Interesting observation about dating from reading The Paradox of Choice

[trevzilla]

So the book deals a lot with societal issues in the West and also gets a lot into people's feeling of satisfaction and happiness. The chapter I just read was all about Hedonic index for heightened feelings of happiness based on an experience being better than a past experience. He also gets into studies which show people often feel worse based on comparisons to people in their circle, so for instance a person making 50,000 compared to his coworkers who make 25,000 will feel more satisfied and happy than a person making 100,000 in a company where everyone makes 200,000.

 

So I was reading this in a coffee shop which is frequented by a lot of couples and I noticed that I was feeling more down. I've been feeling better the last couple of weeks and have been spending more time on my own and learning guitar and working on improving my skills for my IT job. I was feeling more confident and happy and my performance at work was much better and I had some great days where I solved a lot of problems (the author gets into depressed people's diminished performance at work). Basically I go out to get out of the house and also because deep down I hope I will meet a woman. I've been single for almost 5 years and none of my cold approaches has produced a single date. So I'm thinking that just withdrawing myself from a lot of these public settings will result in more happiness even though I'm alone. After 5 years I think it's safe to say that there is almost no chance I will meet anyone when I'm out and about anyway and going out will just make me miserable, because seeing couples just makes me question myself and wonder if I'm a seriously flawed person incapable of attracting anyone.

 

Has anyone else noticed that they feel better if they just withdraw from the pursuit of relationships? Sort of the Buddhist idea of unfulfilled desire leading to unhappiness. I really would love to meet someone, but I just don't think it's in the cards and I think if I could just break out of the cycle of constantly going out and being disappointed that I might turn the corner emotionally and just be satisfied with my life as it is. He also said that studies on rats showed that when they were subjected to shock experiments where they had no control over avoiding it that they eventually became passive and just accepted it and also accepted other unpleasant experiences even when they could get away from them. That's how I feel about women, a total lack of control over my ability to attract a woman which leads to depression and passivity in other areas in my life. I was questioning my abilities at work, but the last couple of weeks proved to me that I'm smart and can be a great systems admin in a great company (ironically I work for the largest online dating company in the world). It's hard because there's always that feint hope and I have the natural desire to have a companion, but I think because of my messed up childhood, I just don't really have the tools to relate to women or draw them to me. I don't even have any female friends. Just wondering if making that decision and sticking to it to just try and focus on other areas of life has worked for anyone here.