perplunk Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 I'm 25, never had any sort of girlfriend, and know I'm becoming more and more jaded in terms of not having any sort of success with women as romantic partners. This has been exacerbated recently (as of August) as I became more serious about finding a date and decided to give online dating a try. With no results beyond a few short emails, I know I'm just becoming more and more jaded with the entire thing. It also certainly doesn't help when I hear and see all the petty * * * * that goes on (e.g. reading a lot of the threads here). Anyways, the advice to focus on myself seems pretty weak to me. Logical yes, but so far I have a lot of evidence that shows that all it gets me is even better isolation. At this point I'm pretty concerned about becoming even more jaded than I already am. It seems like a catch-22. I know I'm becoming more jaded by having zero success, and I fear how jaded I could become if I actually did manage to secure a date that would likely end in failure. Any recommendations on how to walk the middle line? I know if I just dropped all interest (stopped my online dating profile, stopped reading relationship advice, etc) that I'd be back in this position again later. Link to comment
My Advice Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Why the does everyone has to use the word exacerbated??? That's my word. I have been using it for years and all the sudden everybody started using it. Before then, it was MINE. People need to quit acting like me. I am a human being (well sort of) not a fad. Anyway, to the rest of your post. Get cocky (but not too cocky) and act more confident than you really are but don't try to be somebody else or over do it unless you enjoy over doing it. And BE JADED. It is usually the sensitive wimpy idealists who end up having their hearts crapped out by some vicious chick or you just get seen as a friend. Jaded people, and this goes for women as well as men, have one foot in the door and one foot out. Now if you can combine jaded with realism, which anybody who knows the dating world and human psychology knows there is a lot to be desired, and combine jaded, and realism with confident while not becoming a total monster, and you got yourself somebody who is charming, but has self respect enough to have one foot in the door and one foot out until the other person has demonstrated they are worth your time and not as likely to vanish or start conflict the moment they feel bored. Link to comment
Davie Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Keep going strong! Be positive. There IS always a person for everyone. Be more social at bars or clubs perhaps? Try to meet new people You have success in you, you just haven't unlocked your full potential yet! You are very capable of getting a great girl and doing great things. We all are! Link to comment
My Advice Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Keep going strong! Be positive. There IS always a person for everyone. Be more social at bars or clubs perhaps? Try to meet new people You have success in you, you just haven't unlocked your full potential yet! You are very capable of getting a great girl and doing great things. We all are! lol there isn't a person for everybody. And if there is, there's no assurance you will find em. I still say be jaded. Confident and jaded. Link to comment
Davie Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 lol there isn't a person for everybody. And if there is, there's no assurance you will find em. I still say be jaded. Confident and jaded. I genuinely think there is! With 6 billion people in the world, there has to be someone out there.. Link to comment
perplunk Posted January 9, 2009 Author Share Posted January 9, 2009 Keep going strong! Be positive. There IS always a person for everyone. Be more social at bars or clubs perhaps? Try to meet new people You have success in you, you just haven't unlocked your full potential yet! You are very capable of getting a great girl and doing great things. We all are! I'm glad you are so optimistic. It's refreshing... In small doses I am rather successful. I have an engineering degree, a great job, good friends, great & healthy family, etc... I don't generally have many problems exceeding at what I dedicate myself to... Except for relationships of course. I'm sure I can blame myself, I decided to focus on other things when I was younger. But I'm not going to regret that in the least; I'd do the same thing again even if I had the opportunity. As for bars and clubs... Well there are a few problems with that, but two main ones: 1) you meet the sort of people that frequent bars and clubs 2) they serve alcohol; if you are like me you need a drink or ten before you can approach someone at the bar, and by then I can barely stand, much less determine if who I am talking to is even human. @MyAdvice, I'm not worried about being a little jaded. I've never had to worry about that. What worries me is becoming very jaded. When I'm not careful it's very easy for me to be overly cynical. No one likes that. I don't even like that. Also I guess I should say that I have had two women hit on me before. Both were very drunk and obviously very desperate. One even started the conversation with spanking... If I wasn't so inexperienced or had been a little more drunk I probably would have gone for it. But I didn't and frankly I don't really regret that either... Though maybe I should... Link to comment
dr_styles Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 Hope you don't mind this little change of view, but perplunk (and everyone else), would you say becoming jaded is the next phase after panic/desperation? i.e. you start getting worried, concerned, quietly desperate, etc. about your lack of dating progress, as we see on eNA. You give it a go, but have no progress ... so you give up? (maybe not that strong but I hope you get the idea) Link to comment
Bartok Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 I genuinely think there is! With 6 billion people in the world, there has to be someone out there.. Question is, how many of those 6 billion are women? How many of those speak English? How many of those live in America? How many of those live near where I live? How many of those will I run into during my daily routine? How many of those will be open to conversation? How many of those do I find attractive? How many of those like me in return? Then... your chances don't seem quite so good. There are lots of people out there who will never find true love. Actually, I remember a website where a guy asked the same questions I did, made some rough statistics, and calculated how many dates he'd have to go on before he found "the one". I'll have to track it down, it's pretty funny. Link to comment
LightbulbSun Posted January 10, 2009 Share Posted January 10, 2009 Good question. I've found myself becoming a little bit jaded at times, and I don't like it, either. I think anger is a perfectly natural response, but when you start lumping all women (or all men) into one category, that's when it becomes dangerous and unhealthy. There are some really * * * * ty people in this world, but not everybody is like that. Link to comment
Raize Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 How to keep from being jaded? My experience is to take heed to your friends' advice that being in a relationship is overrated and remind yourself that sometimes single people are better off lol But then said friends start bragging about the awesome things they got up to with their gf the night before. Hmm... Second thoughts, listening to your friends stories may not be so useful after all! Link to comment
tkdfan Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 After my huge successes (not!!) with online dating, I think I can now say I'm both jaded and cynical to the nth degree! Link to comment
ut_longhorn Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 And BE JADED. It is usually the sensitive wimpy idealists who end up having their hearts crapped out by some vicious chick or you just get seen as a friend. Jaded people, and this goes for women as well as men, have one foot in the door and one foot out. Now if you can combine jaded with realism, which anybody who knows the dating world and human psychology knows there is a lot to be desired, and combine jaded, and realism with confident while not becoming a total monster, and you got yourself somebody who is charming, but has self respect enough to have one foot in the door and one foot out until the other person has demonstrated they are worth your time and not as likely to vanish or start conflict the moment they feel bored. I actually agree with My Advice in his sense of the word Jaded, but I think the original posters definition of jaded is a bit different. My_Advices' definition of jaded is when one's been hurt by women enough to be a bit mistrusting where as the perplunk's definition seems to be more of frustration due to non success with women. Perplunk, you have to build confidence in small steps. Go to link removed..and look up some books on picking up women. Go online and look up websites. Of course take everything with a grain of salt and try to stay true to yourself. Practice on women that are less than your ideal. Take baby steps and build upward. Talk to women on a daily basis...at the grocery store, at a store. Anywhere. Go to a mall and go to clothing shops where there are women..and just ask their advice on "which shirt looks better on you". As the girl at the grocery store which "cake tastes the best". Just get used to speaking with women in general. Once it becomes a "habit"...when you talk to a gorgeous woman, it'll seem natural. You're still young. Confidence also comes with age for men. Keep at it...you'll be a Don Juan in no time bro. Link to comment
JadedStar Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Why the does everyone has to use the word exacerbated??? That's my word. I have been using it for years and all the sudden everybody started using it. . Ah no you don't. I have used that word longer than you. And i think i am older, so I win. LOL And what is wrong wtih being Jaded? I am a nice person! Despite what everyone says! Link to comment
UltraGeek2000 Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 My method for becoming less jaded was to stop caring. If I never get a girlfriend, I never get a girlfriend. Oh well. It could be a lot worse. I try to focus on other things in life, and when the opportunity seems to present itself I give it a shot. I just wish I knew how to find other opportunities. Link to comment
tkdfan Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 My method for becoming less jaded was to stop caring. If I never get a girlfriend, I never get a girlfriend. Oh well. It could be a lot worse. I try to focus on other things in life, and when the opportunity seems to present itself I give it a shot. I just wish I knew how to find other opportunities. I wish I could be like you, Ultrageek. I've never bothered about being single for the past 20 years, and now the desire for a partner has hit me, it's really hit hard, and won't go away. Link to comment
UltraGeek2000 Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I wish I could be like you, Ultrageek. I've never bothered about being single for the past 20 years, and now the desire for a partner has hit me, it's really hit hard, and won't go away. It hits me pretty hard too, sometimes. IMO it's a matter of making sure that desire doesn't become too overwhelming, to the point that you either get too desperate or you let any kind of failure make you bitter. Link to comment
gd16 Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 It hits me pretty hard too, sometimes. IMO it's a matter of making sure that desire doesn't become too overwhelming, to the point that you either get too desperate or you let any kind of failure make you bitter. Just masturbate 20x a day. Takes my mind off it anyway. j/k Link to comment
perplunk Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 Thanks all for responding. It's interesting reading the responses & hearing from others in similar places... However I've changed a bit... I'm a bit amazed at what has happened since I first posted. I actually had a date. Not sure how that happened frankly, but it did. Brought about by an online contact that I was certain I had screwed up. Somehow I decided to just throw everything out the window and managed to ask her out. Amazingly she agreed, though that is a topic for another thread... It's been a big confidence boost, and really I'm not at all concerned about being more jaded at the moment. I finally did the asking after realizing I disliked regret immensely. So much so that I would revel in rejection as long as it meant I didn't have to face more regret. While it's been a whirlwind and I'm not entirely sure I'll agree with this assessment later, I feel fairly certain that I was wrong about my supposed catch-22. I don't think rejection will in fact make me more jaded. If anything I worry not about screwing this up and missing out on something for myself, but rather screwing this up by letting her down. So... I think I've learned something at least about myself. I'm a big idiot... Wait... No, I already knew that. No, what I've learned is that my "jadedness" was largely due to regret that I barely knew I had. Regret that is entirely my own fault. Ah, back to basics. Link to comment
gd16 Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Glad things are looking up a little bit for you. My only remaining advice would be to quit with the negative self talk ("I'm a big idiot"). At least you took a chance... its more than I have yet been able to do. Link to comment
waveseer Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I know one method of how not to become jaded that I would not recommend: Start a relationship with someone who is unavailable while consciously remaining vulnerable. Continue in the relationship until you fall head over heals in love. Suffer the worst pain you have ever experienced when your heart is broken. It did work, I am not jaded today but I won't go for an unavailable man again and I won't set out specifically to be vulnerable. lol Link to comment
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