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I gave up on love as soon as I realized finding a life partner was not my goal, and it was a long and winding process to understand why I was not interested in romantic relationships.
Look, I've got love in my life such that it is spilling out at the seams. I have many friends from a variety of aspects of my life. Many of those friendships date back to high school, with some even earlier. It is a full-time job to keep up with all the people I care about. Currently, with my dad having been suffering from dementia, I"m scrambling to re-establish those ties after having neglected them for too long.
But after stepping away from dating for a few years, I started to look at my past. I was curious - why couldn't someone who has a ton of meaningful relationships with friends manage a romantic relationship? I have a high sex drive to boot.
Turns out, the mother I had assumed was normal is kind of a nightmare from a psychological perspective. She's manipulative and controlling and just generally unstable. Emotional intimacy beyond friendship is really a bridge too far - I have inherent trust issues that have nothing to do with jealousy. Therapy is a wonderful thing, but given my current happiness levels, I don't know if I want to fix myself to pursue a meaningful relationship. My life is otherwise very full and fulfilling.
But yeah, I'm doing the FWB thing. Amusingly, I met this guy before I stopped dating and rapidly came to understand he was pretty damaged. Eventually I came to realize that I was almost as damaged and for entirely different reasons. I'll just come right out and say that I love him. But I love all my friends, and he really is a friend in deed as well as name. We don't do romantic things typical of real couples. We get together, talk a lot, share a meal and then go back to one of our places and rip each other's clothes off. It's exactly what I do with my other friends, except I don't sleep with my friends.
And yeah, I feel safe with him. We respect each other's boundaries and limitations. There is no judgment, no expecting change or growth from each other. We are just a good time for each other. Eventually, one of us will likely move on. It's kind of a given. But for now it works. I doubt I'll seek out something else after it ends because I don't know that I could find that kind of compatibility, and FWB turns into a trainwreck when the expectations don't match. But life could surprise me.
My two best friends in the world are my age, never married and uninterested in dating. We are planning our retirements together. I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend my golden years with.
Yeah, I gave up on ROMANTIC love a while ago, but there are a lot of different kinds of love in my life.
I sometimes feel held back by the trauma I experienced with my ex-husband cheating on me and I’m single because should be right now and I have not made it a priority. I am enjoying my life being single and learning more about myself. Feels like such a ray of sunshine nothing having to deal with a lying sob and following my dreams whatever they may be.
I haven't given up, per se. Occasionally, I still make a feeble effort with OLD. (most women's profiles in my area leave much to be desired, and I have a hard time finding something to say to most of them... so I don't. And, to be fair, the women I do contact, aren't interested in me, either.) Since I also don't talk to a lot of people in real life, I'm trying to accept that I'm probably going to be single indefinitely.
What is love? Most of the time people think love is all about having someone and jumping into a relationship. In my opinion, love is unconditional giving and forgiving. When you really love someone, it doesn't always mean two of you have to be together, instead, it could be exactly the opposite, and that's to let the other person go.
Do I still believe in love? Truth is, I don't even know any more. I see myself unconditionally giving to people around me and places I visit, but I don't know if that's love. I feel like I didn't come to this world with anything to give, so I trouble my parents in the first place to feed me and raise me, and trouble more to the community for my well being. After decades, I realize I should be the solution to the society and not be the problem. I know the moment I die, other than my family who is going to mourn me, no one will miss me.
So the answer is, is not about giving up on love, but what you can do as a human being, even when you know you will be forgotten after you die.
I recently did a last drive on OLD through some phone apps for almost half a year.
I realized I currently do not have enough or the right things to offer for a decent girl to be interested.
And that might be flattering myself since a decent girl in this case has been watered down to nearly any non-obese, normal-gifted girl.
It's when I come to the conclusion that I can't lower my standards so far that I can actually expect a return that the pointlessness of it becomes apparent.
SO... either I have to vastly increase my own value, or give up and stop spending tons of time on getting absolutely nothing, and since I'm unaware of how to achieve the former it really only leaves the latter.
Of course, I'm a disabled person, and have been told repeatedly by the women I asked out that I wasn't worth dating because of it. One even looked me right in the eye and said "do you really think I'd ever go out with a retarded crippled freak like you". Another said she didn't want to waste time on somebody who shouldn't even be alive, and that the food I eat, and medicine I take were wasted on me and should go to somebody who actually deserved to live.
This is an honest question: are you making this up or embellishing? If not, it utterly shocks and depresses me to know that there are such nasty, vicious people in the world.
With all due respect, it sounds like you have terrible taste in women, and that might be a bigger part of the problem than you realize. I know that modern dating is tough -- believe me --but, asking out better quality women (I'm talking about their characters) might be, at the very least, a less demoralizing experience, even if you don't find "the one" as soon as you'd like.
Me too, I think that some people have other purposes in life than find a significant other, and thatis my case. Bad luck, confussions, and sad moments don't worth for me.
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