(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

[the4thcircle.livejournal.com]

I wanted to leave this comment until the thread was a bit old and forgotten about.

hopefully you'll still see it though, email notification and all.


See, if I'm being totally truthful, the main reason I personally never tried to advance our friendship in that direction was because I thought you were way out of my league. Still are really.

But I thought it might cheer you up to know.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

That is a very curious thing to hear someone say. What do you mean by that, if I might ask?

[the4thcircle.livejournal.com]

Well when we first met, it was before anything long term had started between myself and Becca and I met you that time with Dave and Vicky, and I found you really attractive.

As I got to know you this fact didn't change but I started to put on weight, and I realised that while I was still living in University halls doing volunteer work and living on handouts from my parents; you had a tech job and your own place, and a massive collection of really intellectual books.

I've always had this slightly paranoid feeling that if I try to state further intentions towards a friend who is physically or intellectually my superior, I'll immediately be reclassified from the quirky hanger-on to the doting code monkey type, which would get me invited to even less parties. Which is ironic because its usually my intellectual and physical superiors that I find most attractive.

Then Becca and I got together on a more permanent basis and at your house warming party I realised how many attractive friends you had and saw that I really never had a chance after all compared to that lot, so I just let it go.

In my life in general, I've found lots of people attractive and wondered about the possibility of dating but the main reason I've actually dated so few of them was a general feeling of inadequacy.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Well, hmm. For starters, you are younger than me, and I had only just moved out of parents house in late 2005 after living with them for five years. As to my friends? Well, I repeat my entire post. :p

[the4thcircle.livejournal.com]

I have come to realise that often the way I percieve things is not actually how they are. In fact I have been known to seriously misread circumstances and make a complete tit of myself.

So given that as I already stated, I assumed I didn't have a chance with you, the relevant queston to ask would be: Did I?

And pending an answer to that the natural continuation: What about now?

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

My attention was on other people anyway, so it's not something that I considered. Probably not.

[the4thcircle.livejournal.com]

And that's exactly why I never tell people how I feel about them.