AskPolly: “What is going wrong with my attitudes and behaviors in these situations that has resulted in so little romantic action in my life? Where should my focus go?”
I’m a 28-year-old woman who has only dated one person, a man 14 years older than me, for over six years in my early 20s. I haven’t been with anyone else before or after that, apart from kissing a few people I’ve met on dating apps. Those dates never went anywhere, mostly mutually. It’s been over two years now, and I’m starting to feel like something’s got to change if I’m ever going to be close to anyone again.
I assumed meeting people would come easy. I’m reasonably confident in my appearance, and I can connect enough to meet up with people. By friends’ accounts, I come off as confident and fun in social settings. Yet here I am, two-plus years out from the breakup, and I feel stuck. Even when I’ve committed hours of free time a week to dating apps, and gone on over a dozen dates, I’ve only gone on one second date. I’m not really excited about the people I meet.
• Actually into them — Very rare. I think someone is super cool, and I have secret pangs of attraction. I probably don’t know them that well. In person, I’m coy, I try to make eye contact and look for a subtle opening to talk. Once I’ve found an opening, I try to charm the hell out of them. Once I succeed, I don’t want to ruin the moment, which risks overstaying my welcome and undoing my charm. So maybe I move on and wait for something else to happen organically.
But being noticed by someone who seemed as uncertain as I was? That felt uncomfortable and unwelcome. When a guy actually appeared invested in what I thought of him, that was like being lost on Mars. What am I supposed to do now? I felt self-conscious and put on the spot. There was no hard work to busy myself with! My attraction would dry up around all that freezing red dust.
So dating and friendships and your life philosophy and your identity are all wrapped up together. Understanding the layers behind these things couldn’t be more important. It will bring you more self-acceptance and compassion toward yourself, and you’ll be better able to spread that compassion to others.
And experiment with this: Work hard with the Kinda Cutes and settle back into your seat and get lazy with the Super Cools. I guarantee you the Kinda Cutes will start acting as aloof as the Super Cools and the Super Cools will start acting as interested in you as the Kinda Cutes . The second I dropped that mind-set, everything became more promising. A guy would flirt and then neg me , and I’d laconically respond, “Yeah. I’m probably not your type.” Sometimes this shook off a bad seed. Sometimes this made a good seed more invested.
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