(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

[tearsofzorro.livejournal.com]

I'm also one of these mostly perpetually single people (although, if I remember correctly, you have a weird/tenuous connection with my first gf), but there's one thing that I've found to be true, once you're in a relationship, more possibilities open up. I don't get it myself, but in my recent persuit of Cute Redhead Nerdgirl (someone from Toastmasters) I found that once I thought I might get to the point of asking her out (although I've not seen her since *grumble*) I found myself getting attention from two separate people that very weekend.

Unfortunately, it's analogous to the work experience paradox ("How can I get experience in the field if all employers want experience in the field?") but I think it's about having some signal of "I'm attractive to somebody" that kickstarts everyone else into looking at you with a view of "Oh, she's attractive to somebody".

Anyway, I know where you're coming from... good luck.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

[hmm, i wonder who do you mean? i was unaware of any link between you and anyone i may have had tenuous connections with]

Yeah. I can appreciate that analogy. Some people seem to have only relatively short gaps between relationships; other people remain perpetually single-but-looking. (I exclude people who are single through choice from this analysis). I wouldn't want to think that this is because the people in set A are any better. But it's a very easy thing to believe.

[tearsofzorro.livejournal.com]

(The link would be... if I remember correctly, someone who lived with a direct relative of yours when she was doing her undergrad in DeMontford - at least I think it was your nick on IRC that she mentioned, 'twas about 2001 when she mentioned it to me)

Anywho, if you want to reframe the difference between the set A people and the set B people, you can just say that the people in set A have more practice. The main thing I was thinking of was confidence - it's like another little trick we have to do in general society, we need to walk around with an air of "There's nothing wrong with me" because the moment you wander around thinking "There's something wrong with me" people pick up on it, and begin to wonder what's wrong. So, to me, it seems to be mostly a trick of walking around with an "approved" mark on your appearance to the outside world.

Does that make any sense?

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

[ah. my sibling did indeed live with the person I think you are referring to at DMU but I think I met her about once or twice during that time, so i didn't know that]

It does. Confidence. If you can fake that then you've nothing to feel nervous about.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's confidence per say. I think I talked a good game before, when you first knew me, but in retrospect, I don't think I was a particularly attractive person because I was mostly noise. I think people can tell through fakes, if people are uncomfortable with their own selves.

Once I've gotten more comfortable with myself, which seems to involve not precisely faking it, but being what others find to be more realistic (example: not going "oh woe, I suck at life', but instead 'well, I've anger issues I need to work on, how can I do that?') and a bit upbeat. Interestingly, when I reached the point where I gave up on particularly finding someone(s), and instead focused on bettering myself and really being okay with myself as is too (I know they seem counter-intuitive, not quite though) I found several rather lovely someones.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

i do give up from time to time and then is usually when i do find lovely someones except i am missing the part where they find me, as well.