Carnatic

It can just come up naturally though, if you've never had another partner then it might come up at some point, like they'll notice if you never mentioning any previous partners isn't just you being private about it. I felt kinda the same when I lost my virgnity at 27 and also since I can go years between sex, it always feels kinda like being a virgin again and I know that a conversation along the lines of 'so you're pretty inexperienced' is likely to come up.

Why? It's not necessarily any of his business whether he was her first or not, it's a pretty important fact to the op and this is why she is considering telling him but it's entirely up to her when if and how she does.

I'm in therapy... it takes a while though, it's a long process. A few years ago I probably wouldn't even have been able to articulate the answers to questions such as 'why do you think you are so creepy', I had terrible mental health, terrible self-esteem, PTSD from an abusive relationship and hang-ups over the way I was treated at school. It feels like at every point in my life... especially when I have come close to being more confident (I healed myself to an extent in my late twenties before getting into a relationship that kind of undid all the progress), I've been hammered back down. Now I can, but the self-image I have had been so relentlessly hammered into me as a kid. It feels difficult to fight it... seems to take a lot more than just me thinking 'I have an active social life' or friends saying 'I don't think I'd be your friend if those things were true'. I was weird, and I was bullied, I was told that I was weird, I was told that I was ugly/weird-looking and I was even used as a way to bully other kids (i.e. girls would be teased by being told that I was their boyfriend) and on the occasions I told teachers I was being bullied, teachers told me that it was my fault for being so weird and the kids who were bullying me were nice kids and good kids and I was the bad one for trying to get them into trouble. Teachers punished me because they thought I was being deliberately weird to mock them. Kids are known for being cruel so I don't think I'm going to be the only person who had this sort of childhood. I always hope that if I post here it isn't just me asking people to help me, but a chance for a group of people to discuss the way we all feel. @Kwothe28 my perception about myself does need to change. On the surface I'm doing everything right... I think. I mean I do go out and have friends, I'm an outgoing person, sort of... outgoing but highly self-conscious at the same time. I approach people of all genders to just have a chat with them when I'm out and meet a lot of new people that way... but I mask a lot, and that includes masking my sexuality by trying to hide any signs of attraction I may have when talking to women, far from actually being open about that attraction.

Yeah, I know not everyone will have the same type of hang-up that I have. I do wonder how common it is though. All through school I was characterised by other kids as weird and creepy and this feeling has just never left me; so now the main thing that goes through my head if I think I want to approach a woman I'm friends with is that I shouldn't because it will only scare her, and that yeah women do like to be approached in certain situations, but not by guys like me. Sometimes I do see guys, and they are being really inappropriate and such and just things about their body language that seem threatening towards women. There's this guy who a lot of people I know also know and he's always propositioning women in inappropriate ways, often in a transactional way like 'I did this for you so now maybe you do this for me', he's not even the only one, and I just think... if I started approaching women, that would be how it would be, that's how I would appear. If I am going to eventually get to the point where I can take the initiative in romance then I need to improve myself first... a lot. Mostly I actually try and disguise the fact that I like a woman. Especially if she is a friend, I have this fear that it will become obvious I like her, and then of course I will lose her as a friend as well as potentially be seen as creepier and lose other friends. I have a lot of friends I'm attracted to too, which probably just makes it sound like I'm very shallow in who I choose to be friends with, but I think it might just me more that the circles I move in do seem to contain a lot of women who tick all the hypothetical boxes for me and that the things I look for in friends and the things I would look for in a potential match are pretty much the same things. In any case I tend to be a bit hypervigilant over the signals I might be giving off in an attempt to hide any signals of attraction.

That's fair... but I agree too and don't think I'd ever consider approaching a woman who was a perfect stranger.

I can empathise with this... Is it always just fear of rejection though? I don't know if I fear rejection as much because I can't really imagine a scenario where I approach a woman, she says she isn't interested and everything is OK. As a kid I was seen as weird (not in a cute, uniquely weird way, more a creepy makes other people uncomfortable weird way). I've had people say too that they suspect I'm the sort of person who has ulterior motives, that I seem nice but might be hiding something. So... I'm pretty self-conscious about being creepy. I don't approach women, I never have, not once in my entire life... because I just can't shake the feeling that it won't just be a case of a man approaching a woman, asking her out and her not being interested, that because of how I look and my mannerisms and speech patterns and whatever else it is about me that gives people the creeper vibe, it would be more of a case of a pervy looking creepy guy slithering up to a woman and making an inappropriate comment that makes her feel unsafe. Then me subsequently losing all my friends as everyone who hears about what I did wanting nothing more to do with me and becoming the social pariah that I plainly deserve to be. Ugh... dark stuff. It feels just about real enough to discourage me from approaching women. TLDR I just don't trust myself to be able to apporach a women in a nice non-creepy way.

I don't know what dating was like in the era before internet dating became a thing. I do wonder though if internet dating has made things harder for those of us *ahem* not blessed in the looks department. I've heard it said that tinder (and other online dating sites) are really only for good looking people, I guess it presents people with the illusion of choice (and maybe it is just an illusion that there are hundreds of people out there) and I think makes them more picky. There are maybe more people as a result who are content to remain single until that person who (in their eyes) is the most beautiful person they've ever seen comes along. It also means that if someone doesn't like the way you look you probably never even get the chance to speak to them and dazzle them with your personality.

I was curious and looked her up. She started to speak publicly about autism in 2007, maybe people have less negative views on autism now than they did back then, but that's no thanks to her. There was plenty of autism 'awareness' back then but really only in the negative sense where people like her encouraged a kind of fear of autism and of autistic people.

Was it just something relating to your stuttering that triggered this fond memory? The first time you were made to feel good about something you were self-conscious about? Fond memories can be alluring right? It's obvious why you would remember your time with Rick so positively, it was a big thing for you to be told that your stuttering was charming. It's not just about how great a connection you and Rick had, because, we'll get onto this, it doesn't sound like there was that much of a connection, it's about the teasing you'd had for years over stuttering and the fact you'd even fantasised about being told it was attractive. Besides that, you were young and at college for the first year, so it's normal to place more importance on memories you have from this period. From what I gather, you hung out for bit, had some mostly R-rated fooling about and then he didn't put any further effort in. I imagine that if you take away the fact that he was the first person to give you validation for how you speak, and (I'm presuming) that he was your first makeout then there's not really much to be all that lovestruck over. These things that made it feel special ultimately were nothing to do with Rick and he may have been totally unaware of how significant they made it for you. It's not unusual for a stutter to be considered cute and endearing and you say that by the time you met Rick, the frequency of stuttering was low enough that he only heard you stutter once. I stuttered a lot when I was younger too, and even though I only stutter rarely now, I'm more self-conscious about it than I should be because I remember a time when it caused me major social difficulties. Most people who know me now might never have heard me stutter and wouldn't really think anything of it if I did stutter in front of them once, but from my perspective I still feel like the kid who could barely get through a lesson without stuttering and being ridiculed. This may be what happened when you were with Rick, from his perspective, you were cute and you stuttered once, which was cute, and he had no idea it used to be a lot more frequent and that he was giving you validation for something which you had only known ridicule for. That could have happened with any guy you met at college though, the stuttering had reduced to the point where it was no longer a social disability and Rick was the first person to tell you that, and as significant as that moment may have been for you, it wasn't to do with Rick and he may not have even known it was happening. You've moved on and probably wouldn't be satisfied with the level of affection you got from Rick if you were to get it from someone you dated now. Significant moments in our lives don't always take place in locations or amongst people who have any greater value to us beyond the fact that they were simply there at the time. It's perfectly alright to have a fondness for those memories but also be aware that everything positive that came out of that is still a part of you, and not a part of anyone else, and there is nothing that can be rekindled by reaching out to people if those people did not remain significant in your life in any way beyond being there at the time.

I don't feel like this guy is your friend, and I would be wary of him. It's one thing to develop feelings for a friend which you know are unrequited, it's another thing to refuse to go on dates with other women because he just wants you, and to basically say he can't be friends with you if you aren't single, and after only a year too. Can't comment on his personality as I don't know him, but guys like this are often just a step away from deciding that you led him on and becoming resentful of you.

You look good, I see what they mean about your eyes. They're a really nice colour and look bright and lively. I know how you feel though. It's difficult to get past being told when you were growing up that you were ugly... more so given how frequent it was for you, and I suppose you won't know their motives either, if you believed it all why question them? You can learn to believe other nice things about yourself but the primal nature of what is essentially sexual attraction buries insecurities about that particular area deep, not to mention the assumption you're expected to make that you can never be loved because of it.

That's true, and circling back round to the topic of this thread, looking back at your old problems, the things that brought you here, you almost have an outsider's perspective on them now, even though you can also remember your frame of mind at the time.

Good that things worked out. I think with the 'spark' in a normal relationship, it might go every now and again because you have to work at keeping it. So you might worry, especially when you're young, that the lack of spark means the relationship is doomed, but it's only a sign that the relationship is on its way out if neither of you feel like doing anything to rediscover it. People break up not because the spark went, but because they didn't feel it was worth the effort getting it back.

That sucks extra, when you work at something and people don't give you credit for it

So I joined when I was 21 years old (I'm 39 now) I have no recollection at all of how I came across the site... might just have been a Google search but I have this vague notion that someone I knew recommended it. I had gone on a date with a girl and to cut a long story short, made an absolute pig's ear of the whole thing. I'd never been on a date before, or even had a girl show interest in me before so I was in uncharted territory, and having not even had the opportunity to flirt or kiss a girl before, I was very nervous about it. It wasn't just my age at the time but the fact I felt insecure about being so inexperienced compared to most other 21 year olds. She was *extremely* pretty, but it was a blind date for me. We studied at the same university and had mutual friends but this all took place over summer and while some people (her included) stayed living in the city where the university was, I was back in my hometown with my parents. Her best friend was dating one of my friends and she had seen pictures of me while hanging out with a larger friendship group and specifically asked if my friend would give me her number. It was all pretty daunting for me. I had no idea what she looked like myself, but even before I heard she asked for me, guy friends who were texting me about things going on over the summer were mentioning how hot Paul's girlfriend's friend, Clare, was, and how various guys in the group had made fools of themselves trying to flirt with her. Then I get a text from Paul saying 'Clare wants me to give you her number, she's seen a photo of you and I told her you're a nice guy, she's interested in you'... this 'Clare' whose reputation for beauty preceded her. Apparently I would have been considered fairly attractive at that age, but I had no idea and I firmly believed the total opposite, that I was some hideous troll-faced monster (people told me to my face at school that I was ugly so why wouldn't I be insecure about it?). According to Paul in fact, Clare was really insecure about her looks and also considered herself to be ugly. We exchanged texts, flirted a little, shared jokes... it seemed pretty good and I was due to be down there the following week to pick up the keys for mine and my friends' student digs, so we arranged to go on a date then. We went on a couple of dates, I thought things were going well, she was clever and witty and we had similar senses of humour and liked a lot of the same things (for example, we both supported our local football clubs and there's a sort of camararderie among football fans who support their local club rather than one of the big name Premiership clubs). We even managed to have a decent second date despite me making a hash of picking out a nice cafe near her only for that cafe to be closed on the day we met forcing us to go and have our date in the cafe in a nearby supermarket. If nothing else it makes for a funny story when people ask about most embarrasing dates and I can say I took a girl to Asda. I don't really know what happened after that. Maybe my nerves, lack of confidence and general awkwardness were offputting to her, the dates went well enough but I don't know how much of my insecurity showed through. She didn't reply to my suggestion that we go on a third date. Also Paul messaged me and said he didn't think I was her type and she wasn't interested in me after all... no idea whether she told him that or it was his attempt at guessing (Paul was in no way a seasoned expert in the field of dating, he himself had never had a girlfriend before he started dating Clare's friend). I posted a hugely insecure ramble on my blog (yes this was the noughties, we all had blogs) about how women don't like me and though I take most of the blame for writing it, I will never know why Paul then took it upon himself to send her a link to it, these were private blogs that were just shared between friends. Next time I was down there (this was still summer and I was still only popping down occasionally while living with parents) I bumped into her unexpectedly, we spoke briefly, she acted like she was afraid of me, keeping her distance and at this point I knew I'd messed things up so I didn't try and push the idea of meeting again, it was awkward. Then a few days later she texted me asking me to stop stalking her. She accused me of loitering around outside her place of work. I didn't know where she worked and when she mentioned it I can say for certain that I'd not been within half a mile of her place of work at any time that summer... also she said which specific day it was I'd been stalking her and I was in my hometown on that day, I'd only been in the city where university was on two or three times over the summer. So this whole thing upset me, and that's what brought me here. It's all in the past now though and I know that I take most of the blame for what happened for being so insecure in the first place, and for writing that blog post... but it was a big knock to my self-image as I thought of myself as being if nothing else 'a nice guy' and the idea that I could be considered creepy and stalkerish hurt me. It's all in the past now, just one of those things that happens to everyone when they're young I guess... but yeah, that was a little walk down memory lane for me.

Did you join ENA for a specific issue, or maybe the place just appealed to you, or you joined in order to support someone else. Was that resolved, is it in the distant past now or still part of why you're here? Just interested in sharing stories.

Funnily enough I was reading something about that very same topic just yesterday, after another friend brought up the topic of 'lookism' in relation to a joke someone made on social media. There are certainly disadvantages to being considered attractive too (so I hear) but you are right, I ended up reading about the halo effect where someone with a desirable trait (context dependent but attractiveness tends to work in all contexts just about) is percieved as being better at other unrelated things. So, like if you have an attractive employee you're more likely to associate them with qualities such as diligence, capability, affability etc. There was some research done that found that all other things being as equal as the researchers could make them, people considered to be attractive were also considered to be more intelligent, friendlier, more mature, more empathetic, more responsible and so on. So yeah, if Z is as you say, very attractive, it is possible that she gets away with more, just because people are making automatic assumptions that she is also, the cleverest person in the room and so on.

It often is how it is. We use the same word 'mature' to both mean, an older person (context dependent of course, for example in universities a 'mature student' is anyone over the age of 23 but if an employer talks about hiring 'mature employees' they usually mean over 50); or as you say, a person with their stuff together, with wisdom, balance and so on. The assumption behing that as you get older you gain wisdom and perspective and become more reasoned and balanced. It's not always the case though when it comes to unresolved mental health issues, and I'm not saying that all people with mental health issues are unreasonable and unbalanced, or that mental health issues are a good excuse to being that, but I know there are people for whom increasing age just means more trauma, more episodes of instability and then do become the opposite of what people usually mean by 'mature'. Anyway, sorry to hear you're still caught up in the maelstrom Cynder... last time I read your diary it was still mostly all about how great things had been when you were together and you were ready to give her a second chance after she ghosted you. Sounds like she's used and discarded several chances by this point 😞

Yeah, I wonder if the complaints remained as static over a period of over twenty years back then. By which I mean people still associate the things millennials did as kids as being 'kids these days' even though 'kids these days' now often have millennial parents. I think our ageing population, longer life expectancies, increasing retirement age and changing economic circumstances for young adults means that the people who were complaining back then, instead of being close to retirement now and being replaced by millennials and older Gen Xers with their own 'kids these days' complaints are often still working in the same positions they were twenty years ago. It's a similar case with Gen Xers as even though some of them are knocking on 60 the stereotype of the Gen X teenager (apathetic burnouts, like... woah whatever) is still part of the general stereotype society has of 'the youth'.

I'm 39. So round about the time texting was becoming common and people were worrying about txtspk and such, I was 16 (turned 18 in 2000). Strange to think really that the kids who were being talked about when newspapers articles were worrying about declining language skills, attention span, etiquette and so on are now in their late thirties and early 40s. I looked up the median age of the UK, it's 40.5 which means that over half of the UK population would have been able to send texts to their mates as teenagers.

I've never had any qualms about texting regardless of the time. My phone beeps constantly and I'm able to not be especially disturbed by it going off, nobody has ever requested that I only text at sociable times, though to be fair I don't text all that often and even less for social reasons, I normally use Facebook or Whatsapp for stuff like that but have no qualms about that either. If someone did say, can you only message me at certain hours then I would restrain myself, and I guess I already do this around people who I know are older and more likely to see a text as requiring immediate attention, such as my parents.

How does it make you feel on the occasions someone does say that you're attractive? Do you accept that or presume that they're just saying it to be kind, or even out of pity? Does a part of you suspect that you are actually attractive, and if so then how do you feel about this? Hopeful? Guilty? Do you feel that you're unattractive in other ways, or just physically?

Nope. Cos he's not just being mean for no reason, or shallow because that's all he is. He's trying to manipulate you and increase your dependency on him for self esteem so that he can get away with more down the line. More red flags than a Chinese embassy , get rid. 🙂

Can't speak for the guys who aren't messaging you but I can't image not messaging back if messaged first. There are occasions when I'll get a match and then not message them first. I do that when I'm sick of messaging first and getting no response so I decide to give the woman I've matched with the opportunity to message first. I know it's generally understood that in hetero matches, the man has to be the one to message first but since there are some women out there who will message first then I'll think, maybe they have a better way of breaking the ice than I do. Arguably it works too... any of the dates I've ever had through Tinder are with women who messaged first; any time that I've messaged first... even if she messages back and we have a short conversation, don't lead anywhere. I don't think this is necessarily a gender thing though. I think it's more a thing where some people (including me) will only swipe right on people they'd definitely be interested in meeting. Other people will swipe right on anyone that isn't a hard-no and only decide once they get a match if they're actually interested in meeting that person. The latter seems to be more common but idk, that could be different for men and women. Maybe you're getting a lot of matches who haven't decided yet whether they do want to date you. It could be anything really, even if you are attractive. For example I see a lot of tinder profiles of women who are really into fitness, they list going to the gym as a passion, complete the new bit where you can say how often you go to the gym, mention it in their profile and more than half the photos are of them in the gym. These women probably don't struggle for matches, a lot of men would be really attracted to them, but it's just not me, as much from a lifestyle thing as anything else. I would swipe left on these profiles but maybe another version of me would see an attractive woman with a good body, swipe right and only if we match have more of a think and decide she isn't for me after all. It could also be that they think you're a catfish. You're attractive, especially if you have professionally taken photos. As a photographer you'd think I'd be all for advising people to get photos done professionally to have a better chance on Tinder but whenever I see what looks like a model shoot then I myself suspect it's not a real person. Maybe that's what's happening, especially if you're defying expectations of women on tinder by messaging first. I see lots of nice looking women who clearly aren't catfish though so it's not just a 'you're attractive therefore not real thing' but it could be the case maybe.

I was comfortable. I did change it, a little bit... now everything feels very raw and I feel triggered all the time. I could go back to being comfortable but I don't want to but I also don't know how to progress from here.