u/throwaway274911037

Personality and Interest wise, me (21M) and my flatmate (23M) are very similar, only big difference is that he gets girls and I don’t, at least for now. Recently I met a girl at university I get along with really well and we are doing a project together. She’ll come over to my place next week so we can work on it, and maybe do something else?

I mentioned this to my flatmate and he immediately suggested that I put on some music for her on my record player while she’s here. I have a very old one I inherited from my grandpa, which still works pretty well and many people seem to be fascinated by. However, I’m very sure that she wouldn’t like the music on most of the vinyls I own (part of which are also inherited), apart from the fact that most of it is not music you could play well in the background while working on something.

My flatmate suggested that he could lend me some vinyls of him. I didn’t even know he had any, especially because he has no record player. He told me that he used to have one, but sold it before we moved in together.

I looked through some of his vinyls, but it was instantly clear that they didn’t really match my tastes. He kept pushing however, arguing that it would be a wasted opportunity. I asked him whether a gimmick like that would even make a difference, and then he said

„Most women are simple. There are many this would work on“

Regardless of whether this works or not (although it does seem to get him far), why should I even bother doing this? Not only would I be dishonest when it comes to what music I listen to, but it would be insulting to her character as well. At least I would be deeply offended if I knew that someone tried to use gimmicks to make me act a certain way because I’m „simple“. Is the reason why he’s more successful in dating than me just because he’s pretending? Do I really have to put on an act to make a good impression? This can’t be the right thing to do

My 21st birthday is coming up soon and lately I’ve been really craving a relationship. Up until now it hasn’t worked out for me really well. I’d even argue that it was due to bad luck. While I was rejected several times in the past, I also had to reject several people that were conventionally attractive and nice, but I wasn’t attracted to. I’d say it’s rather a compatibility issue than me being undesirable and unattractive.

Although dating apps might seriously improve my chances of finding a partner, I really don’t want to use them. There’s not even a big rational reason, I just don’t like the prospect of finding a partner I’d possibly spend important years of my life with through a dating app rather than naturally. Some people I talked about this with said that it’s petty from my side and I should just „get over it“, but for me it’s some sort of pride I’m keeping, even if it will take several more years until I have my first relationship. Does it even matter how I met my partner in the end?

Let‘s call the guy Daniel. A kind person and a pure soul, but just very very anxious around strangers. Since graduating and enrolling in university 2 years ago, he has not made a single acquaintance there. Of course he himself is unhappy with that too, so we as his friends obviously want to help him in whatever way we can.

When we were watching football together yesterday, this topic came up again. Two other friends that were present as well were trying to come up with a plan on how we could help Daniel become more outgoing to strangers and meet new people by himself (while he has only met people through us introducing them to him before). It essentially boiled down to them trying to make him talk to strangers, especially in the context of flirting. The next time they’re going out, they will try to make him try to pick up a girl he finds cute. At least that’s their plan.

I really don’t see how this is supposed to go well. Daniel sometimes already struggled to get involved when the rest of the group was having a conversation with someone he didn’t know well. This just feels like skipping a few steps. Additionally, I’m not even sure if that should be the ultimate goal when it comes to battling his anxiety. After all, most people without social anxiety don’t even like to strike a conversation with strangers like this, so it just feels like overreaching.

Personally I was thinking about him joining a club at his university or taking a sports course, or even just trying to befriend people he has lectures with, because then there’s at least some shared context. This worked perfectly for me, but it was dismissed by the others because that’s „too low of a bar to set“. Maybe it is, maybe it’s not, but I hope this doesn’t end in disaster for him.

Had a group project with a girl at university last semester. We were getting along very well and also met outside of uni occasionally afterwards. At some point I started making moves, but she rejected me in the end. Although the rejection wasn’t messy at all, it got a little awkward as time went on and our contact became less frequent, often limited to just greeting each other on campus.

When she posted something interesting on her Instagram story about a week ago, I replied, and a small conversation developed. I thought nothing of it initially, since I messaged her without any ulterior motives, but since that, I have the feeling that she’s stalking my profile and our old chats for some reason.

For instance, she seemed to have accidentally turned disappearing messages on while browsing our chat, and then turned it back off again. I decided not to comment on that since there are several possible reasons why this can happen, but I was even more surprised when I woke up one morning to a notification that she liked a very old post on my profile, going back way longer than we’ve known each other. When I looked at the post, her like was gone already, so I figured it must’ve been a misclick.

I could just straight up ask her what’s going on, but I really don’t want things to be awkward. Very conflicted on what’s the right move here.

Society makes it very hard, especially for young people to accept, that willingly having no relationship is something completely normal. Although I never really liked the prospect of being in a relationship, typical depictions of love and sexuality, paired with me being young, insecure and in puberty just made me feel like something was wrong with me. Now that I’m 20, I’ve slowly started to come to terms with it, and even enjoy being single. Relationships are a choice, and your self-worth isn’t dependent on them <3