Being around people feels like I’m holding my breath. Anyone. Even the person I’ve been dating for over a decade. But I need so desperately to be alone so I can breathe.
When people mistreat their significant others it triggers something in me. I overcompensate, doting on my SO. I make dinner, bake treats, clean, take care of doggo, and work full time. I get from Friday night to noon on Saturday for myself, and those are the only hours of the week where I feel like I can relax.
I care about my partners. I only want the best for them, but I’m so tired.
Not my case cause I’m happily taken but I hate seeing my colleagues and friends just mindlessly “dating”. No objectives, no direction, just going out for the sake of intoxication and fornication, and sometimes they get into situationships, sometimes they don’t, their longest relationship is a 6 month fling. How hedonistic, immature and overall depressing.
The tea is that ever since they made reliable, non-disgusting or super invasive contraception, nothing has been the same. Sure, an intelligent person can still make their way in the world but most people are basically cattle so, if they’re not lucky enough to be rightly guided, they’ll just act in the expected ways. Imagine how different things would be if the possibility of pregnancy was truly always there. Abortions are really uhh uncomfortable at the very least on different levels, and most ladies aren’t planning on getting one, so that’s no solution either. Both men and women would keep it in their pants, date for the purpose of finding a partner with whom you could build a life and a family with and avoid fornication (for “practical” reasons and not just ethical ones). And then people would more easily get paired up, and there would be fewer confusions regarding romantic relationships. Hook-up culture is the expected result of reliable contraception and a lack of ideology/moral teachings regarding sex and relationships. What else could happen in the vacuum of guidance besides hedonism and confusion ? But the cat is out of the bag now so y’all will have to make these decisions yourselves, without the motivating risk of unwanted children.
All the goddamn lying.
The way it requires socially navigating talking to another person.
every year I get a little older, a little more damaged, and a little less desirable; and the age bracket of people I’d be interested in get more baggage of their own and have more expectations of a potential partner. I’m in my late 20s living with family, and nobody really wants to date me already; I can’t fathom that will improve any in the future being a 30-something living with family (as I will likely still be too poor to leave).
Probably gonna die alone. Can’t wait, this place sucks anyhow.
Looking at late 20s as old blows my mind. I looked at a genealogy site and so many of my ancestresses married in their late 20s. I was surprised by that but apparently it’s never been uncommon. My mom too, she married around age 30.
late 20s is when a lot of my friends gave up on what they thought were their ideal partners and ended up happy with people they never considered in the past.
yeah no I haven’t even managed to lose my v-card or really even have a meaningful romantic relationship, about the closest I came was someone leading me on and playing mind games with me for a few months. 🙃
Given my success so far, it’s easy to extrapolate “when will I find the one?” to “probably never”.
This is unsolicited advice so feel free to ignore, especially if it sounds “twee.”
What i think helps is:
- having a positive mindset, because it’s almost like people can sense when you are yearning to get into a relationship
- in the same vein, treat potential mates as potential good friends. Your first few meetings with them is like their “informal interviews for being a friend.” You can invite them on a date (or just to do something together as friends)1 which is the final interview, which lets them get the higher position in your social circle.
- I don’t say that to complicate what should already be simple; firstly, it’s getting not simple in this day age, because people don’t know what to do with all the dating apps and SM. Secondly, the message is just create a more relaxed low pressure atmosphere for them
- to revisit the first point - this is just something many people say, and i have experienced in my own life: stop seeking a partner and one will stumble into your life. This might be why people already committed relationships get a lot of attention; they seem self satisfied.
I also just want to say that more people are in your position than you think ❤️. Zoomed are the most sexless and relationship generation, after all.
Yes, actually I’ve ceased actively looking for a partner for the better part of a year now. Little has changed, except I now have fewer apps on my phone. (I do still maintain one dating profile on an open source app but I check it on the order of twice a year because the app is dead, feel free to guess which)
More room for memes is cool, I guess
also I’ve tried solicited advice and it rarely helps either, so I don’t really care. It’s on me whether I follow it, and terrible advice is usually not subtle to everyone reading in a public forum. Do your worst, none of us are getting any younger.
Oh my, I actually thought people got less picky when they went longer without getting married. Mixed messages I suppose.
i’m in my late 20s living with family, and nobody really wants to date me already
There’ll be more people in the same situation soon, if that’s any consolation. I’m living with my family during uni and might even be stuck here for a while afterwards.
I never liked “dating” at all, my two long relationships grew from sexual hookups. Going out with someone with an intent to grow it just bothers me, how in the world can you know? Just have fun and something will stick.
Worst part is breakup or even worse, death. The end is the worst part, even if it’s gotten so bad you need it to end.
The „what are we to each other“ phase. Granted, that’s probably more of an issue for me than most others because I‘m poly / non-monogamous, so the expectation that intense flirting leads to more often isn’t there.
I‘ve been in so many situations where both sides were unsure how far the other side wants to go. Do I just kiss them? Do I ask for a kiss? Do I call them my partner? Would openly asking scare them away? Do I fuck up by not doing any of that? Sometimes it feels like two teenagers in a romance story who are very much into each other but too scared to do anything about it.
In one case it has been going for years. We flirt a lot, we hug and cuddle and for a while we kissed every time we met. Then I said „I love you“ and they got scared that those words come with expectations. We talked about it but no more kisses so far.
I usually get told to slow down, didn’t realise at first that there was any societal expectation not to just show as much passion as you’re feeling. I guess it stems from women wanting their male mates to demonstrate an ability to have self control, as that’s desirable in a mate and men tend more to rush towards physical things - and the same also applies for gay couples, i’m sure.
Apps.
I hate when a person goes from being your best friend to someone who’s just around after they’ve got what they wanted out of the relationship.
Let you know when I’m in one.
The actual dating part. Aside from 2 relationships I had in my high school days, everyone I dated I met through dating apps and it just feels forced. Like, we didn’t meet naturally and know literally nothing about each other, so it just feels like work to accomplish a goal and not having fun with a friend. So much effort is spent getting to know the other person and it kinda feels like a job. I wish I could skip that part and just be in the “best friends that have sex” phase forever.
Dating apps make me SICK. They should be wiped out. All of us who oppose them should form our own microstate; we’re anti AI, anti dating apps, I’m sure there’s a lot more common ground than that.
Even though i don’t think I believe in “soulmates” I’m scared that the suitors best suited for me are going to never meet me because women my age seem afraid of relationships that aren’t struck up via dating app.
Someone showed interest in me then gave me the cold shoulder because apparently not having social media means I’m not “on the dating market”? I’m worried it will happen again ad infinitum, basically.
I love getting to know new people. Especially in the context of sexual tension. People are so interesting when it’s about themselves, their emotions, worldviews and preferences.
Getting to know what people are genuinely excited about is always fun! To me at least.
Maybe don’t force it? Just hang out with them. If it’s fun, do it again.
I wish I could skip that part and just be in the “best friends that have sex” phase forever.
“Success is your journey, not your destination”.
The expectation on me to be the instigator/aggressor in all interactions. In either connotation of that statement
Yes it’s -_-
it also means all fault and responsibility is in your camp, and the other person considers themselves blameless in all things.
In certain places and frameworks. It’s happened the other way around where I live to where dudes got to walk free after SAing a child. But either was seems to not be as much of a thing in cultures that are less focused on punitive justice
My least favorite thing about love is losing the people I love, no matter how they were lost
Uhh… you… you didn’t murder them did you?
Uhh… No, this world did
The fact I’ve not had anything like that in as long as I’ve lived, and I’m no teen anymore
Not having them but having to hear other people talk about them constantly.
