Author flaxcapacitor Posted July 5, 2022 Author Posted July 5, 2022 On 7/4/2022 at 1:28 AM, Lotsgoingon said: With all due respect OP, I don't trust your own self-diagnosis. If you had the capacity to accurately diagnose yourself, you'd have made progress on this issue. It's not just you. Inability to see ourselves and what's really going on is a problem we all face. Hence the invention of therapy? Just schedule therapy with an open mind. You don't know where quite it will go. And that's fine. We tend to focus on the most obvious symptoms of our issue. But even then we miss other (obvious to others) symptoms. And then behind the symptoms are all kinds of things. It's really hard for us to see those. This is actually good news for you. I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not aware that I've said anything to suggest I know the reason for my dating problems. I'm 50/50 over whether the main issue is mental health problems causing me to subconsciously sabotage my own chances, which is often what people suggest online such as here; or whether it's just simply down to my inherent qualities, personality and physical attributes being off-putting to almost everybody.
Author flaxcapacitor Posted July 5, 2022 Author Posted July 5, 2022 (edited) Double post Edited July 5, 2022 by flaxcapacitor
Happy Lemming Posted July 5, 2022 Posted July 5, 2022 @flaxcapacitor I thought of you this morning. I had gone into a thrift store in an attempt to lid for my brasier (I have no idea how I lost the original lid). Any who, I'm looking through all of these lids when a large dog jumps up on me. I did notice he had a banner around his torso that said "Service Dog in Training", so I wasn't worried. A few seconds later, a woman comes running from the next isle to retrieve the dog. She was very apologetic, telling me that she was testing the dog by dropping its leash and seeing if it would stay by her side. Initially he stayed with her, but soon bolted away looking for someone to play with and I guess I looked good for that task. She then said... "I know you, don't you work at ______" and named our local grocery store, I said no I don't work there and then she said "Oh, it must be ____________" and named our local drug store. I said "No, I'm retired" She then said "You look way too young to be retired, how do you accomplish that?" and the conversation continued with my explanation for my early retirement. We talked for about 10 minutes or so... I could tell she was flirting with me. Her name was Amber, she was a very pretty blonde woman. I could have easily gotten her number, but I'm in a long term relationship. So I found a way to exit the conversation and go on with my day. The point to my long winded story is... If you just go out and live your life, keep a happy smile on your face, be pleasant and talk to people -- good things will happen. I talk to various people in my travels, as I go about my day. It really is a nice way to meet people and you may actually meet a nice woman (with or without a service dog in training).
Author flaxcapacitor Posted July 8, 2022 Author Posted July 8, 2022 On 7/5/2022 at 7:01 PM, Happy Lemming said: @flaxcapacitor I thought of you this morning. I had gone into a thrift store in an attempt to lid for my brasier (I have no idea how I lost the original lid). Any who, I'm looking through all of these lids when a large dog jumps up on me. I did notice he had a banner around his torso that said "Service Dog in Training", so I wasn't worried. A few seconds later, a woman comes running from the next isle to retrieve the dog. She was very apologetic, telling me that she was testing the dog by dropping its leash and seeing if it would stay by her side. Initially he stayed with her, but soon bolted away looking for someone to play with and I guess I looked good for that task. She then said... "I know you, don't you work at ______" and named our local grocery store, I said no I don't work there and then she said "Oh, it must be ____________" and named our local drug store. I said "No, I'm retired" She then said "You look way too young to be retired, how do you accomplish that?" and the conversation continued with my explanation for my early retirement. We talked for about 10 minutes or so... I could tell she was flirting with me. Her name was Amber, she was a very pretty blonde woman. I could have easily gotten her number, but I'm in a long term relationship. So I found a way to exit the conversation and go on with my day. The point to my long winded story is... If you just go out and live your life, keep a happy smile on your face, be pleasant and talk to people -- good things will happen. I talk to various people in my travels, as I go about my day. It really is a nice way to meet people and you may actually meet a nice woman (with or without a service dog in training). Thanks. It's nice to be thought of, I hope you managed to replace your lid so you could get back to having those delicious slow-cooked foods. Sorry it took so long to reply, I did have half a reply written out at one point but never finished and had to start again. That's the sort of nice 'meetcute' I would like to experience one day, I appreciate the story. I know it can sound as though I'm just not meeting people, and a lot of the advice I get is about just going out and socialising more and then it will happen for me. I'm always bit wary how I respond because it sounds kind of dismissive to say I don't believe I have any issues meeting people generally. I could be wrong of course, I may think I'm an affable and gregarious person with good social skills, I'm not totally confident in saying anything especially positive about myself. That's how I see it anyway, I've never really had much difficulty in having female as well as male and NB friends, of my own age though these days often a bit younger as the number of people my age who want to go out and socialise isn't what it was when I was in my twenties. I meet women, but I don't ever meet women who might be interested in me romantically. I hope I'm wrong but it just seems to be that women who would be attracted to me are too rare for me to ever just happen to bump into one while out and about. I've been to therapy today. We might actually address some of my self-esteem issues and the things in my past that led to them. This would be a step forward as I was never really able to go into detail about 'why' I have self-esteem issues before. Most therapy I was offered in the past, generally CBT focussed on the fact I did have self-esteem issues and what I could do about it now, while avoiding looking at things that might have led to me having issues. If I can gain a new perspective on things that I experienced that led to issues though maybe that will help.
Happy Lemming Posted July 8, 2022 Posted July 8, 2022 8 hours ago, flaxcapacitor said: That's the sort of nice 'meetcute' I would like to experience one day... Here it is Friday afternoon and the weekend is upon us... Do you plan on going out?? Any good "Happy Hour" specials in your town/city?? I lived in this one very small town, the local bar had a steak and Coors (draft beer) special on Friday night. Just about everyone in that small town went to it. For the record, I did meet & date a nice woman while I lived in that very small town. Not at that local bar, but when her truck broke down late at night and I stopped to help. Kind of a long story...
Author flaxcapacitor Posted July 8, 2022 Author Posted July 8, 2022 1 hour ago, Happy Lemming said: Here it is Friday afternoon and the weekend is upon us... Do you plan on going out?? Any good "Happy Hour" specials in your town/city?? I lived in this one very small town, the local bar had a steak and Coors (draft beer) special on Friday night. Just about everyone in that small town went to it. For the record, I did meet & date a nice woman while I lived in that very small town. Not at that local bar, but when her truck broke down late at night and I stopped to help. Kind of a long story... Yeah I'm having a good time. Its the birthday party for the lead singer of a band I like. I was at the opening of an exhibition earlier too since I was one of the artists. Had some nice chats, don't expect anything more though.
Happy Lemming Posted July 9, 2022 Posted July 9, 2022 35 minutes ago, flaxcapacitor said: since I was one of the artists. WOW... that is so cool!! 36 minutes ago, flaxcapacitor said: Had some nice chats, don't expect anything more though. You never know... someone may ask about you, later. Some years ago, I was at a party and the next day I called & asked the hostess about a woman I had met at the party & was talking to. It turns out, it was her sister-in-law and the sister-in-law had called the hostess and asked about me a few minutes before I called.
Author flaxcapacitor Posted July 9, 2022 Author Posted July 9, 2022 18 hours ago, Happy Lemming said: WOW... that is so cool!! You never know... someone may ask about you, later. Some years ago, I was at a party and the next day I called & asked the hostess about a woman I had met at the party & was talking to. It turns out, it was her sister-in-law and the sister-in-law had called the hostess and asked about me a few minutes before I called. One can hope. Though even if I'm charitable towards myself I'd still have to concede that the women I met at the art event, or who were at the party (just generally the women who seem to be within my social circle) were way out of my league.
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