ZA Dater Posted January 23, 2023 Share Posted January 23, 2023 There I am at a motor show, walking around and generally enjoying the event. I walk past a cap stall and notice a very attractive lady (by my ridiculous standards she was attractive) so I decide maybe I need another cap, despite the fact I have already wearing. At this point I decide to strike up a conversation with said lady which for someone as shy as I am/lacking in confidence as I am is a challenge but nevertheless I try. All seems to be going rather well, I look for the telltale wedding ring but do not notice one nor did I notice a bf/so in the vicinity, conversation is about caps and a particular brand she is looking for, one which I have a connection with. At this point I mention this "oh do you know abc", just so happens abc is a business partner and suddenly I realize I do in fact know this person standing in front of me, she ran a related entity briefly and at this point I give out my number in order to get said cap to here, realizing of course that she is in fact married. Despite this there was a surprising amount of banter in the conversation. Granted I did feel rather stupid after this interaction. Proof I suppose that there can be some amusing aspects. Every so often the logic I live by is forgotten! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
JTSW Posted January 24, 2023 Share Posted January 24, 2023 Married but no ring? Weird. Sorry this one didn't work out hun. Link to post Share on other sites
Author ZA Dater Posted January 26, 2023 Author Share Posted January 26, 2023 On 1/24/2023 at 12:36 PM, JTSW said: Married but no ring? Weird. Sorry this one didn't work out hun. I suppose this was one of the few times where I removed logic, where I live just about all the people I interact with are not single so quite why I thought this would not be the case here I have no idea! If nothing else it did feel sort of good to try and to have a sort of conversation though I keep defaulting to this thinking of "well what I can offer". Link to post Share on other sites
basil67 Posted January 26, 2023 Share Posted January 26, 2023 (edited) A ring means nothing. My dad lost his in the surf on his honeymoon in 1963 and hasn’t worn one since. He and my mum are still very much married and committed. I’ve been with my partner for 30 years and we’ve never married. More effort needs to be undertaken to find out if someone is single Why is it surprising that you can banter with a married person? Edited January 26, 2023 by basil67 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Author ZA Dater Posted January 26, 2023 Author Share Posted January 26, 2023 1 hour ago, basil67 said: A ring means nothing. My dad lost his in the surf on his honeymoon in 1963 and hasn’t worn one since. He and my mum are still very much married and committed. I’ve been with my partner for 30 years and we’ve never married. More effort needs to be undertaken to find out if someone is single Why is it surprising that you can banter with a married person? Because I generally really really struggle with this. I think it also helped I had a contact she actually wanted. Maybe I am being a simpleton but generally interactions seems to work better when one has something that interests someone else or has something that someone else needs. When someone is awkward as I generally am I take these small insignificant "wins". The irony of this is this, this particular person tried to set me up with her friends years ago and it was a total disaster. Link to post Share on other sites
glows Posted January 26, 2023 Share Posted January 26, 2023 5 hours ago, ZA Dater said: If nothing else it did feel sort of good to try and to have a sort of conversation though I keep defaulting to this thinking of "well what I can offer". This is key here. Wonderful to hear you’re doing this and able to make small talk or chat with strangers or introduce yourself. No need to overanalyze. Just be in the moment and roll with it. Cross bridges when they come and think on your feet. Link to post Share on other sites
Els Posted January 26, 2023 Share Posted January 26, 2023 (edited) Uh... yeah, people talk at show/expo booths... that's kinda the point of having an expo/show...? Congrats on being able to do it, anyway. Edited January 26, 2023 by Els Link to post Share on other sites
Author ZA Dater Posted January 27, 2023 Author Share Posted January 27, 2023 22 hours ago, glows said: This is key here. Wonderful to hear you’re doing this and able to make small talk or chat with strangers or introduce yourself. No need to overanalyze. Just be in the moment and roll with it. Cross bridges when they come and think on your feet. Not always easy especially with low confidence but I found a certain calmness about this when I simply know nothing will really happen. I have been reading a lot about searching, interactions and peoples life experience at this and maybe I should not say this but I think I am able to accept things better. It was a nice confidence booster to have some interaction with someone I found attractive but it would be unrealistic to expect more. Link to post Share on other sites
glows Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 On 1/27/2023 at 4:54 AM, ZA Dater said: Not always easy especially with low confidence but I found a certain calmness about this when I simply know nothing will really happen. I have been reading a lot about searching, interactions and peoples life experience at this and maybe I should not say this but I think I am able to accept things better. It was a nice confidence booster to have some interaction with someone I found attractive but it would be unrealistic to expect more. You won’t believe me when I say this but confidence isn’t a thing to have or not have. I look at it as a conscious decision to understand that I cannot understand everything in this world and there are many things to explore and discover. It keeps me humbled. The more I discover the less I know type of mentality. We take risks every day trying new things or talking to people we’ve never met before and guess what? It’s completely ok. We don’t really know what might happen in that new experience but we figure it out along the way. It’s good that you’re realistic too. Link to post Share on other sites
Author ZA Dater Posted January 29, 2023 Author Share Posted January 29, 2023 4 hours ago, glows said: You won’t believe me when I say this but confidence isn’t a thing to have or not have. I look at it as a conscious decision to understand that I cannot understand everything in this world and there are many things to explore and discover. It keeps me humbled. The more I discover the less I know type of mentality. We take risks every day trying new things or talking to people we’ve never met before and guess what? It’s completely ok. We don’t really know what might happen in that new experience but we figure it out along the way. It’s good that you’re realistic too. Lots of truth to that and at the end of the day we can to some extent control how we think by as you say adopting a learning point of view. Problems arise when comparisons are made and the big picture is ignored. Link to post Share on other sites
glows Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 4 hours ago, ZA Dater said: Lots of truth to that and at the end of the day we can to some extent control how we think by as you say adopting a learning point of view. Problems arise when comparisons are made and the big picture is ignored. I’m more of a big picture type so it’s hard for me to narrow things down to a closed environment. We are all a work in progress, all interconnected and hopefully, growing in our choices and experiences along the way. Sometimes we find an approach that works and other times, an approach that doesn’t work as well. The whole point is to stay curious and enjoy this life whatever it brings, as much as we can. If this experience brought some joy to you and you learned something new, consider it positive growth! Anyway glad to hear this. Link to post Share on other sites
basil67 Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 4 hours ago, ZA Dater said: Problems arise when comparisons are made and the big picture is ignored. Re the quote above, a person's self esteem should sit above what others think. One thing to consider is that you've written before about your self esteem being low because you don't get acknowledgements from others. Though conversely, you have also said that you are kind of the guest of honor at your big work events, so I'd say that's a pretty big acknowledgement. Thing is though, most of us don't get acknowledgements on a regular basis. We simply give ourselves a pat on our back when we see that we've done something well. And it doesn't have to be big stuff. Find all the little things too Link to post Share on other sites
Author ZA Dater Posted January 30, 2023 Author Share Posted January 30, 2023 20 hours ago, basil67 said: Re the quote above, a person's self esteem should sit above what others think. One thing to consider is that you've written before about your self esteem being low because you don't get acknowledgements from others. Though conversely, you have also said that you are kind of the guest of honor at your big work events, so I'd say that's a pretty big acknowledgement. Thing is though, most of us don't get acknowledgements on a regular basis. We simply give ourselves a pat on our back when we see that we've done something well. And it doesn't have to be big stuff. Find all the little things too Yeah I think there is some good but I also think all of us to some extent focus on what we do not have versus what we do. I decided to try and park everything else and look at what I can realistically accomplish and a few interactions like this are probably the limit of what I can accomplish so its good to just own that. For me the win was less awkwardness but the negative was I had to default to "what can I tangibly offer to try and keep the conversation going, what do I have which she may want", ultimately that thinking is perhaps wrong and fundamentally so. However its difficult not to go along that line of thought when I look around at how some people I know do dating but again its probably how I choose to reference it, I am never going to be that outgoing life of the event type of guy so finding those people attractive will also be a waste of time. Whats equally hard for me not to do is look around and make the comparison between myself and those who do date the people I generally seem attracted to, this is a terrible thing to do actually I am really trying to not do it because it never leaves me feeling very good about myself because to me I have some of the qualities they have and different ones they do not but its how the respective qualities are valued. Again I'll admit it that this interaction made me think how nice in theory it might be to spend more time but again its only theoretical, buoyed by this good interaction I went back onto OLD and it took me a few hours to discover that not much has changed, those sort of people do not find me attractive and the ones who do I do not find attractive, before more damage could happen I deleted all the apps again. Maybe the lesson it would have told my younger self would be to try actually have a go at this at a younger age where the glaring differences between me and most others in terms of confidence would be less obvious likewise the glaring difference in experience. Maybe I am wrong but what seems to sort of work for me is to close this hurtful part of life off and focus my attention on other things, none of them will be able to cover this void but I will at least be distracted from it. Its something I feel really bad about but equally there is not a lot I can do about it barring just accepting what is. Oh and for what its worth I probably did get smart and gave her my number, which irrespective is a fairly confident and perhaps stupid thing to do. Link to post Share on other sites
Lisa Posted January 30, 2023 Senior Moderators Share Posted January 30, 2023 Thread closed as it's gone into territory which has already been discussed at length Link to post Share on other sites
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