Whirling D

Yes I was married, but in many ways it was a fraud. she told me as we were divorcing that was she was sorry that for the year we were engaged she was putting on an act to be who she knew I wanted her to be just so I would marry her. she has pretty deep psychological impairments. I don’t mean to demean her, because she is a very good lady, but she is very scarred. thankfully, we mostly remain as good friends, almost like siblings now after about seven or eight years of not being together.

My therapist says the same thing, and that my negative outlook is driving my outcome. It’s bull***. What’s driving my outlook is an entire adult life that has been filled with bullying, disrespect from women, and a complete lack of interest from women. All but completely. Those are facts, not a negative mindset that has come from nothing. There’s nothing wrong with how I present myself, unless of course you don’t like long hair, a feminine look and demeanor, and a smiling face. And I present as a decent interactive and relatively fun fellow. What has that gotten me over the past 40 years here? Pretty much nothing. So, you can spin it anyway you want. The facts speak for themselves.

Thanks, Bat. I tend to think most women that I would be attracted to would not date a guy like me. Not tall. Long hair. Make no money. Kind of effeminate and gentle. It’s just not what women like around here. It just isn’t. I would be considered lower value, but in my heart, I feel like I have a fair amount to offer a potential partner, although that is diminishing with age and the fact that I am losing hope. I think in the eyes of others I am low value. Many, including my therapist, and probably you, say that as a self fulfilling prophecy, but it has been reinforced with facts for years and years. I remember when I was in my late 20s, I was a real estate broker, and I met this lovely woman who was a few years younger than me, she was a relatively tall and very sweet. I wore her down with kindness and attention until she finally became my girlfriend for a couple of years, but it was constantly strained, because it was continually reinforced that I wasn’t who she really sought. She made it clear that I wasn’t her type. She wanted tall, broad shouldered, masculine, short haired, religious, and highly educated. She said those things repeatedly. She couldn’t get past those things, and of course that was to her own detriment, because I knew she cared for me. She just couldn’t get over the preconceived notion of what she wanted. In many ways, I’m not much different. I have a preconceived notion of what I would think would make me happy. It’s not Christie Brinkley or Cindy Crawford, but just some nice decent kind of cute educated girl. But they aren’t choosing guys like me. One of the downer things about social media is that one can often compare their own lives with others. I’m pretty social media savvy, so I can find people with very little information… So if I meet someone, I can usually find them on social media. It reinforces this negative attitude that I have when I see who they are partnered with. First off, I never see guys that look like me around here, ever. Second, almost every woman that I have seen that I find interesting is partnered with the kind of guy that I have described. Every. Single. Time. And why shouldn’t they be? If that is their dream, and they meet this guy somewhere and that guy shows interest… It’s a no-brainer. That just leaves me under the 10 inches of snow we’re supposed to get today. it’s really sweet and all to see folks on here say… “Just be patient, because the universe will bring the right person your way“. It’s bull***. I don’t have time for that nonsense. I’m out there doing the things I know how to do in order to meet someone like that, and it just keeps failing, even with girls that I think don’t have as much on the table as I do. They are interested in the ones that have more on the table than I have. I hate to say this, because it sounds judgmental, and yes I will be judgmental, but even lower value women seem to be able to attract and attain higher value men than I am. i’m even boring myself talking about this. My therapist rolls her eyes and says that I am creating this in my mind, which is also bull***, because she hasn’t walked in my shoes and been demeaned by women, and men, as I have throughout my entire life. I could go on and on with stories. I was very lucky to be part of the activity over the last couple of weeks, because I met some absolutely fabulous people, mostly women. It’s just that they were all partnered with tall broad shouldered guys with beards. Every. Single. One of them. And just to clarify… I live an hour outside of a major city, in a small town environment, because my former spouse and I bought the house that I am in, and my daughter lives with me part time, although she doesn’t want to, and I really can’t move because I couldn’t get another mortgage anyway. My mother jokes with me often that she believes that I live under a dark cloud, and the darkness has followed me around for most of my life. She sees it. I lost my career as a teacher six years ago, because I had a boss who didn’t like who I was, and it had nothing to do with whether I was a nice person, or a hard worker, or decent with the population I was serving. It was just a feeling she had she couldn’t shake. She found reasons to force me out of my position, and I will likely never work in that field again. I’ve had many jobs where I’ve been harassed for nothing more than me being a decent kind person in my workplace that just didn’t fit in. I remember I worked at a restaurant once, and I never said boo to anybody, but I went into the kitchen once and the line cook just looked at me and said… “I don’t like you, so stay away from me or I’ll kick your ass“ Really, dude? This is how you treat people that you don’t even know? God, I could go on and on with stories like this. I don’t look like people here. I don’t speak with the same dialect as people here. I don’t have the same character as the people here. I just don’t. I’ve been here 40 years and I have known it since almost the day I stepped on the soil here. I can remember walking down the hall in the high school that I only attended for 2/3 of my senior year, after landing here from a different country, and I remember the typical boy either deliberately bashing into me with their shoulder, or messing my hair up as they walked by. They were punks. I was a shy simple kid from a different world. almost no one had any interest in who I was, except for this one stoner kid who I befriended. And we had nothing in common. Yeah, dark clouds. Two days ago, I got a letter from the Department of Education. I worked in public service for almost 20 years, so I applied under a new program that would allow my $90,000 of school loans to be forgiven. I needed 120 payments to have them forgiven. I was told two days ago I had 119. With almost no real income, I will be soon forced to continue paying that debt, with only one month deficit, in a career that I would be hard-pressed to be able to be hired in without the proper references. If that isn’t a cloud I am living under, I don’t know what is. And all I really am pining about right now is finding a nice girl that seems like me to befriend. I have yet to see many girls like that here… With the exception of a few here and there. And we know who they are partnered with.

That’s an interesting question, Bat. I don’t think I spend a lot of time thinking about it, until I observe what I observed during my activity over the last week. All these really nice ladies that I think I would relate to well, and all of them with really tall broad shouldered guys that could probably land movie contracts. I don’t fault them, I guess. There seems to be enough tall good-looking guys around here to snap up all of the nice ladies. I guess I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how I present myself physically. I figure I just am who I am, and you either can relate to who I am or you can’t. I do OK just to chat with people, but dating is a whole other boat full of holes. if I meet someone, and begin chatting with them, I’m not really thinking about whether I’m tall and broad shouldered, or effeminate. I’m kind of concentrating on what’s right in front of me, and they hear and now. I tried to practice speaking to a nice lady today when I went out early this morning to a coffee shop a half an hour from here, which I typically go to once or twice a week. Not only do I love their pastries and hot beverages, but I like to go just to have some contact with people and hope that maybe I’ll bump into somebody to chat with. I can be kind of chatty, which doesn’t always go over hugely well here, because I live in a fairly guarded culture. If people know you, then chatty is good, but where I come from up in Canada, strangers chat each other up, and it’s considered normal. That’s how people are. Down here where I am in the US, a lot of people, although not all people, but a lot of people think it’s kind of odd if you just start chatting with strangers in a friendly manner. Anyway, there was a very cute girl that came into the coffee shop. Of course she was way way younger than I am, and I wasn’t expecting to get any dates out of the deal, but I wanted to try to just chat for a moment with this girl, and just before she left I bantered with her for a moment. Just a moment. But it was nice. This is the kind of girl that I’m sure that has lots of guys trying to chat her up, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she thought it was a bit creepy, but I didn’t really care. As I usually do, I just tried to present as being friendly, smiley and interested. I do this fairly often, and just chat with people. Doesn’t really get me anywhere. I’ve almost never been invited to a party, or to anyone’s house. Let alone on a date.

Where I live, almost never. I live in an affluent area. I guess I am an affluent wanna be… I did my time and worked hard, and I live in a place where other people did their time and worked hard. They just don’t look like me. As you probably heard me spew a few months ago, I’m not from around here, I don’t look like the people here, and I don’t really speak the same language as the local culture, so to speak. That makes me stand out a little bit, or be a bit of an oddball, if you will. Not to mention, I’m kind of an aged rock ‘n’ roller with longer hair, and speak softly and look effeminate… which probably doesn’t jive well with middle-aged professional affluent women, which is pretty much what surrounds me, and who I also want to attract. My bad. I think they admire what they think I represent, but I suspect they would never date me, even if they were single. I’m not their kind. As mentioned, the catch du jour is tall broad-shouldered men with a masculine look and a beard. And no doubt an income two or three times more than mine. There is a reason that I get no hits on dating sites. I get none. And it’s not because I’m not nice, or because I don’t have an interesting profile, or I don’t have good pictures, or that I don’t write fun engaging messages to the girls I am interested in… I’m just not the kind of guy most women my age look for… Or at least ones that I find interesting. OK… I admit, there is one lady who has been basically throwing herself at me for about the last three months. She’s the grandmother of a kid I teach… But I don’t find her interesting, or attractive. We have almost nothing in common, but she Literally drools all over her device when she’s texting me. Offers to send me nudes. I’m just not interested. So, I can’t say there is no women At all that show me attention online. Just not ones that I think I would be at all interested in. it just boggles my mind really. I’m on a local Facebook dating site, as well, and I’m certainly not the only one that is encountering this. It seems to be that you either have it or you don’t. I think it’s the same with women.

It’s the story of my life, believe me. I was involved in a wonderful activity over the last few weeks, and befriended some lovely ladies. Of course, they are all partnered with guys way taller than I am with broad shoulders and bushy beards. Standard fare. Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself and feeling disgruntled. I’ve had several ladies recently that I’ve had fantastic interactions with, and they’re just not interested. I don’t believe it’s that I’m not friendly, or charming, or interesting. It’s how I look. It’s always been that way, even when I was a kid. Kind of makes me pissed.

Well, if she’s not for me, I have a little faith that anyone is, because this girl is about as well matched for me as I can likely get, based on what I know of her. But she’s got tall broad shouldered pushy bearded guys all over the place after her, so the competition is fierce. I have been hearing numerous reports by dating “experts“ that say that a lot of nice women are almost afraid to date guys they know that are nice, because they don’t want to get their hearts broken. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the case here. She has clearly had her heart broken in the not too distant past. It’s all about attraction, and I attract almost no one. Ever. At least ones that I’m interested in.

Thank you. I appreciate that. i’m kind of hesitant to just ask her out somewhere now, since I kind of did… And got no response. I think she’s wicked anxious about men and dating right now, or maybe just me, I don’t know. I just don’t really see a way through this unless she gives me another sign, although that seemed like a pretty good sign at first.

But then why would she open the door with that conversation in the first place, if she didn’t expect me to engage? That makes no sense.

Well, I’m just hoping she doesn’t think I was casually suggesting that she comes, unrelated to me actually having any interest in dating her. She might’ve just thought I was suggesting, rather than showing interest in her. How would I know if I don’t respond more. I was thinking of saying something like… “Now that I have more time to write…” I could tell her a bit of my own history with musicals (as she told me about hers), within about a paragraph, and then tell her that I have enjoyed seeing her postings, as well, and it would be nice to sit and chat a bit sometime… Maybe suggest a time and place? That’s too pushy?

Fair enough… But messenger seems a little bit more personal. That’s why I’m even thinking about this. If it was just a regular FB posting, it wouldn’t give me much thought. But the “admire” thing makes me wonder quite a bit more. That came out of nowhere. do you think I undersold myself in my response to her nice message? Should I have been a little more forward? Could I have turned her off for not being man enough to be more clear? She could easily construe my “you should come!“ as not very clear regarding intent. That’s my biggest regret. others say her lack of response is quite clear. I guess I don’t get it. Why would somebody say something like that and not respond either one way or the other when you casually suggest they go to the event?

Well, all of the pieces don’t add up… There are lots of people that send me advertisements and postings for things they have going on either on Facebook, or messenger. Particularly messenger. That’s a direct hit. It’s hard to tell when you get some thing from messenger whether someone sent it only to you, or to many people. Therefore, when I get something on messenger, I figure it had to have been pretty much directed towards me specifically. I don’t find myself feeling compelled to respond, unless it’s something of interest, or as a courtesy. Both of the other two girls I mentioned did that. They pretty much just said, “have a good time“ or something like that that doesn’t have engagement imbedded into it. Especially when the posting comes from someone who reached out to you once before in a rather awkward way, so she has to know or get some sort of inkling that I may be interested. And, if she’s kind of on the fence about actually moving forward with continued interaction, perhaps as a result of things that have nothing to do with me… Then it is possible that her reaching out was a little bit of a lure. I guess there’s no right or wrong answer here. I either have to man up and reach out to her again, or put it on the back burner again and see if something else surfaces with her in the future. It’s making that decision that seems to be the hardest part.

Well, if someone was posting something on my Messenger account, and I had zero interest in that person, I wouldn’t be texting them back telling them that I admired what they are doing. That’s a recipe for continued contact. Particularly, when I said hello to her a year earlier, which many have said might seem to be a little creepy, considering that it was a short conversation that seem to fizzle out pretty quickly. I think that after my initial contact a year ago, and then reading what I wrote about my dad‘s passing, and then seeing this, there’s a chance that she’s thinking… Hey, this guy seems like he is a pretty good guy… Maybe I shouldn’t be quite as guarded. I can’t imagine why she would have reached out this time around if that wasn’t the case. She had no incentive to do so.

Well… It may not be that simple. It may be, but who knows. she has written things on Facebook in the past that indicate that she has gone through some lousy times with men in the not too distant past. I have a hard time feeling that if she had zero interest, she wouldn’t have responded in either case, a year ago, or a couple of days ago. She had no real incentive to do so. She doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall, so she could easily just have ignored everything I sent to her on both occasions and be done with it. But she didn’t. There’s a tiny bit of a green flag in there I think. meeting new people isn’t easy for those, particularly women, who have been brokenhearted in a bad way in the recent past. I get the impression that she may not be that keen on taking on someone new… Since she seems pretty content in her own life these days, building her own reality, which I think is great for her. so, I’m not sure I am inclined to agree that there is zero interest, but this is purely conjecture at this point. I think she would have not said anything on either occasion. Particularly something that could be seen as encouraging, like this last one. however, there’s no real way to know unless I ask her out, but if what you guys are saying is true, it makes me less confident to do that.

Hi all… It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. i’ve been doing OK… Have a few dating irons in the fire, but the fires are mostly flickering, and not yet burning. I have three potential dates, and wouldn’t mind you telling me what you think I should do or not do with each. This is just for conversation purposes, and for once in my life, I’m not pining over anyone really… 🙂 The most important one is in regards to a lady that I’ve been Facebook friends with for the last couple of years but I’ve never met. I would post on her occasional thread, and she would respond warmly but briefly. A year ago, I thought I would be bold, and sent her a message on FB messenger just to say hi and see how she would respond. Her response was guarded and didn’t seem hugely encouraging, so I let it drop. If it were me, and I was actually interested, I would probably say something like… “Nice to hear from you, talk to you another time?“ Or something like that. Nope. After that, I backed off, and even when I did say something on one of her postings, it either went ignored or she just said one or two words of thanks. I took that as a lack of interest, which I think might have been accurate. I wrote a lengthy epitaph on my FB when my dad passed away back in December, and she did comment that it was lovely and said she was sorry for my loss… That was nice. Fast forward to a couple of days ago… Background: I’ve had the good opportunity to play music in the local kids musical (Lots of wonderful ladies volunteering, so it’s been good for my psyche…), and the local cable channel came out to film for a video spot. They posted that spot. I shared it on FB messenger, and posted it to anyone who I thought might be interested in seeing it… On a bit of a whim, I included her in my share, including a couple of other girls I kind of have an interest in. A day went by, and I could tell she saw it, but no response. I kind of expected that, and forgot about it. But then, out of the blue, she wrote me a lovely message… Explaining that she loved musicals, and how her grandparents wrote and produced musicals and she used to go see them when she was a kid. She then said, “I admire what you do, instilling love of music and expression and building confidence. Ty for sharing 🙂” so. This came as a complete shock. I took about an hour to decide how to respond… And I thought I could easily respond by saying to her that I admire her, as well, for being the sole provider of a young daughter, and working in a field that I also find interesting and fun. I also thought about telling her that I have wanted to get to know her, yada yada yada… Then I thought that attracting someone is kind of a nuance, and I thought giving her too much of a response too quickly might scare her off again… So I thought of a simpler strategy and just said… “Thank you, Kristen, you should bring your sprout and come!“ Silence. 36 hours. So… As for your advice… Is this a stop sign? Should I follow up at some point? Did I blow it by not being a little more engaging with my response to her? Thoughts? My gut tells me it’s a stop sign, and a no response is another indication that for whatever her reasons, she’s not going there. That being said… All kinds of dating sites I have encountered recently say that women appreciate guys who are confident and sometimes a bit bold. Maybe I could be a little more direct and ask her to come, rather than suggesting? Or asking her if she’d like to meet for a coffee in her town sometime? I’m kind of thinking out loud here, but in some ways, what do I have to lose, other than another rejection and broken heart. Oh, that. I’m asking you guys because, as you may remember from before, I don’t attract partners easily, most of the time at all, at least ones I feel like I have anything in common with… So I could use some outside perspective… There’s a chance I could really enjoy this girl from everything I know of her. What would you do in this situation?

Well, that sucks. I just wrote a really long response to your situation, which seems to have gone to cyber oblivion when I hit the send button. I’ll try again. I can relate to the situation that you are encountering, and the troubling decision that you have ahead. I certainly don’t have any answers, but I can tell you what my experience has been like moving from one culture to another. When I was 17, my parents moved back to Canada from the US and I decided to stay down here by myself. I don’t feel I have ever felt settled or happy down here in the 45 years I have been here. I wouldn’t say that I unequivocally hate it where I am, since a lot of it comes down to how much work you want to put into it to make a place your home, but more often than not, I feel lonely, depressed, anxious, and I often completely feel that I don’t fit in. I don’t look like the people here, I don’t act like the people here, and therefore, I often feel like I am treated like an outsider. Of course, although there are too many other factors to draw concrete conclusions like this, it still feels to me that birds of a feather flock together, and if you are a bird that is different, it is often hard to feel included. I also have zero family anywhere near here, which has been incredibly hard. You mentioned the thought of being close with your mother. I think that has huge validity. I wish that I could have spent more time with my family, who are now closing in on the end of their lives, and I feel like I have been virtually AWOL in a greater part of their lives for the last 50 years. It’s a sinking feeling as your parents age to feel that you have not been as much a part of their lives as you wished you had been. I was married here, I had my teenage daughter here, and I’ve had several floundering careers here, but none of that has really helped this feeling of just simply not belonging here. So, in that regard, I can completely relate to what your husband is saying, and I think you can too. There are times that I think that people belong near family. Of course, this is all entirely dependent on the type of person that is making that kind of move. My sister lives out in British Columbia, while my parents and our brother live in Ontario. She never looked back after she moved away, and has lived a happy life. However, she is fairly independent and makes changes and friends quite easily, so that is a strong consideration, as well. I don’t. At least I haven’t in the half century I have been here. Ireland is likely not at all like where I live, either… Which is the northeast urban United States, which is a very competitive and highly educated culture. If Ireland is anything like Canada, people are likely a little more accepting and friendly there, which I haven’t really found here at all, almost ever. There are no easy answers to your situation, sadly, but I know what my answer would be if I were you, and it can be inferred in what I have written here. But there are no givens in each situation. Also… You could find if you went over to Ireland that your husband might be a completely different person, as I am when I go visit my family up in Canada. It’s my tribe, and they speak the same language, so when I go up there, it’s often like a switch gets flipped and a lot of my depression and anxiety dissipates rather quickly. I think family can do that, so it’s not really correlated to a physical place, but I certainly wouldn’t rule that out. I wish you all the best, and will watch with interest with how things go for you…

So… Did you end up calling him back to find out? 🙂 being ghosted wouldn’t likely matter to me as much, if I had lots of opportunities surrounding me. I don’t. I never have. I don’t expect I ever will. That makes me feel defective, in relation to attracting women. How many stories have I already told? There are probably just as many more. One can only hear and experience negative stories so much before they start to believe what they are hearing.

Well… She is a miracle kid, for sure. In the old days, they were called test two babies… 🙂 i’ll tell you a story about what my daughter’s mother, and my ex-wife, said to me upon our parting days… She said that when we met, she thought I was the nicest person she had ever known, and she did and said whatever she could to coerce me into marrying her. It’s not that she is diabolical, as it may seem, although that could be argued… It’s that she was insecure enough, and was in a hurry enough to make things happen, that she pretty much changed her personality in order to impress me. She actually said that to me multiple times before she left. there are a lot of reasons that people might do something like this, and I certainly don’t hold it against her, but one might wonder how someone like me could rebound from something like that, after expecting that a marriage would last if both were willing to work at it. So much for that idea. it’s almost weird as I retell some of these stories how I haven’t gotten to a point of jumping off a bridge yet.

I think it would be hugely presumptuous of her to assume that I would be willing or even offered to help. If you don’t know someone, you have no idea whether they have time or the capacity to help with something large like that. I certainly wouldn’t be offended or turned off if I said I was moving add a new friend didn’t offer to help. I do wish that I felt a little bit more assertive in that regard, and I do wish I would have offered… But if she is turned off by the fact that I didn’t offer, I think that’s a bit of a red flag right there. One can’t expect, whether boy or girl, that someone they’ve never met is going to offer to help, and if they do, they are likely just empty words.

Probably wouldn’t be the worst thing to do. Well, I think it could be clearly inferred with my first message to her that I was interested in either talking on the phone or getting together. I didn’t use those exact words, but it was pretty clear. Her response was “love to, give me a message later in the week“. I’m starting to wonder if perhaps she misunderstood something I said, and was a bit turned off… We were supposed to have our first snowfall, and I wrote “ have you got your galoshes ready? We can run but we can’t hide!“ meaning the weather. her response was “no I am not running like the gingerbread man… So sorry… I’m still in the middle of moving and it’s been quite more of an undertaking than I thought“ When I first read that, I got the feeling she thought that I might be saying that she was running from me… Hence the… “So sorry” and but then “talk real soon“. Those are not the words of someone that seems like they are blowing you off. Yet, I sit here feeling blown off and somewhat heartbroken, because it always seems to end the same. Either ghosted or ignored. That’s not a good feeling for someone that has struggled all their adult life with connecting with people down here. it’s almost strange that I can spend three days somewhere else and feel connected to people in so many different ways, and then come back and feel completely isolated. I often wonder if it might be my imagination and willful thinking to believe that when I go up to Canada that people are different. I don’t think so. I think there’s a huge difference between urban people, like in the Northeast, and small town people… Almost regardless of where you are. I think small town people tend to learn to value the few people that they encounter on a regular basis. Unlike when you get back towards a city, and it’s kind of a rat race with people everywhere. I noticed myself feeling that as I was getting closer to home… 5 million cars everywhere, people getting upset with you on the road because you’re not going fast enough, or something stupid like that. It’s not like that up there. Even one of the ladies that I met up there, was the assistant manager at the border crossing place… Absolutely lovely. I lingered around a bit and found a reason to go over and say hi, and we chatted for quite a while. I was able to find out later who she is and probably how to contact her, and if I didn’t have rocks in my head, I would probably do it. Nothing ventured nothing gained. But what’s the point? She lives 3 1/2 hours away. I just don’t encounter women like that down here. Sweet. Pretty. Smart. Engaged. Interested in talking with me. That’s just not what I see down here, hardly ever. I have no way of knowing whether a girl like this would be interested in me up in Canada, or not, and that just could be because people up there are cultured to be friendly and attentive… There’s no way to know, because I haven’t lived there since I was 17. I do know that everywhere has a different variety of people, and it was no different when I was growing up in Canada… I still felt like some what of an outsider as a kid. Still, I was able to make friends and attract a girl or two growing up, which is a far cry from the last 30 years here.

Wise, I disagree that my note was all about me. I asked her where she was moving. I asked her if she was psyched about her new digs. I basically told her that I could empathize with moving being a big drag. I think it was reasonably balanced. A reasonable person would not think anything other than the note was sweet and conversational. That’s my opinion on it. I see this morning that she was on the dating site yesterday, after having not been on it for a while, so it seems. That’s a bummer… Because it shows that she still has time to look for others but not to respond to me, which brings me back to the same old stupid assessment. It’s the way I look that is not getting the attention with her. Why bother even liking my dating profile and telling me that she would love to talk in real time? I’d be better off ghosted. She isn’t doing me any favors. As for using the heart emoji on my new selfie… It seems odd to do that after ghosting someone that has already reached out to you. If it were me, that would be a continued indication of interest. On my long drive yesterday, I thought about the idea of just laying it out on the table… “ Hi so-and-so… I hope you had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends… I’m a little confused that you and I seem to bounce off of each other here and there, but then it hits a dead end… It would be nice to meet for a coffee. If you are not interested in the potential of dating, please tell me so I can look elsewhere“ i’ve watched videos recently that suggest that putting things out on the table like that can sometimes be attractive to women. It shows you know what you want and where you want to go. I wouldn’t necessarily phrase it just like this, and I doubt that’s what I will do, but I’m still thinking about it. as wise has said, I think I’m just going to move on. She should know my interest level, and it’s really up to her to get back to me, since it’s her turn in the chain. Unless I should be more aggressive/assertive?

Hi again… Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving here in the US. Just got back from three days in Canada and had a blast. Not surprisingly, I met a couple of ladies that could easily steal my heart up there… But they’re not down here. I was even able to find one of them on social media, but she lives 3 1/2 hours from here in Canada. Don’t know why I would even be thinking about it. But I still can’t wrap my head around the lady in my neighborhood who is six years older than I am… She initially seemed really interested… We exchanged messages… Then she disappeared. I don’t get it. i’ve been wondering what to do about it. Part of me thinks that if her interest is that low, or if she’s that busy, I need to just let it go and set my bar higher than that. On the other hand, there are women that like guys that are a bit more pursuant. If I let it go and ignore her, could it possibly send her a message that I’m not interested? After all, it was me that sent the last message, and it involved questions, so for her to not answer makes it pretty clear that the ball is in her court to respond. She’d have to have rocks in her head to think that I am not interested. I think just by reaching out and cold messaging a couple of weeks ago makes that pretty clear. Confusingly, I changed my Facebook profile picture yesterday with a new selfie, and so far I have about 20 people who “like“ my new photo, but oddly, she was the only single person of the 20 that left the ❤️ emoji rather than a 👍. I feel pretty stupid that I actually notice stuff like this and actually wonder about it. I suppose there are just people in this world that are a lot more forward with stuff like that… Some who give thumbs up likes and others that give heart likes. Still, it feels like I’m getting mixed messages… She ghosts me, but she puts heart emojis on my new selfie? Sigh. So I guess I’m at a point where I have to decide whether I’m going to reach back out to her, or be firm with the idea that it’s really up to her to make the next move, since she didn’t answer my last message. Thoughts?

She is 14, and I share 50/50 custody with her mother. it’s a good arrangement, and to some degree, her mother and I work well to raise her. That’s a whole other saga however, for sure… 🙂 i’ve had people suggest that I should move back to my hometown, but I don’t think I could ever do that to her, or myself. They have said that I am better off somewhere where I can be happy, even if it means leaving my kid behind. I’m not sure I’m buying that, though. I could never go somewhere where she is not, unless she goes off to college somewhere else, etc., etc., etc. I’m doubtful she will do that, though. But, who knows.

No, I don’t think that’s at all it. The last two ladies that I’ve dated over the last three years we’re not at all what I would call high value. One was high value within her circle, I guess. I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that I am not waiting for princess charming. Just someone kind of like me, really. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that. I just don’t see anyone like that. Almost never. And if I do, they are with guys that are not like me. Seems almost like a conundrum. interestingly, I remember about five or six years ago, I was in Toronto over the holidays, and my family up there was going to the Royal winter fair, which I think happens there every year… there were hundreds of people there, and as I looked around I noticed something almost eerie… There were people there that looked surprisingly like me, and had my physique, and my hair and skin color, and my “less than masculine“ appearance… Longer hair… I felt like my tribe was up there, and I was seeing where I came from and why I don’t fit in as much where I am. not only that, but it almost seemed like there were girls like me up there, as well… and they often seemed to be with guys that looked more like me than almost anyone down here does. People were much easier going, simple in their soul, and probably don’t come from a lot of money… Just like me. It was almost strange, and it was certainly disheartening. maybe someday I will move back to where I believe my tribe is, but right now I have a daughter down here that’s not going anywhere, and she may not be going anywhere anytime soon, so for quite a long while I have felt stuck here. Amongst a tribe in which I don’t feel I belong.

But what’s really the point of doing that if you don’t expect to ever hear from them or see them again? Is it in the one and 1000 chance that they’ll actually contact you?