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In fact you are faced with two very unnapealing choices. Spend the rest of your life alone or face the often unpleasant dating minefield. It's not easy. In fact it's all rather depressing, but I find at least when I am making an effort I can look myself in the mirror and be satisfied I am doing the best I can.
I tire of hearing "you will die alone if you don't date." I once worked as a nursing assistant. Believe me when I say most of the demented people stuck in nursing homes are not single people who have never had kids. Most of them were/are married and most of them had kids. I met one bachelor out of the hundreds I took care of.
It is called divorce. I've never had divorced parents, but given how Boomers act and how my generation acts, dealing with the dating minefield is no guarantee of a spouse and if you find a spouse, no guarantee that the marriage will last 'till death do you part.
Good for you, OP, but c'mon, it's only been 4 weeks since you started that thread. That's like a married person saying "my marriage is freakin' awesome and we're going to be happy forever and ever" after like 6 months of marriage.
Any9one can go a month or two or three and be ok with not dating at all. The true test is if you can go years.
Good for you, OP, but c'mon, it's only been 4 weeks since you started that thread. That's like a married person saying "my marriage is freakin' awesome and we're going to be happy forever and ever" after like 6 months of marriage.
Any9one can go a month or two or three and be ok with not dating at all. The true test is if you can go years.
It has been over 2 months since my last date, a year since my last relationship.
Nothing wrong with acknowledging progress in my long path. Not even a year ago I was so heartbroken I had trouble breathing on a daily basis. I couldn't sleep, it hurt physically to be without her. I had sacrificed my interests and dreams to be with her and when she dumped me without notice I had nothing.
In the last year I've worked very hard on myself.
-I've lost weight and strengthened my core.
-I joined a baseball league (which I just found out I made the better of the two teams I tried out for)
-I found a way out of my dead end job and found a job at a company I can build a long term career at and pays me twice as much as the last job.
-I started guitar lessons and still doing so 6 months later, I can play dozens of songs already.
-I bought car and no longer have to bum rides off friends and family
-I've moved out of my sht hole apartment with frat boy pig roommates and got my OWN apartment
-I'm planning my first ever camping trip next month
-I'm also booking flights soon to London and taking a 2 week backpacking trip in western Europe (I've never left the US before in my life).
-I've paid off 100% of my debt that I had racked up during a time I was unemployed yet never seemed to make enough to pay it off, now I am completely debt free.
These are all things I've done in just the last year alone. There's nothing wrong with taking a look back and seeing how far I've come now.
I never would have pushed myself to do any of these things if it weren't for being crushed so badly.
"I'm not one to die easily, and if I do, I will rise from the ashes."
Chi-turtle, good for you and all the progress you have made over the last year. I have always turned the disappointment and depression from the demise of a relationship into motivation for self improvement. It has always seemed I was able to focus on self improvement more effectively after such an event. I have recently went through a pretty rough break-up myself where I sacrificed (willingly) a lot for a woman who I thought was worth it (and in many ways she was worth it). I'm 33 and looking back I have always seemed to move from relationship to relationship fairly easily (I really didn't try it usually just happened). After the end of my most recent relationship I took it pretty hard. It was actually harder on me than my divorce. I think it was so rough because I felt for the first time I had met "the one" and I actually never believed in that. And I also think it was so rough because it was so abrupt, it went from good relationship for almost 2yrs to done in about a month with no real fight or issue, just done. She asked to go no contact and thats where I left it. We had been planning a move across the country together and for whatever reason she decided to make the move on her own and start fresh.
Anyway, more relative to your post. I dated a little bit since (it's only been about 7 months) but for the first time ever I have had a rather negative experience with dating so I have decided to just drop it. I'm busy with work and school plus I'm planning to relocate within the year. I've just decided to take the next year to focus on myself and going in a new direction in life. Like you I have made the decision to not date or even look.
A few of my friends and I have had this same discussion recently. Each of us are in our early to mid 30's, educated, gainfully employed, physically fit and active yet the concensus we have all reached about dating is "why bother". I was sort of hoping this was a "midwest phenomenon"!
Good luck to you and as for being happy I do believe that happiness must come from within. It sounds like you're in the right track. You sound happy, you sound like you have gained more "stability" in your life and so that means if someone did happen to come along you are in a good position to make the best of it!
It's funny, some people never "date" as in going out with strangers or people they meet online, they just meet people through the course of their lives (usually a friend of a friend or a coworker) and get to know them by hanging out and doing whatever the hell they do, realize they like each other, flirt, and start a relationship. Maybe you should just do that and not overthink things.
If you "sacrificed interests and dreams" for someone you dated for a few months, it's probably a very good idea to take a step back and figure out how to be happy alone. I think it's a bit much to write off dating forever-I suspect you are just hoping to be done with the (bad) experiences you've had thus far-but I do wish you well.
I put over 10 years into searching for a wonderful woman, 4 years into online dating and met many many women. Some were good women, some where not so kind. I've had relationships and I've been shot down after date 1. I think effort only made things more difficult. It's not like other aspects of life. Effort in dating has no effect on the outcome of the situation. I know this to be true from experience.
i wouldn't say that.. you just have to know what you're doing , otherwise your effort will be counterproductive.
i wouldn't say that.. you just have to know what you're doing , otherwise your effort will be counterproductive.
Yes, but how do you get to the point of "knowing what you're doing?" Most likely through experience, and probably negative ones.
Also, I don't want to involve myself in a process that involves mind games. Call it knowing what you're doing, call it playing games, it's the same thing and I just have no interest in that. I'm not that kind of person, I'm very straightforward and I'm not afraid to speak my mind when appropriate. I don't go pouring my heart and soul out to women, but it just seems like they're all playing by the rules of some game that I want no part of. I'd rather just sit out.
If I meet someone in my normal daily life and we just click and something happens then great, but I'm not ever going to ask a girl on a "date" ever again, whether it's in person or online.
Yes, but how do you get to the point of "knowing what you're doing?" Most likely through experience, and probably negative ones.
Also, I don't want to involve myself in a process that involves mind games. Call it knowing what you're doing, call it playing games, it's the same thing and I just have no interest in that. I'm not that kind of person, I'm very straightforward and I'm not afraid to speak my mind when appropriate. I don't go pouring my heart and soul out to women, but it just seems like they're all playing by the rules of some game that I want no part of. I'd rather just sit out.
If I meet someone in my normal daily life and we just click and something happens then great, but I'm not ever going to ask a girl on a "date" ever again, whether it's in person or online.
well, you're not a woman, so if you don't try, then it won't happen.
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