Carnatic

For at least someone, in this context a person you're attracted to.

In a world of Batyas then people would only have somewhat objective physical requirements of partners, after which it would be entirely down to personality. However your approach to attraction is uncommon, and even then you manage to use terms like 'objectively unattractive' which suggests you do accept that for some people, unless they meet someone who thinks like you, their appearance will make it less likely for them to get into a relationship. I do think that people are being a bit harsh on the OP, suggesting that he has an attitude problem and that his appearance has nothing to do with his difficulties in romance. It's a Catch-22: Confidence is attractive > If you want to date someone who considers you physically unattractive then you need to be extra-confident to compensate > confidence comes from believing that you are good enough > believing that you are good enough is partially innate but also partially based on how other people react to you > If they consider you unattractive and you lack confidence then people are more likely to react negatively to you. To break out of that cycle you need to be able to decide that you are good enough in spite of other people's negative reactions to you.

Do you often initiate sex? There's not really much you've said where I could guess at his intentions, and it would be just a guess... could be a lot of things, but if you were initially reluctant then does he know that you genuinely want sex or is he maybe feeling that you only stepped up the intimacy to do something nice for him. I can't really speak for your generation so you might know this better yourself, but I know that men from older generations are more likely to believe that women don't actually enjoy sex, it's possible he enjoys the sex but also feels like he is taking something from you and take too much and you might not want him anymore.

It is subjective and I know to some people it's barely even a factor... you may be one of these people. It's still a thing for most though; taste in food is very subjective, but there are still more people who enjoy pizza than there are who enjoy tripe, and even fewer who don't care about the taste at all and just want the most nutritionally complete meal. While nobody is so ugly that they can never find love, for some of us it takes meeting a lot more people or requires us to have an almost flawless personality to make up for it. I'm from a small city myself and was brought up in an even smaller town. I don't know if the OP is similar but I wonder if that's a factor in those of us that start to develop a defeatist attitude to dating, in a small enough town you can actually exhaust the supply of single people of the appropriate age-range and gender. If the percentage of women I swipe right on in dating apps is anything to go by then I'm pretty open about what I consider to be attractive, but I wouldn't say that I have 'low standards' (a gross thing to say about people you're supposedly attracted to anyway), or am valuing them based on their personality rather than looks. I'm swiping right because I find them attractive, so I don't consider myself any less shallow than anyone else. I'm probably even towards the more shallow end of the spectrum because I do find looks important and feel the need to be physically attracted to anyone I might want to date. Back when I had worse friends (my current friends wouldn't be like this), I would find that my male friends would often comment on women I found attractive, like I might mention a celebrity I had a bit of a crush on or a woman we knew who I thought was hot. They would list reasons why she wasn't attractive: arms too fat, mouth the wrong shape, red hair and so on. These are the sort of guys (and I know it's not just guys) who have a type and for whom attraction seems to be a tick-box exercise. I think for them attraction was more like the 'arm-candy' thing, less 'am I attracted to this woman' and more 'would going out with this women raise my social status'... even so I don't consider them to be more shallow than I am. Yeah it is, and I know... I'm told enough times... I shouldn't care what people say, they're people I don't know whose approval I'm not seeking, sticks and stones and all that. It's difficult though, to not let hurtful comments affect you, especially when it seems to be the first thing multiple random people notice about you. I have a friend, she has alopecia and chooses to shave her head. It's a positive decision she's made, that she can choose a hairstyle which isn't affected by her condition. The look really suits her and she projects confidence but also I know she has to work had at being confident about it. People can and do still make hurtful comments or just pay far too much attention to a style which, as much as she wears it confidently, also wouldn't have chosen in an ideal world. This can really upset her, she just wants acceptance for what she looks like and joking about her appearance or obsessing over it isn't acceptance. No matter how much you try and own who you are and what you look like, nobody is invulnerable to feeling bad about the things that deep down we wish we different, especially when people keep pointing it out.

I've had similar experiences in dating to @MysteriousTelephone Ugliness is a thing, and I think deep down we know that physical attraction is a necessary thing for most people to be attracted to someone, and that not everyone is as likely to be seen as physical attractive. It sounds like a lot of people don't like to admit it, and I understand why, it can lead to defeatism, people don't like hearing 'woe is me' and they don't like it when someone isn't taking any responsibility for their own success, or lack of, in dating (or any field for that matter). At the same time, if you are generally considered unattractive, then you do have experiences that your more average looking friends don't... and things are harder, and there are times it does feel like better looking people want to try and tell you that you are every bit as likely as they are to meet someone for dating. One thing that does happen, is that people will come up to you and tell you that you are ugly, just strangers... to your face. Not the kind of people that are here of course, and the sort of extremely mainstream people that you can avoid, but still might run across from time to time, because they're everywhere. They seem to think it's OK, I don't think they're genuinely trying to be horrible, they just have this assumption that if you're ugly (assuming it's not related to a disfigurement or similar) then you've developed enough of sense of humour about it that they can come and tell you and you'll laugh and say 'nice one'. I know you're not supposed to let other people's opinions (especially those of people you don't know or respect) affect you, but it's not always easy to just let the fact that people keep telling you you're ugly just brush off. That's not a reason to give up, but it explains I think at least why people who might not be all that attractive can develop a bit of a complex about it.

I think many would expect that, but it's one of the misconceptions that exist in dating. You do see a lot of guys who are struggling to meet women and if they just assume that these are only problems that men have and that women, no matter their apperance or personality are always guaranteed attention, then there's a risk they become bitter, and start hanging round 'certain subreddits'. In reality these guys are often only looking at the women that they are attracted to, and other women, who may also be struggling to find dates, are invisible to them. Also, while it is true to an extent that women get more attention from men than the other way around, it's not always as self-affirming as people would assume. You might think that even if you're still struggling to get past the first date or two, to at least have women approach you, or swipe right on your tinder profile would make you feel better about yourself. I have female friends though who have met guys who have then told them 'I don't find you attractive, but we can still f**k'. It's pretty common, not all of them are as open about their intentions but they often can't hide that they're not attracted to her. Tturns out a lot of the extra attention women get is from these types of guy. Us guys don't really have that issue, at least when a woman matches us on tinder it's because she might potentially be attracted to us (even if meeting in person confirms that she's not). Not sure I'd particularly want to get more matches but only from women who then tell me I'm ugly but they're desperate for sex so I'll have to do.

The way you describe it, ending it is your only real choice. You summed up the issues, the relationship would be a financial drain on you and she lied about what she wanted from the relationship hoping that once you got attached she could change the terms and you'd agree... Which is toxic. These things probably aren't fixable so you two shouldn't really be together.

@MysteriousTelephone So what would you do, do you think. If tomorrow you got some piece of evidence that was impossible to ignore that suggested you were actually in the top 10% or something of men, in terms of general physical attractiveness.

I don't know why you wouldn't tell Sara about your plan beforehand if it was something you were doing to help her. Maybe it was meant as a joke, or maybe she forgot she said it. It was 2 boyfriends ago and said at a time when she'd never been in a relationship before. I don't know what part of it you interpreted as a request to just surprise her with 'hey I flirted with your boyfriend and here's how he reacted'.

It can be difficult to get past the seeing yourself as too ugly for love. I think it often goes back to school, teenagers can be both obsessed with appearance as the only way to determine someone's worth and brutal when it comes to letting someone know how they measure up. Made worse by the dating pool being so small at that age that a kid seen as unattractive can soon find themselves feeling like every girl/boy in the world has personally told them they're ugly. Not easy mental shackles to cast off as an adult. We don't look as adults the same as we did as teenagers. After moving away for uni, when I returned to my home town I could walk around without being recognised by people who just five or six years ago had teased me for being ugly. Kids can be oddly specific with what they consider attractive too, it's like they don't really know what sexual attraction is yet. Many of the most strikingly beautiful people were thought of as ugly by people who didn't know what they were looking at. Maybe a thought experiment would be a nice change from the current discussion. OP, say you somehow discover this evening that you're actually highly attractive. Maybe you post a photo on that hot or not site (is that really still going? I had no idea, I remember that) and get immediate high marks, people with no reason to flatter you, and no additional complication of it being about matching for dating just liking what they see. Or maybe someone who you for whatever reason know wouldn't flatter you, tells you you're hot. What you do next?

I'm with you on how awful Tinder is. Even 'better' dating apps like Hinge and Bumble that are supposely less about just hooking ups are swiping apps all the same. They all encourage people to make a snap decision on someone based on what they look like. I can't really remember what dating was like before those apps all appeared and I imagine there's always been on some level the idea that being physically attracted to someone is the initial hurdle that then makes you consider if you like their personality and other things. Tinder and such are pretty absolute with that though, it's like if you entered a bar, took a look around then just anyone you didn't find attractive, you could make invisible so they're no longer even noticed, you never get to hear them laugh, see how they carry themselves, their sense of style or those things that sit between personality and appearance that can make you find someone more physically attractive over time, even if they didn't totally grab you when you first laid eyes on them. I did go speed-dating once though, in the days before Tinder was a thing. Plan to give that another go.

Out of interest, how old are you? You're from the UK right? I won't argue against the idea that driving is a useful skill, and for many people it's essential. In my experience though I've not seen it viewed as an essential part of being an adult. Based on what people I know are like, it's less common for people to just learn to drive as soon as they turn 17, instead they learn to drive when they reach a point in life where driving would be useful... Usually either because a specific career requires it or just to broaden their career options, enable them to apply for jobs that aren't on a bus route. Can't say I've experienced anyone not knowing how to drive being met with raised eyebrows. Where I grew up, an even smaller town than where I live now, around the turn of the millennium, the majority of my year at school learned how to drive. More of a rural area but still not like the proper countryside. Our friends and the places we liked to go were scattered between three or four small towns so there was good reason to drive. Even then though, very few of us actually owned a car. The college I went to had a student car park which had space for I think maybe a dozen cars, that's all that was needed. Anyway my point was more that after a couple of people had suggested to the OP that not being able to drive was a big red flag when dating, I wanted to add my experience so it didn't look like a consensus opinion, and say it very much depends on where you live and how old you are.

I think the not driving thing depends where you're from and your age. I don't know where the OP or most of the other posters here are from but I know being able to drive is still seen as a big thing in America, and maybe other big Western countries like Canada or Australia where not driving would really limit your options. I also know that people in the generation before me had a greater expectation to at least learn to drive than people in my generation and after, and that its more common in rural areas where you need a car to get places. I'm 39 and I live in a small city, not a major metropolitan area but not the country in the UK. My social group, varies in age between 20 and around 45 and maybe only a quarter of us know how to drive. Even more so the idea of owning a home as being like passing a basic test of adulthood. Anyone who still thinks that these days perhaps hasn't been paying much attention to the news.

I I don't hate all men, but it took me till probably my mid-twenties to start finding groups who weren't so toxic and learn to avoid the ones that were. The whole toxic masculinity thing, for a lot of guys, this is the only way to be a guy they see, other people and other groups you could be part of don't stand out as much (usually because they're the sort of guys who would get beaten up at school for being 'girly'). Even guys who are deep down really nice, might be pretending they're 'one of the lads' when you see them out and about. I was probably guilty of this too, not the really toxic stuff like attitudes towards women or competitiveness towards other men, but certainly it was like me and all the other 'nice' guys were pretending to fit in because we didn't realise how numerous we were and were just worried about getting beat up. It wasn't really till our mid twenties that people like me and also guys I call close friends today started to come out of the woodwork and realise that we were all just pretending out of self preservation and none of us wanted to be like this.

I've found myself identifying with some of the stuff the OP has said on this thread. People tend to be a bit incredulous that if you are unattractive, people will just flat-out tell you that you're ugly. They do... they very much do. It's not so much people who are rejecting you when you ask them out that call you ugly (or at least in my experience with women as a straight guy), it's more just random people, friends of friends, people you don't know, people you're meeting for the first time... that kind of thing. I've had the whole 'woah you must have had a rough paper round' when telling people my age. They're not even really trying to offend or upset you, there is this assumption that if you are a bit 'unfortunate looking' that you must have developed a sense of humour about it and be able to laugh at yourself when other people make jokes at your expense. It's my belief though that straight cis-men cannot tell whether another guy is attractive or not. I don't think I can; in terms of hearing friends (straight women or gay men) talking about celebrities I am sometimes surprised by who is considered hot and who is considered not. Also it's mostly guys calling out other guys for being ugly, I don't know if the OP has that experience too, I can't think of too many times a woman (or gay guy for that matter) said I was ugly and those times I can are as a teenager when people were far more toxic and brutal with their assessments than we are now as adults. So idk, we should both learn perhaps to take the jibes with a pinch of salt and think, if I'm right, that the guy making jokes about us being ugly really has no idea whether women would find us attractive or not. As a general rule, men are ***holes and obsessed with viewing the world in hierarchical terms with champions (alphas) at the top and losers down below, and a significant proportion of other men, will within minutes of meeting you, want to establish themselves as higher on the hierarchy than you are. They may not even realise they're doing it, hence the ones who don't dislike you and think it's all just joking, but subtly jokes that reassure them that they're top dog.

I would guess not confident... but I sympathise. Hard to act confident when you feel like you've nothing to be confident about... though he doesn't say that he feels inadequate in any other way, just looks... so I could be wrong.

I've had this suggested on here myself before. What do people think about this advice. I'd worry that female friends I approached to ask might think I was coming on to them.

It's a tricky one this, I understand your point and agree it would be off-putting if someone on a date seemed to not care what they were looking for. It would make me feel like I was only being considered as an option because I happened to come along at the right time (that's happened to me before and led me into an abusive and exploitative relationship so it could even be seen as a red flag). That said, I try and be open-minded about what I'm looking for. The OP maybe has the same experience that I have, which is that when the fact I can't meet women who are interested in me comes up in conversation or I ask for advice on places like this, one of the first things people always say is 'maybe your standards are too high'. Being unattractive shouldn't be an obstacle to finding love, as many will say but there are just experiences you have which your more average looking friends don't have. I'm pretty open-minded as even when it comes to physical attraction, style stands out for me more than god-given beauty and I seem to find a greater proportion of the women I meet physically attractive than most of the other straight guys I know. I have red-lines along things such as politics or incompatible lifestyles but even then I still get told 'maybe your standards are too high', because people see me and assume that must be the main problem. It's a fine balance, as you say, if you have no standards at all then your attraction has no value, if you place no boundaries on things like what you both want out of the relationship then you seem like you're just out to sleep with anybody you can... but for most people you don't have people telling you that even your 'standards' such as they are are too high. The OP may well still know what he wants in a relationship and what type of woman he is attracted to, but doesn't feel like he can make any of these 'non-negotiable'.

You may have a point about Tinder's reputation. However in my experience (I can't speak for the OP but I know what it's like to be considered unattractive and to struggle to meet women who are interested in you) I get occasional matches on there, maybe once or twice per year and even have been on one or two dates. The other dating apps, nada. Especially Bumble, I feel that the vast majority of women on Bumble are way out of my league, not just in terms of appearance but also just in terms of them being interesting, creative and as I agree with you 'quality'. Never had a thing on Bumble or Hinge. I'm actually thinking of going speed-dating though, is this something the OP is definitely interested in doing more of or are you soured on the first experience? I did it once before, when I was around 26/27 I think and I didn't get any matches either, but it was a good experience. Guys like me don't typically ever get to actually have face to face contact with women who might be interested in a relationship as we usually never get past that first hurdle of 'I feel nothing physically when I look at you therefore it's not going to happen', so it's good to just have that experience. I will have to travel to a bigger city to do it again but I think it would be worth it.

I'm really REALLY self-conscious about my voice. Thinking back it's possible it was the first thing I was self-conscious about... in better moods I brush it off as 'nobody likes the sound of thier own voice' but when I'm feeling really sensitive then I can feel close to panicking about the way I sound. I do wonder whether: a) I have a tendency to become self-conscious over minor things due to low self-esteem or possible undiagnosed BPD, dysmorphia or similar. b) I have good reason to be self-conscious due to actually being weird/creepy/ugly/having a weird speech impediment (delete as appropriate) and I need to address these flaws before I can hope for my self-esteem to improve. c) It was all triggered by events regarding my voice and that led to me viewing myself as different (in a negative, creepy sort of way) that then spilled over into other aspects of myself such as my apperance, behaviour, mannerisms even stuff I know nobody cares about like my name. My voice is the only one of the things I'm self-conscious about where I can actually point to occasions that made me feel self-conscious and ashamed of the way I sound. I often struggle to say exactly why I'm self-conscious about other things. Sure people say mean things to me every now and again, take a personal dislike to me, call me ugly, say they don't think I'm creative but there's nothing else as firmly embedded in my mind as these voice-related incidents and friends will point out that sometimes they too have people be mean to them and they can just disregard it. I may struggle to disregard someone calling me ugly or unimaginative but they haven't had as big an effect on me as these things. When I was around 4-6 years old my parents had me see a speech therapist, I was taken out of lessons on occasion during school and given one-on-one coaching on my speech. I couldn't say how long this lasted, it could have only been a few sessions which stuck in my mind because I was being told there was something wrong with me, something that required me to be separated from other kids and something which required fixing... but then again it could have been for a whole year. I only really remember a focus on my 'r's though, which I know lots of people have problems with and I don't think I especially struggle with today. For all I know my parents overreacted to a minor issue which was soon rectified... although I guess I still feel and fear that I had a major speech impediment which my parents knew I couldn't function properly unless it was fixed. I could ask them but I'm afraid, I've carried this fear and also the shame of being singled out and separated from other kids with me for a loooong time. I have a slight stammer, though it was much worse as a child. I was never sent to speech therapy about this, as from memory it was never an issue raised on the previous occasion. I don't think I had a stammer until after the speech therapy. I got laughed at on occasion and it was good material for my bullies to pick on, so it contributed to an unhappy childhood. I don't stammer very often now, occasionally it just takes me a couple of attempts to start a sentence. I am of course a bit self-concious about it and when I was a child with a complex over his voice and getting bullied a lot I was very concerned about it. I don't think the stammer is as big an issue as the other things I mention, but it is clearly related. The main thing with that was I was fully aware that I was stammering. My self-consciousness revolves around a defect that everyone but me is able to notice and which most people judge me over but are scared to tell me about, thinking that I live in blissful ignorance of how much of a freak I am. I've known people who have much worse stammers in adulthood too and while there is always a stigma over any kind of disability, I don't think people tend to assume stammerers also have learning difficulties. When I was around 9-10 I was reading in class... for some reason the person reading had to stand in the cloakroom adjoining the classroom to read... I can't remember why, whether it was relevant to the story for the narration to come from afar, or whether it was to encourage us to project our voices. It was one of those things where we all took turns reading a segment. When it was my turn I started reading and almost immediately the teacher became angry and asked me to 'stop reading in that stupid voice'... she thought I was mocking her (this teacher hated my guts for some reason and put in my school report about how disruptive I was). It was just my voice and I was unable to read in a way that she didn't interpret as me deliberately sabotaging the whole exercise, so I think I was just never asked to read again. I actually can't remember what the consequences were for me, though I can certainly remember vividly how I felt. Other issues I can think of since then might be me being sensitive to anything voice related rather than actual evidence that my voice is seen as ridiculous by others. Sometimes at school and even on occasion in adulthood I'd be told I was talking too loud, or too quiet... or there would be a slight stammer. Whenever I was pulled up on something like this I felt it really personally, like they weren't just saying I was a little too loud on that occasion but that I was generally just too loud. Occasionally I have to tell people they need to raise or lower their voice so while I can be very sensitive over this, in the light of day I don't think is necessary proof of a serious vocal or social defect. It has affected me though, I am very sensitive over it, and certainly I think on the occasions people think I'm being too quiet, it's because honestly my whole life, I've been scared to use my voice, scared of what people will think when they hear it... and if it turns out I don't have a serious speech impediment (stammer aside, which I don't consider serious) then it probably just comes across as a social issue... shyness, crippling social anxiety, just someone who seems scared to say anything. I'm also constantly conscious of 'trying to talk normal', never feeling free to just let my voice out. So it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy where people do think there is something wrong with my voice, because of the difficulty I clearly have with it. More recently (I'm 39 now by the way) one of my friends said shortly after meeting me for the first time (to his girlfriend) that 'he's a really nice guy despite the speech impediment'. She was relaying this to me and when I said 'what speech impediment?' she immediately backtracked and claimed she must have misheard what he was telling her. This wasn't fun as it fits in perfectly with my fear that I can't hear my own speech impediment, but everyone else can and most people are hoping that I never find out I have one. And then also another friend was talking about his own childhood traumas and it turns out he has an almost identical story to mine where he was told off by a teacher for speaking in a silly voice, which was just his voice. He's a really good guy, the sort of person you can speak openly to about the things on your mind, he's an empath and a really good listener. I was amazed that I wasn't unique in having had this experience, but scared to say anything to him about my voice though because it was so coincidental how similar his story was to mine and I was convinced that it would just sound to everyone there that I was one of those people who whenever someone tells a story, claims 'that happened to me too' and that people might even think I was mocking and disrespecting him after he had just opened up about a childhood trauma. I sometimes feel like telling him about my experience but still worry it will seem that way. I do use my voice for things too... I have done public speaking before (mostly talking about my profession e.g. at business events or as a guest speaker for schools events), I attend and read at a poetry group and am a regular contributor on my friend's weekly podcast. I do get a lot of encouragement and kind comments from people whenever I do this, for example my friend with the podcast is often telling me how much positive feedback he gets over my contributions, but even then I guess I worry that the encouragement I get is too sympathetic, more like special encouragement... because people pity me and my ridiculous voice.

All my life people have been telling me 'there's some woman out there who would want to be with you'. Well I don't know where these women hang out because it's in none of the bars, gigs, societies, cultural events, parties where I hang out. It's not on any of the online dating apps either. I go on dating apps from time to time, but it feels like a bit of a last resort now. I swipe right on the majority of women on there, not because I'm not looking at their profiles, I have high standards but I feel that the majority of women I encounter in the world meet those standards. Haven't had a match in over a year (OK I'm only going on it every couple of weeks at this point, but that's still probably hundreds of women I'm swiping right on and not a single one swiping right on me). How do you not have low self-esteem when this and one exploitative destructive (and short) relationship is your only real experience of dating?

Maybe she assumed that by blocking you on Whatsapp, since that is the app you were using to chat, you'd get the message. Presumably she doesn't fear for her safety from you, or she'd go to more effort to ensure you could never contact her again but if you keep trying then this will change. When I go to the bathroom I lock the door. The locks on most bathroom doors can be opened from the outside if you have something to turn it with. The fact that the locked door can easily be circumvented though isn't a signal that I'm OK with someone coming in while I'm in there... the lock is really there to send a message to family members that 'someone's in here, don't come in'. Blocking someone on one platform even if they could still contact you on others is sending the same kind of message. You continuing to message her is like someone getting a screwdriver to get access to the bathroom and then arguing that if you didn't really want me to come in you'd have fitted a better lock. P.S. it's not always obvious that in some forums, a post on the front page can still be several months old. Sorry for dragging this old one back up.

This is on the online-dating subforum so I'm guessing that you mean based on the photos you put on dating profiles men think you are a boy rather then men you meet IRL think you are. Lots of women have a boyish style, I can see you have short hair. You could always go for more of a typically feminine style but you should sport the look that makes you feel most happy and if you like having short hair then don't change that.

This just sounds like normal dating to me. None of the guys you described sound like particular wrong'uns. I assumed you were gonna say that the guys you met turned out to be cheats, creeps or red flags and how do you date guys who will be respectful and decent, but they sound nice enough, you just gonna keep at it until you meet the right guy for you.

I'm fine with it myself but not everyone is. Last time I was in a relationship I had a still-active OKcupid account, I hadn't been using it much even before we met and honestly I just forgot about it. Unfortunately she found out the account existed... either she went to OKcupid on my computer and found it already logged in, or she was looking through my history. It blew up into a whole big thing, to be honest it was probably indicative more of a red flag on her than on me since I'd not been using it and she was just wanting to paint me as sneaky, unfaithful and a pathological liar so that she could justify to herself the fact that she was sneaky, unfaithful and a pathological liar. If I do ever get into a relationship again then I'll most likely just deactivate all my dating profiles. EDIT: off topic, but looked at what I just wrote and wondered to myself if it was an example of an issue I think I have (my ex certainly made it an issue). The bit in bold... would most people read that sentence and see it as an admission that I had been using my OKcupid account at least a little bit after I was in a relationship? It's just how I write, I have a tendency to not make absolute statements; but that has occasionally gotten me into trouble. In actual fact I hadn't used my OKcupid account at all since before we met.