a bar she frequents, and she was there... with her boyfriend. So I was a bit down after that; but again, on other nights out, maybe a couple of times I think, I have been chatted to by girls. The one I can definitely remember, I was in a rock club requesting a song from the DJ (The Coral: Dreaming of You, incase you're interested) and so was she, so she started chatting while we waiting, and being a little flirtatious, we had a little conversation about music (she thought it was a great choice), I noticed she seemed to have moved quite close to me, and then the DJ came over, we made our requests, said goodbye to each other and went. I thought what I would do would be wait and see if I could find her when Dreaming of You came on, it would be a good way to start the conversation, I'm still shy about approaching girls. Unfortunately, when it came on I couldn't find her. Still I felt happy, I had no reason to be my usual self telling myself over and over again that 'there is no chance she would actually be interested in me'. I felt that I had made some progress at least in not taking a negative view of things. Another night out though, and this is just stupid (I am not usually this shallow), but like I say, my confidence can be just as easily destroyed, and it came at a bad time when I was under pressure with work and not getting much sleep, and was drunk at the time (like everyone else). Cutting to the chase, I was out with three of my mates and we were approached by a group of three girls. 3 girls, 4 guys, one of us was bound to be ignored. Of course it was me, each of the girls got chatting to each of my mates, and I was left (as the seventh wheel?) on my own. It is stupid because it's not like there was a lot of interest shown by any of the girls, or by any of my mates; and while I like being approached by girls, it's not like I go out looking to pull. I just got carried away with feeling sorry for myself, and feeling like I hated being the ugly one that always got overlooked. I was miserable for part of the way home and my mates were supportive. Unfortunately, like I said, it came at a bad time, everything piles up on you, and now my confidence is shot. Also, I suffer from really bad insomnia every now and again. Right now I'm only getting 2 hours sleep a night, I'm stressed over work, I'm feeling lonely, and basically the last couple of days I've become very depressed. All this came out to my best mate today (I don't often let it all spill out, I usually only dwell on it when I am trying to get to sleep) Not much he could do to help, I had gone a bit crazy, refused to listen to reason, insisted on being irrational as I am in essense an irrational person, and was determined that girls would always find me ugly and boring and I would die alone and just had to accept it. Then I felt guilty as he recently got a girlfriend, he used to be similar to me (without the neurotic/paranoid/delusional tendencies) and now he's really happy... didn't want to bring him down with me, so I left and decided to post here instead. Thanks for listening Carnatic

It's nice that you're feeling better now... but I really want you to watch yourself you said your mood can change at the flick of the light switch. So I really hope you aren't pushed over the edge by another change in mood. Remember what someone else said, that suicide is a permanent answer to a temporary problem

If we're going to get all biological about it (which wasn't the intended direction of this post I don't think) then biologists agree that the following are traits of something which is alive. (Of course this could be taken philosophically as well, so I suppose it is still relevant) Movement Reproduction Sensitivity Growth Respiration Excretion Nutrition Of course John Lennon put it best when he said 'Life is what happens to us while we're making other plans'

Glad you're thinking that way now... remember though that a good career isn't the only way you can enjoy life. Even if you don't get the grades you need that in no way means that life won't be worth living. You can keep trying, even after you have been knocked back, to succeed a second time round. Alternatively if you end up in a job you don't enjoy you can find other things that give you enjoyment and concentrate on them instead. And finally not every job available to someone without the qualifications to pursue their dream is boring.

What exactly is mediocre about your life?

It's the bit in between birth and death.

Informality is definitely the way to go. I've known girls who were hard to reach by mobile before, and also who I knew through work (university in my case, she was a PhD student) so I know how frustrating it can be when you can't seem to get talking to her in the right environment to be a little more flirtatious and ask her out. I would suggest asking her if she wants to meet somewhere a little quieter for a coffee... she should get the hint

Oh, sorry, I misread your post. So this is just about when you ask them to be your girlfriend. Well In my opinion this happens naturally, like a build up to you becoming a couple, and it starts with getting to know eachother, which you really should start doing right from the off.

I don't think guys of my age/generation in my country (whatever but basically most of the guys I know) will ever actually formally ask a girl out, so I don't know what this is like. Generally meeting each other becomes getting to know each other becomes going out with each other, there is no 'Will you be my girlfriend?' question. maybe this is the way to do it, but it really doesn't matter how long after you meet a girl you do something to start getting to know each other. As soon as possible I'd say, ask her for coffee or lunch or something. (I know it can be difficult to find things like this you can you at your age, 16 year olds aren't exactly the going for coffee generation, try something more different like ice skating, though it isn't quite as informal) I'm sure you'll know what's best

I don't know, maybe you are trying too hard to come off as nice when you ask her out. If you are saying in those words 'I am a very very very good guy with a big big heart' then you are perhaps coming of as a bit desperate/needy like you are pleading with her to go out with you. Maybe if you cut down on the drama and just let her know you're a good guy. I don't think it really matters when you do it, girls make their minds up quit early on.

I think it would be sadder if you didn't go just cos you had no-one to go with. have fun

I hope it goes well there antigravity. And remember, women love a distinguished hairline Well I don't think Diggitydog was generalising about 'Rob-a-likes' as he only ever made statements about the one Rob he knows. I know there are many guys who preoject an image of being confident as a way of escaping who they really are, but there are also guys who are just confident and good at attracting girls because they are happy with themselves; and some of these guys are jerks, some are not. I see that Rob falls into the confident jerk category, and I can understand that it would have been better had Diggity used and example of a guy who has those attractive characteristics but isn't a jerk, but I think we are all able to pick out the good parts of Rob and leave the bad 'jerk' parts on the plate. Just becuase he wasn't the most 'well rounded' example doesn't mean we can't still take something from him. I actually know a guy who has the good qualities of Rob without being a jerk as well. I'll call him 'Tom' (because that's his name). 'Tom' illustrates just as well as Rob, those things that girls find attractive, however he is an actor, often playing lead roles to packed audiences in the student theatre, so he gets his confidence from that, he projects his voice and is always very noticeable among a group of mates. I would be a bit different, girls may not be able to see my confidence from accross a crowded room, but since they still come and speak to me every now and again (say once or twice a month, I don't know if that would be considered often or rare, for random girls approaching guys to talk but it is plenty often enough for me) then is isn't really an issue. When they talk to me they can see my kind of confidence, I think it's more of an ability to be down to earth and put people at ease. I think that is a kind of confidence. And I agree with ShySoul in that you can't be too much of a nice guy, but so long as 'nice' is all you are being, and you aren't including 'lack of self-respect' as an offshoot to 'nice'. Because that is the problem nice guys have, it's not that there is anything wrong with being nice, it's that nice and no self-respect have become intertwined to the point where many people consider a lack of self respect to be part and parcel of being nice. To antigrav and shysoul (and me) if you are able to separate the two and have self-respect without losing the niceness then women should find that very appealing.

LOL, thanks Miss M. I think I learned a lesson from the Rob story, two in fact, those are. 1) Just because you think a guy is a jerk, don't see that a reason to assume everything he does is the wrong way to go about it. Jerks may not be nice to girls in the long run and not good at forming relationships, but to form a relationship you have to start from attraction the one thing Rob was good at was attracting girls, so in amongst all his jerkness, there were some good qualities, as listed by DigittyDogg. 2) If Robs can openly insult girls without getting slapped then surely I can say something like 'can I have your number?' or at least pay her a compliment without being slapped. I think I will go down the route of, first, paying her a compliment that makes by attraction a little more obvious.

The thing is ShySoul, is that you are one way, we are another way. Yes we make quicker judgements on whether we are interested in a girl, that's just normal and there is nothin wrong with that, I see that you are different and won't know till you know her much better, and as you say, you aren't as concerned with physical appearance, this is fine, but I wish you would stop bandying round words like 'superficial' at us, just because it is not your way and because looks play a part does not make it superficial. What makes you say that constant questioning of the other person and not knowing when to call is something that only affects relationships which begin after a short period of getting to know eachother in which the motives are clear? It can just as easily happen in any relationship, I have had difficultly knowing when to call and what to say with girls I have known for a whole year, if anything it's not actually a problem with me being in her friendzone, but it's that she is in my friendzone, and I feel nervous about treating her like anything other than a friend. When I say getting to know a irl for 6 months is going through hell; it is if you desperately want to tell her how you feel about her. I accept that in your case you won't have felt anything till after 6 months (or so) but I would have had feelings for her almost all along. I'm perfectly prepared to take the rough and tumble of dating, I don't expect the first girl I go out with to be perfect for me, I think in my case I have to be proactive about these things and if am interested in a girl a think it could work, try it out, what's the worst that can happen? it won't work out, but I'll have mor confidence for the experience. Just a note, I haven't answered my own problem by saying 'what's the worst that can happen' as that is also advice people always give me, I know already. It's not that I don't want to date, it's that I don't know how to move things from chatting to getting a phone number or arranging to meet her. And ShySoul, no I don't consult books or websites, because they can't offer me tailored advice to my own situation, that is why I come on forums and ask advice when I have a problem. Nothing wrong with that. And Diggity Dog Yeah I know a 'Rob', quite a good mate actually. But yeah he will employ the same tactics, I have known him to flirt with girls by being openly insulting to them. He does get a lot of phone numbers and the like but things never seem to work out after that for him, I can only assume he doesn't know when to drop the unorthodox flirting style and talk to her like a proper human being. Interestingly enough, those girls who are immune to his attractions will find him annoying, full of himself and say that he isn't even particularly good looking. So it's fine for getting attention but pretty quickly afterwards you would have to show a bit of sensetivity.

Sjhysoul, to be honest, I do know when I meet a girl whether I would want to try and go further with her That is exactly my intent, and what do you mean 'only' it is a perfectly normal and honourable intention that leads to millions of happy relationships each year. Yes it can be rewarding, I have many female friends, but I would not want to spend ages, putting myself through hell trying to get to know a girl who may or may not be interested in me. I want to know, then, if she isn't there is still a good chance I will still be friends with her. I think the thing is here Shysoul, you are quite different in your approach, it works for you, and you find the kinds of girls that you are after, ones that also believe in the spending months getting to know eachother adn believing in the one. The girls I go after aren't the same, and I'm not the same. I want to meet girls, I do meet girls, and then I want to look for ones that I could maybe form a relationship with, trial and error. When I am chatting to a girl, and getting on really well with her, I want her to see me as a possible love interest from the off, cos it gets harder and harder to state your intentions, the more I get to know her, even if I'm not exactly in the friendzone, there's kind of that awkward moment where I have to say 'well I've been crazy about you for the past six months' and risk sounding creepy.

I have to say that I agree with melrich here. There is a difference between meeting someone and wanting to date them from the very start and between getting to know someone first. In Shysoul's case it is perfectly feasible that he is the kind of guy who doesn't feel that kind of attraction until he has gotten to know the girl as a friend. However a lot of guys will probably feel that they know straight off what they want out of the relationship when they meet a girl, and obviously here pretending you just want to be friends so you can get closer to her would be somewhat decietful. So what we can all agree on is that if there is a reason for you wanting to get to know a girl, you should be straight up with it; and dating is still a way of getting to know her, just one where you have been honest that you are interested in her beyond just friendship. In my case, I have to say that I am usually certain when I meet a girl, or within a couple of minutes, that I am interested in her. The fact I then don't tell her or make it obvious is due to me being shy or not knowing how, which goes back to the original reason I posted. The result of this is usually that I end up either in the friendzone or just simply not getting to know her well enough because I'm too shy, worried that she will take me wanting to get to know her as sexual attraction, even though it is and I want her to know really, I'm just too shy about that kind of thing. Thank you everyone for your advice though, I can tell you've put some thought into it, as usually asking for advice I just get tips on how to hold conversation, and questions to ask her, and I do this part well enough. It is difficult for you to give me advice, I know, as you don't know me. An example I should have brought up is that while I am shy about making my sexual attraction visible to the girl I am attracted to, I am not exactly shy in any other way, with my mates, and when I am just talking to the girl when I first meet her. An example would be, if you were in a bar with me, and saw me talking to a girl (in truth she would probably have initiated conversation as being the one to initiate it is something I am shy about for exactly the same reasons as being shy about letting her know my interest in her) you would probably look at me and think, that guy looks pretty confident, he's definitely 'in there' with that pretty girl. I chat to her about all sorts, have a laugh, play games, even sometimes initiate some light physical contact. But when I return to my mates, things so something like this. mate: *nudge nudge wink wink* things went pretty well there aye? me : er yeah mate: so did you get her number then? me : er... no mate: why the hell not? she was well into you. me : er... you think, we were just chatting. mate: dude?!? Thanks for all you help. And Miss M, nice to see you again.

Not an encouraging story as such bust most of the guys and girls I know hadn't had girlfriends by the age of 16, and now they're just fine. I'm sure there are guys out there your age who are only just starting to look for girls. High school is a very shallow place and people are putting people down all the time it is easy for a guy between the ages of 13 and 16 to simply not give it any thought; if he isn't in the 'cool' crowd then he is possibly under the impression he couldn't get a girl if he tried. Most relationships before then are just that, 'cool crowd kudos' It's between 17 and 20 that things open up and the search for relationships becomes more inclusive and more adult. So yes you are still young, but you are also at an age where relationships work a lot differently to the long-term adult relationships. So you'll catch up when things change and it becomes about love and friendship as opposed to kudos and coolness. So there is plenty of time over the next 4 years, guys will start to notice your actual qualities and not just whether you hang round with the right crowd. If anything there is no surprise that at 16 you haven't had a boyfriend, it just means that you aren't neessarily as influenced by peer pressure. *of course I know that some people do mature before their time, and form proper relationships before they are 16, but this would only happen if their partner was a similarly mature individual and this isn't going to be all that common.