Sup y’all I asked out a girl I’ve really liked she denied the invitation :/ I feel pretty sad about it and I don’t really have someone to talk to about this since my closest friends have horrible views on women and relationships in general. They’d just give me horrible advice that would just get me more upset, so I guess I’ll go and rant about it here while I listen to sad music lol.
I got to know her through a friend group that formed after I finished highschool and we still hang out as a group every once in a while if everyone’s in town so I see her on a semi regular basis.
I first started having feelings for her a long time ago, back when I was up to all kinds of stupid shit and a generally annoying person, I like to hope that I’ve been improving although I’ll probably look back in a few years and think the same thing :D. Anyways, our friend group went on a vacation back then and I tried to kiss her towards the end of it which she just kind of pushed me away. I still have intrusive thoughts about it to this day 😖.
Safe to say I had no idea how to approach a girl back then and I’m still struggling a lot with it to this day. I’m pretty good at socializing and getting people to laugh and I also think I’m decent at flirting but once it get’s to intimacy I get extremely scared of making advances so when I do it just turns into me being very awkward. That’s probably why I generally avoid situations where someone would expect me to become intimate with them. Just thinking about kissing someone gives me huge anxiety although I also want to experience it, which is why I have never been in a relationship and only had a few intimate experiences with a friend who lives in another city. I identified as demisexual for a while due to that but I’m kind of unsure about it now. Maybe it’s also some psychological issue going back to my childhood.
So after that happened I kind of gave up on her and that was that, until like 10 months ago. She texted me out of nowhere asking for some advice with her younger brother who apparently had drug problems, since I’m somewhat experienced with drugs and addiction and I also study psychology. I gave her some advice on how to approach and support someone suffering from addiction and gave her some resources like Narcotics Anonymous etc., so far so good. I then asked her whether she wants to talk about how she’s coping and to my surpise she did, and really opened up. We talked about how we both feel responsible for our younger siblings (we’re both the oldest) and how it can be hard when you don’t get through to them. She seemed really thankful for that and I felt so happy that I was able to give her some kind of support dealing with that shit.
At that point the feelings were starting to come back. I started to really admire her again. She’s super smart and you we’ve had long talks about law and the feasibility of a peaceful revolution given german law (she studies law), feminism and some other stuff. I’ve learned a lot from her and she also seemed to appreciate and enjoy our conversations which we have been having more and more of since she texted me about her brother. Shortly after Christmas we were on our way to a club when she rightuflly dunked on me for a bad prositution take which got me motivated to look into the issue from a marxist perspective. I found the book “revolting prostitutes” being recommended on lemmygrad and I went through it in 3 days before I gave it to her for new years eve, which she was super happy about. She was rellay suprised and had the most beatiful smile when she opened the book. All in all I had the feeling that everything was going pretty well.
We just came back from a short vacation with a part of the friend group mentioned above. That is, her and three other (male) friends were visiting a common (male) friend. So she was kind of part of the “guys vacation” which was a bit awkward but it all went well and everyone had a good time. We (as in me and her) even enjoyed a stroll at the beach with the rest of the guys being like 100m behind us. I was feeling like I was walking on clouds, it was great :) I couldn’t get myself to make a move tho, since all the other guys were there and that really gets my anxiety regarding intimacy going so left it at that, which I think was the right call. By now I’ve figured it’s better to let it all develop at a pace I’m comfortable with since I don’t want to put myself in a situation were my anxiety fucks me over again.
She called me this morning because she had apparently lost her wallet on the flight back. She found it like 10 min later and we texted a bit joking about it. I then decided to shoot my shot and ask her out for dinner. I figured it would be a good time since it’s not very common that were both in the same place and I didn’t want to wait for another few months to get the next chance. Also we just had some nice moments together on vacation so I didn’t want to lose the momentum. Anyways, she responded that she wouldn’t really have time and we should just hang out with the whole friend group instead.
Now I’m having a really hard time interpreting this and just feel sad overall since I had a really good feeling about this. I don’t now whether this is her way of saying that she’s not ready for a proper date yet, or whether she just sees me as a friend? I’ve been questioning everything I was interpreting about how things were going and wondering whether I was just stupid and looking through rose tinted shades (is that a saying?). Maybe proposing dinner was also too uncreative? I’m also scared that I’ll never find somebody and my time is running out. Generally I need a lot of time of getting to know someone before I can imaging having a relationship with someone and she seemed like the perfect match. I admire so much about her and don’t really know anyone like that :( What am I supposed to do? Try to forget about her or keep taking it slow? I feel like her response was quite clear and I don’t want to annoy her anyomre if the feeling isn’t mutual but then again I can’t imagine there are no feelings at all on her side and feel like I shouldn’t give up on it yet.
Shit sucks but writing this makes me feel a bit better at least. Also I’ll go and play some poker with a few friends now so I’m looking forward to that. Anyways, feel free to give me some advice it would be much appreciated. Y’all seem to be decent people who have more experience with this stuff so I’d love to hear your thoughts comrades <3
I agree with everyone here.
I only noticed one thing that wasn’t mentioned when reading, which I would like to comment on, it’s a bit of advice on maybe what to try to do in the future, but only if you want it :)
Yes please!
I think you did mostly good things. In the end, in my experience/opinion, every person in the world has a bunch of potential romantic partners that would be very compatible. Of course, there are some behaviors/mindsets that are in general more attractive, like healthy confidence, cleanliness and so on, but I don’t want to talk about those. The only difference would be that the percentage of compatible partners you have would rise.
What I really wanted to say was simply to make your move as early as you feel any romantic/mental attraction.
First of all, you’re being more honest, more true with yourself, which usually in my experience will make you feel better about yourself.
Secondly, you save a bunch of time when you will inevitably get rejected. Dating is always a numbers game, if you like 5% of women and the women like 5% of men, then only 0.25% of encounters will actually result in a potential romantic one. The only way to find out is to try.
Third, this will also save you from forming an attachment that’s too deep in the 95% of cases where you like a woman that doesn’t like you back. It will simply just happen often that you like someone and they don’t like you back, like others have said, most often not really even having anything to do with you doing anything wrong, just because of her situation or other external factors.
In this case this sounds like that time to make a move would have been after your advice sessions. You can just do your asking for a date that you did after the vacation right there instead. If there is any interest at all, she’ll likely say yes, it’s not really necessary to wait for an even deeper feeling.
But yes, as I and others have said, you’ve been doing well, this is mostly just optimization advice.
Thanks. This is good advice.
I’m sorry you got the wind knocked out of your sails. But you did mostly right, good instincts.
First it was good that you didn’t make a move on her on the beach in front of all her friends. You’re unlikely to progress a relationship in front of a peer group. The risk is too high: that they’ll be judged, or that it’ll ruin other relationships with those peers.
Second you accepted the rejection with grace. This is good, as it’s never worthwhile to put someone you say you care about through a bad time. Besides, a rejection is usually less about you than you might think. For example:
Anyway my advice would be to move on (mentally – don’t like physically change houses). The easiest way to do that is to date other people… to that end I have some practical advice I can offer you.
First your increase your chances at attracting a partner if you are healthy and fit. This answers any potential deal-breakers about your fitness, lifestyle, potential as a parent, etc. So eat a lot of lean chicken and vegetables, and commit to drinking 4 litres of whole milk each day every third week and lift heavy weights (e.g. Stronglifts or Starting Strength).
Second, learn how to talk. This is hard, but force yourself to say something to a complete stranger every day. Later increase the difficultly (say something to someone near to your age, say something to a woman every day, compliment a stranger, compliment a woman stranger). Keep track of your progress and keep practicing and it gets easier.
Third, live an interesting life. Avoid being at home in the evening. Take a dance class, join a dance crews, pick-up an instrument an go to open-mic night, karaoke, join a social group (via meetup?) for your age group.
Anyway, if you’ve done 1, 2, 3 then you should be meeting and talking to potential partners regularly. You’ll be in peak physical condition and not at all nervous… and you’ll do just fine.
4l of whole milk every day for a week every three weeks? What’s that about?
GOMAD (gallon of milk a day). I thought that was kind of a meme?
I’ve not heard of it. Not sure I’d do it tbh. Seems a bit… not something I’d want to try. That’s a lot of saturated fat!
It’s not a meme. It works. Especially for men in their 20’s and 30’s.
It’s kind of like low cost insurance. People have a natural tendency to eat a similar calorie amount everyday. Society talks about mesomorphs, endomorphs, ectomorphs, but as far as I can tell there is no science backing this (instead these differences arise from the different daily calorie amounts). So GOMAD basically ensures a beginning weight trainer is getting enough healthy calories for muscle growth. It combats the “hard-gainer” phenomenon.
Milk is a good source of protein and calories, tho it is kind of cheaper and more convenient to just buy some protein powder.
That makes sense. Drinking 4l of milk for 140g protein seems inefficient and unhealthy.
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pigginz has a valid viewpoint. Most people I’ve given this advice to respond in similar ways. I think it comes down to two fundamental conflicts, the first is about “Being true to yourself” vs doing otherwise.
Did you see the Barbie movie? There is this great quote:
The idea is that “you are you”, and it’s more fundamental than superficial things like your clothes, body, job, conversational skills, etc. But if this is true, the idea cuts both ways: if “you” are not any of these things then you may change any of these things and still be true to yourself (because these things are not you!). Sort of absurd. “You” in some sense includes your capabilities, relationships (with people and property), your job, fashion sense, your family, your history, etc. But in a more immediate sense, I think “you” must certainly include your actions. Ken in that movie was an asshole because he acted like one.
So “being true to yourself” vs not is a factor whenever you change your actions. You choose to go to the gym. You choose to talk to strangers . You choose to leave the house. Perhaps you feel that making these choices will have violated your integrity, but I feel that’s hard to sustain which will become clearer when we look at the second fundamental conflict: Is it immoral to choose to act this way?
I would posit that you choose to do these things because you desire a certain outcome. That in itself isn’t immoral, because that’s why we’re all communists. We act certain ways (e.g. by reading books, posting, organizing) because we hope to achieve a certain outcome (a better society). But some actions are certainly immoral: but it depends on both the action and the motivation behind it. For example if you become a life guard because you want to save people, that’s moral. If you become a life guard because you intend to let a select few hated enemies drown, that’s immoral.
It’s immoral to lie and/or pretend to be something you are not, but it’s moral to present yourself as well you can, as far and wide as you can, because you want to attract a partner. But morality requires you to act with honesty, consideration and care towards others.
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