What's the Point?

[johan]

I do have an idea. I understand.

[boshemia]

Just curious but why would I want to date you?

 

I'm married so this is just a test, but I've never been single. I have spent a lot of time with friends who just can't seem to get their love life going and we've talked about it alot. There really is nothing special about me other than I am happy with myself just the way I am... I'm just comfortable in my own skin. I'm chunky but I like myself. I am not the prettiest girl in the world but I'm pretty enough, Not the smartest either but smart enough... get it? I have a big butt and I'm perfectly okay with it...

 

We finally picked up on the fact that I just sell myself better than they do. So if you can't offer up reasons why someone would want to date you then why would anybody want to?

 

Start a list and keep it going... sell yourself to yourself.

 

Now, don't go up to a girl and recite the list, that's just creepy... but keep that list in mind while you talk to her. Hey, I'm intelligent, funny, athletic, friendly, whatever...

 

When I was single I did find myself in a position more than once between two guys buying me drinks or whatever... I never chose the one who was mousey, quiet, and put himself down. Confidence is sexy!

 

Smile, laugh, talk to strangers in line at the bank. Not just women, but men... old ladies... make yourself accessible!

 

And in the defense of the overweight comment, I am overweight but I totally know what you mean. I've seen some people with pics online that were downright scary. There are a lot of people out there I know I've seen on the Jerry Springer show... the show about the half ton strippers... it's just TMI.

 

It's okay to have prefrences, I think what they are trying to say is you can't just choose someone based on looks alone. People age, they gain weight, they lose weight, kids leave stretch marks and things head down south... if you really love someone their looks should be secondary.

 

Like Ron White says "You can't fix stupid!!!"

 

Good luck

[bluetuesday]

It's not a question of being able to occupy myself, even to the extent that I forget all my problems. It's more a question of what life means when I live it only for myself. To me it doesn't mean much without someone to share it with. It's not complete.

 

i'm curious about this statement, johan.

 

what it appears you're saying, is that if someone isn't in love with you, isn't involved with you romantically, you're life has less meaning than if they were. you suggest that without a mate, you're selfish. you only have yourself to think about and what is the point of that?

 

is there anything stopping you making a difference to other people's lives while you're single? if you don't want to live a selfish life, you don't have to. there are a million ways you can give your time and create meaning for your life.

 

you can visit someone in hospital who doesn't have any family. you can help out for an hour a week at a homeless shelter. you can go and read books to people in the retirement home down the road. collect the old lady across the road's shopping to save her old hips from making the journey. you can walk the dog of the single mum next door to give her 30 minutes to herself once in a while. you can do stuff, johan, to help other people.

 

you have already learned that a life lived for yourself is meaningless. that's great progress. money, gadgets, flash cars, material acquisitions don't make you happy. what makes you happy is what you GIVE OF YOURSELF. not what you get. you think right now that finding miss right will give you something to focus your attention on. but you can be focusing your attention right now because there are plenty of people who need you. give of your time, your attention, your love to other people, and you'll never be lonely.

 

and once you have learned that miss right isn't the answer to all your problems - once you know that you are loved and worth something and making a difference already - you'll be best placed to meet her.

 

My happiness will always be tied to some extent to the quality of companionship I have in my life.

 

you need to work on this with a view to getting past it. it doesn't matter what most people are like. why do you want to be like them? a relationship doesn't change a thing. happiness doesn't arrive with the right girl. if you are to be truly happy, your happiness cannot be based on external factors. truly happy people in love take that happiness into the realtionship with them. if you don't do this, you always run the risk that happiness could be taken away - and therefore you cannot be unshakeably happy.

 

it's not a catch 22. it's just a matter of finding meaning first. then you have a gift for your partner. that gift is not burdening them with responsibility for your happiness.

[Kittiecat]

While self assessment is good, spending too much time assessing one's self is self-defeating. Understand?

 

Watch Rocky. That'll get your testosterone pumping. Then go to the bookstore and find that chick. Seize the day, man!!! You can do it!!!

She rejects you? So what. Rejection blows but constantly wondering "what if" blows even harder. So do yourself a favor and get back on that horsie. Godspeed!

[westernxer]

But it's the time with a real-life woman that freaks me out. I don't believe that's my strength, keeping one around and gaining a life-time commitment. I think women don't want that with me. And that makes any kind of attempt at dating seem scary and futile.

 

That's what I'm talking about.

 

On the other hand, I kind of like my independence.

 

I just got back from Idaho, so my mind is somewhat warped on the subject, given that I was an oddity up there... 33 and not even married. Another week and they'd lock me up for being a menace to society.

[pricillia]

Johan...

 

I think based on your posts you are so funny, Pick yourself up brush youself off and get going, If you have to take a break then that is fine but don't give up. If you care about yourself then someone will care about you.

 

Everyone has preferences about thier Love, height weight ethnicity ect ect.. that is fine, and sometimes taste changes...

 

Have confidence in yourself and you will attract what you are looking for!

 

But may I ask why you call women chicks... Just something to think about

 

sorry guys...

[lonelybird]

I just lose the ability to imagine a woman would seriously want to be with me.

I haven't gotten much indication that I have what women want. The women I loved the most have all moved on.

Do you seriously want to be with a woman? Even she get old, or get fat one day? (even 'hot chicks' has the limits of outer beauty) it seems you questioning "the ability to imagine a woman would seriously want to be with me" is like you questioning "can I image I would seriously want to be with a woman"?

from your post I think you are charming, humor, insightful,confident guy, and "constantly flirt with 'hot chicks'. j/k

[serial muse]

sigh. i have nothing much to add except that i know a little of how johan feels. it's not a question of there being no one to date out there, it's a question of finding what a friend of mine calls the "sparkle".

 

once you've felt the sparkle, it's insanely hard to go back to dating without it - and, frankly, to going about your daily life without it. things are just a bit greyer.

 

i miss the sparkle, but i can't seem to locate it, though i go out on plenty of dates, have awesome friends and a job i enjoy. but now i know how magical the world can feel and i miss that, damn it. and it makes me doubt myself and my own powers of attraction, if i can't just summon up the sparkle on my own and radiate about with it.

 

so i think i get you, johan.

[Ariadne]

Hey,

 

A multitude of overweight women from the rural midwest liked me.

Several Nigerians showed interest.

I actually got to know a girl who lives over a thousand miles away

 

Hahahahaha

 

I could easily just live and consume oxygen and take up space my whole life. I could make it my life's purpose to be financially secure in my retirement and to have neat stuff. Woopee.

 

That's exactly how I feel. (Except that I don't care to be financially secure in the retirement. I just hope I die before that).

 

Pick a fat, lazy, ugly, stupid guy who has a wife or girlfriend. I feel he has more value to the world than I do.

 

Isn't that something? I saw a program on tv about this woman that had "no legs" so she walked with the hands. And even "she" had a loving husband (with legs) and two loving children.

 

I feel that there is something about him that makes him a better man, and his wife see it in him.

 

I don't think he's a better man...Just happier, or complete in a sense.

 

But no woman sees that in me. And I lose confidence that any woman I would want ever will.

 

Well, I think is a matter of finding the right match. But that is like impossible. People should be born with a manual or a clue at least where to find that person.

 

Ariadne