(no subject)

[abigailbrady]

so. i am 29 this year. compared to where i was 10 years ago, i have changed a lot. i am a fully functioning adult human being with a job and a flat and friends and everything. this is good.

i have not ever been in a relationship/dated anyone. as an abstract concept this doesn't particularly upset me. i am, as noted above, a self-sufficient independent person. i can appreciate the argument that having had no relationships is better than having had bad ones. and y'know, if that was the end of the matter i don't think i'd be unhappy. but it's not.

because every so often someone makes the mistake of being nice to me. and i get painfully infatuated. and i then get rejected. and then i feel like shit for a few months, and then it happens again with someone else. i would like this to stop happening. if it could stop happening by someone actually liking me for a change this would be nice. it doesn't seem very likely though, does it?

people tell me they have no idea why people aren't interested in me, but that they are sure it is just coincidence. i don't believe that. there are clearly influencing factors. i am very worried that i'm missing huge chunks of appropriate human behaviour in my socialisation (i ought to have learned all this in my late teens/early 20s, when i was otherwise occupied), and this is just an area of life which will remain forever closed to me. this idea upsets me, because what little of it i have experienced i liked. i would like to have hope, but hope has caused pain.

i am left confused and upset.

so

• what is wrong with me?
  
• are people not interested in me because they assume i am happily single?
  
• are people not interested in me because they assume there must be something wrong with me?
  
• are in fact people interested in me and i am not noticing it? (note: if so please tell me)
  
• should i make effort to meet more new people?
  
• wouldn't it be better just to go and hide?
  
• am i just hanging out in the wrong social circle to meet people who might be interested in me?
  
• given how bad i am at dealing with rejection anyway, wouldn't it be a really terrible idea for me to put myself in a situation with even more potential for that?
  

in conclusion: argh. answers, suggestions and proposals welcome.

Comments

[firinel.livejournal.com]

For what my opinion is worth, in the far past when such opinions were first formed, I read what I now assume was shyness and awkwardness as aloof disinterest in pretty much all of humankind and/or a general preference for computers, books and other activities involving aloneness.

Unfortunately, I've absolutely no advice as to how you might remedy that. I've also never seen you flirt, so can't say whether it's had the adverse affect or not. (Or have I seen you flirt and just completely failed to pick up that that's what you were doing?)

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was really painfully shy back then, far more so than today (you know - excluding my family - you and plexq have known me longer than anyone else on my flist) - I had gender issues that needed sorting out before anything else. Since I've sorted that out the general social shyness is going away. I guess other shyness has also been lessening - I mean - I have actually asked people out now, at least.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

I've thought about that too, when I added you to lj, that you've known me so long. More recently I thought about how.. odd it must be for you to be in touch with plexq now, what with how much he's changed, too. In some ways it's certainly very odd, time.

I think because of the need to sort out other issues first, it's a bit like a "late bloomer" sort of thing, but it's not so much that you're "late" as it is that you're just starting out when most of us had our teens to get turned downed and crushed and have reached this age with that experience under our belt. So, I know it seems trite and is but cold comfort, but I am quite sure things will eventually work out for you.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

It was certainly interesting meeting up with plexq last year after not having seen each other in something like 9 years.

The problem is, my peer group have that experience, and I don't. I don't see a way round that, short of [improbable fantasy]. Am I getting that experience from my large serving of fail, it it helping me? I don't know. I don't have enough emotional distance to evaluate how badly I misread previous situations.