71–80 of 741 posts
Hi! You seem to be an exceptional woman. It has so many qualities. What man would be on your level? Powerful men don't care how much you earn or what position you hold. They have so many options that if you have a standard of beauty and femility, you won't attract them. Lower your requirements and expectations. Look for what you have in common with the men you meet. If you look for men with status and beauty, you wil…
I'm not sure this will be at all helpful to you, but I will ahar a short story that had a meaningful impact on myself. I was at the point where I felt finding someone was hopeless (though now I realize I was still quite young). I was on a tour trip and spent a few days with a couple whom I learned found each other through an arraigned marriage. At first I was out off by the idea, but over the few days together l real…
Do you have an idea why the dates you've been on haven't led to a long term relationship?
Most of the time with the online dates, I felt one out of ten was somewhat attractive, so I’d give them a chance and get interested then the guys immediately lost interest and ghosted me after things got physically intimate. I think they just wanted sex and I wanted to wait to get to know them better.
A guy who is both physically attractive and “marriageable”, which I assume means charismatic and well-established financially, will have tons of options. Even if you are quite attractive yourself, your age will tend to rank you lower on his list of options—it’s not fair but that’s how human reproductive biology works.
Just like a startup who can’t compete with google to hire the very best engineers and so needs to “think outside the box” in considering less traditionally qualified candidates who nonetheless have potential, you’ll probably have more success if you’re honest with yourself about your “mating market value”, even if it hurts the ego a bit, and look for men that might be lacking somehow in some areas but make up for it in others.
It’s also important to understand that most guys will sleep with literally any woman given the opportunity. Don’t confuse getting a high status guy interested in sex with getting one interested in a relationship. The first has little bearing on the second. Having a high value in the casual sex market can cause someone to overrate their value in the monogamous relationship market.
Sorry if some of that sounded harsh, but I think we’d all be better off with more honesty and realism on these topics. I hope you find the right person!
It sounds like you are earnestly trying. This is genuinely a difficult problem, so please do not get discouraged. You only need to succeed once. A large part of the problem is that many men who wanted to be married are already paired off. You may have to make tradeoffs for “willing to marry and have children” versus other aspects of what you want in a partner. Out of all your friends who are (happily) married, could…
My two cents, and I’m no expert… Trying too hard is unattractive and unsuccessful. Many guys get spooked by someone who is on a short timeline to get married. They’re doing you the favor backing out early. This isn’t an accomplishment that one checks off like getting into the right school, or running a marathon. Do things you like to do. Find your tribe. Be open to meeting people in that tribe as friends first. You’r…
You should look for men who are divorced or widowers, because 41 is 41. I know you said “no discouragement” but perhaps that is one of your issues. People who lie to you to avoid hurting your feelings are not necessarily doing you a favor. Very few men who are not in the 2nd hand category or are themselves in their 50s or older are going to be even interested. Your other issue is most men who are not in those categor…
Do you have an idea why the dates you've been on haven't led to a long term relationship?
Most of the time with the online dates, I felt one out of ten was somewhat attractive, so I’d give them a chance and get interested then the guys immediately lost interest and ghosted me after things got physically intimate. I think they just wanted sex and I wanted to wait to get to know them better.
Some questions: Why do you want kids? (There are basically two answers, either it is because you have something to give or because you want something. I guess you can figure out which mindset is healthier.)
Are you actually interested in the people around you? Not only men, but people in general? Do you make an effort to get to know them? And by the same token, are you ready to experience intimacy? I am not (only) talking about sex, but about the effort it takes to open up to someone and to trust them.
Something that can (!) happen when you grow up with a single parent is that the parent confides in you just as if you were their partner, which leads to an unhealthy dynamic (parentification). Since children learn relationship dynamics from their parents, the learning experience in this case is "my needs and boundaries do not matter". As the child grows up, this can (!) lead to a pattern where they avoid intimacy in order to keep their needs and boundaries.
You may want to google "fear of intimacy", "attachment styles", "scared of commitment" and if this resonates with you have a look at books like "He's scared, She's scared" by Steven Carter and Julia Sokol and David Schnarch's books on intimacy (his book "Passionate Marriage" does not only deal with marriage but mostly with the connection between sex and intimacy in general).
120 seems like a heck of a lot of dates, I would think most people find their life partner in under 20 first dates. That's including random hookups, for most people I've known well enough to tally. It's also enough of a sample that it would drown out any noise, meaning your average dating mistake or unattractive trait would not really matter, someone will bite regardless of whether you pick your nose or confess to a love of pineapple pizza.
My guess is there's something about how you're proceeding with things that is unorthodox. Some kind of wrong vibe thing where either guys hit the panic button, or you hit the panic button. Perhaps you are anxious, that's a common hangup that can be dealt with once identified.
From your 120 dates:
- Did you keep some sort of summary of what happened?
- How did you meet? Why did you want to go on the date?
- Do you have specific requirements that were not met? Did they?
- Did you get any feedback that wasn't a canned response (No chemistry/Not sure I'm ready/It's me not you/etc)? Sometimes you will get someone who gives you a real insight.
Couple of random suggestions:
- Hire a professional matchmaker. I almost did this once, ended up meeting my wife right before paying the guy. Seems like a good enough deal, you basically pay a person to find some candidates and go and date them.
- Move to another country. London, Sydney, maybe somewhere in Europe if you're comfortable with the languages. You may find there's something odd about American dating culture that you won't understand until you leave it.