(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

[shermarama]

I can see that the nightclub timescale would be wrong for you - it's wrong for most people, unless it's a club you go to regularly where you've seen the person round before and are in a kind of familiar social space.

I was having a think and reading all these replies and I see the point about the defensive shell and taking a while to get to talk to people, but then something else struck me - once you are talking to people, you do actually properly talk to them, as in you're interested in what they're saying, obviously listening and taking it in and giving insight back and suchlike. I can think of some long-term-single people I know who don't really do that, who I suppose are used enough to their own company or something that although it's possible to have something that sounds like a normal conversation with them, you're kind of aware that it's more like discussing a section of their internal topic list than a real conversation. Which is also a useful social thing to be able to resort to and all but it's not as good as the real deal, is it? So, actually being interested in people is an important first advantage that you have, and bear that in mind, I reckon, because that sort of genuine interaction is a good rung on the ladder that can lead to other sorts of interesting interaction. Ahem.

Also, I second the idea of marshalling some handily offhand ways of introducing the concept of you as sexual being, be they ever so low-key and third-party - referring to someone's attractiveness, even if you say that you find so-an-so unattractive - this leaves an opportunity for anyone minded that way to be thinking 'so what sort of person does she find attractive, and is it me, and how do I find out?' Fun fun fun.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

I think you are the first person to have noted that behaviour in me, but yes, I do do that. And it comes naturally which is good.

I do try to make my sexuality apparent at people, but probably not early enough.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

And yes, meeting people in nightclubs is weird. I mean, I've met several people who became good friends of mine in a nightclub, but that was a matter of going to this extremely small nightclub month after month and getting to know people. Leicester's small enough that can happen. I don't think London is.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah.. I actually met a lot of people at the Dungeon and am having problems adapting to the London nightclub scene! That said, when I went to Sedition the other night, I did bump into a bunch of people I knew, although they were mainly from the Dungeon. :)

But to echo what someone else said, even if nightclubs aren't always a good place to meet people, getting dressed up to go to one can help make you feel more like a sexual being.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

I really need to get out clubbing some time. I don't think I've been in a club at midnight since B-movie in September where I dressed up as Nocturne.

And yeah.