u/yolocake2345

Nowadays, on an average day, there is literally just one topic floating in my mind: The lack of a girlfriend. I'm so tired of the very word girlfriend. I can't normally function anymore, I'm a heavy drinker because my entire emotional world is formed by this one missing thing. I cannot enjoy anything about life anymore. I used to be so enthusiastic about pretty much everything. Sometimes I wake up motivated but as soon as I leave the house the first handsome guy comes strolling along with his gorgeous new girlfriend and my day is ruined already. I really don't want it to be like this but I'm just too easily triggered.

I see so many men at university whom I instinctively know haven't had all that much fun in their lives. There are a few noticeable markers and indicators.

1. Relative shyness, reserve. Most of these men probably feel intimidated by both women and other men. I know what that feels like. You can see a latent sadness in them. With some of them, I get the feeling that they'd like nothing more than being hugged and just start crying.
2. Awkward body language and low self-confidence. You can simply read it from their body language: this person isn't having much fun. Men who are having fun are often extremely energetic and confident. Their body language is smooth as hell.
3. Girls/women are hardly ever a topic of conversation. You can tell that the subject has been suppressed for years. A process of repression has probably taken place a long time ago. Hobbies take center stage, the topics get nerdier...
4. Relatively poor grooming. These men would probably care much more about their appearance if they had a chance and depression didn't catch up to them. But you can tell they've given up years ago. Why bother?

I have some of these traits myself. I'm a relatively energetic, charismatic guy though who isn't necessarily unattractive. And I can say that I have almost zero success. I can talk to a guy who fits these metrics even less than I do and immediately think: This guy is fucking cooked.

It's so surreal that, when it comes to this, we basically live in a two-tier society. We don't even get a slice of the cake.

I met this woman about three or four months ago. We immediately hit it off. She was clearly drawn to my intellectual side and to the quality of our conversations. However, it didn’t take long for the first red flags to emerge. I showed a great deal of interest in her very early on, but from the outset the conversations were relatively one-sided, something that only became particularly clear to me in hindsight. For example, I later realized how little genuine curiosity she actually showed about me as a person. By her own account, she liked it “when people ask her questions.” Yet her questions to me were basically limited to how I envisioned my future (especially professionally) and what I wanted to make of my life and whether I wanted to have kids, or they directly related back to herself, e.g. “What do you think about the way I...?” Much of what I knew about her, I knew because I asked her questions and showed an interest in her. Most of what she knew about me, she knew because I told her.

A push-pull dynamic on her part then emerged relatively quickly, because after our first phone call, during which we talked about my height, and after our first meeting, another issue came into play: she told me that I actually wasn’t her type. She felt attracted to me, but I wasn’t her usual “type” or what she would normally go for. We stayed in contact, and things continued to intensify. Yet this issue remained a problem for roughly two months, as she constantly went back and forth. I also found it strange that she only wanted to meet in my city and, in public, especially in cafés and shops didn’t want me to get too close to her because “it wasn’t the right place.” This wasn’t a huge red flag early on, since some people genuinely don’t like that kind of thing in public, but somehow I got the feeling that she was thinking: “I am kind of attracted to his personality, but I’m not sure right now whether I want the world to think this guy could be my boyfriend.” We talked on the phone frequently, and our calls often ended with hours of intense flirting, during which she absolutely loved listening to all the beautiful things I had to say about her. But the next day, she was usually cold again, and for weeks she didn’t even tell me that she liked me or that she felt anything romantic toward me. She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud; she only implied it through her behavior on the phone and when we met. As a result, I increasingly got the justified feeling that she simply loved hearing all the beautiful things I said to her and basking in my admiration of her. In general, statements such as “What matters most to me is learning from other people,” “I normally don’t miss people,” and “If I move abroad, I’ll just find new friends” have given me the impression that she approaches relationships primarily in terms of what she can get out of them and that the people are relatively interchangeable. “What benefit does this connection provide me?” seems to be at the forefront of her mind.

We had our first arguments after our first date and the intense flirting that followed on the phone, when one night she would simply respond to some lengthy messages from me with “Okay.” I found that passive-aggressive, strange, and inappropriate given the highly romantic nature of our flirting 15-20 hours ago. She argued that I should be glad she was even replying to me while she was out and about, despite not actually having the time. That was the first time I realized that our ideas about empathy and interpersonal relationships differed somewhat. I told her that an “Okay.” in response to a thoughtful message from someone you supposedly like has no value whatsoever. If you don’t have time, either say that, or get back to the message once you’re able to properly engage with it. She later admitted that modern texting conventions weren’t really her thing.

The second major point of conflict arose when I realized that she almost never had any free time. From Monday through Sunday, she was constantly out with friends, involved in clubs and organizations, or attending events, and then we would talk on the phone in the evenings. That in itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was that on her dating profile and during our first phone call, she had described herself as relatively introverted. I pointed out to her that her lifestyle strongly suggested that she was anything but introverted and was actually very extroverted, and that even her explanation that she drew her energy from being around other people was practically the definition of extroversion. She admitted that she had probably misunderstood the term. However, because of the somewhat questioning way I approached it, she also felt attacked, and the whole thing later became a point of contention.

She said that I viewed the world and concepts like these too rationally, that I should simply let the subject go, and that it wasn’t my place to tell her what she was or how she should describe herself. It was the first time I realized that this woman seemed genuinely incapable of accepting criticism if it implied that she might have to change an opinion or original belief because of someone else’s arguments. The same thing happened with her consistently passive-aggressive and terse communication style. When I criticized that, she eventually turned the accusation around on me and said that I was toxic because I was trying to dictate how she should communicate even though I only asked for more warmth and cohesion in her behavior. This constant back-and-forth between flirting, dates, and coldness or uncertainty drove me crazy and yes, I was somewhat pushy at the time. Because she kept giving me hope through our phone calls and dates that she likes me romantically but then acted the in the opposite way.

She could talk to me for hours when the conversation was about her, especially when it concerned her own interests and topics. But whenever the conversation shifted too much toward subjects that were specific to my life, she would often become bored within minutes. On one occasion, she actually said to me, “Can you ask me another question? I’m almost falling asleep,” after I had spent just a few minutes talking about something that was an important part of my life but simply didn’t interest her. That was an absolute low point for me.

And the worst part was this: She was the definition of a drama queen. Whenever it came to arguments in which we had both screwed up, she would usually blow her emotional state out of proportion to such an extent that it put me under massive pressure, because she turned it into a much bigger problem. For example, we would have a discussion about our communication problems in which I criticize her passive-aggressive, constantly shifting way of communicating, and at certain points during the conversation she would actually acknowledge some of my criticism because she would be running out of arguments and I would acknowledge my own mistakes just as openly. The next day, she would come to me and say, “That conversation last night really messed me up. My whole chest felt tight, I couldn’t sleep all night, and I’m completely out of it. My life is a mess right now, I'm really afraid.”

Most of the time, she didn’t actually come back with new counterarguments. Instead, she would simply dramatize the situation to an extreme degree. And what happened as a result? A problem that was actually about both of us behaving badly suddenly became a completely different situation. Suddenly, I was a monster, and naturally I had to start fighting for her again, reassuring her, saying, “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that,” while putting my own criticism aside for the time being. The original problem would then disappear, and we would spend the rest of the argument discussing what I had supposedly done to her that was sooo terrible.

Later, when it came to her extremely passive-aggressive way of texting, she argued: “That’s just your perspective. You are the problem. My friends don’t react that way to messages like these in similar situations.” When I asked her whether she would want to be treated that way herself, she usually couldn’t come up with a proper answer. She seemed to have a massive lack of empathy when it came to these kinds of conflicts and she didn't want to be wrong ever. I found it to be a weird argument anyways, especially since a casual friendship cannot really be compared to such a close romantic relationship that involves intense contact every single day.

She had already told me about her ex-partner. Apparently, the relationship had been extremely toxic. Naturally, according to her, it was entirely because of him. I believed her at first, but by now I’m absolutely no longer sure. Apparently, her former boss had also called her a narcissist. She also told me about someone she had apparently met several times who had developed feelings for her. According to her, she had only wanted to learn from him about a particular subject. Apparently, he simply got the wrong idea and then became weird. Later, he supposedly accused her of having used him. She told me this during one of our first dates. At the time, I thought, “Well, he was probably just some weird, pushy guy,” as there are plenty of those men around. But now I also find myself thinking: Why would he specifically accuse her of using him? It just fits too well with the picture I have of her now.

The whole thing was doomed to fail, but it stayed alive because she kept leaving little doors open for me. During the time we were in contact, she cut off contact around five or six times, and almost every single time she came back to me that same evening and we ended up talking on the phone again. The whole thing became a massive source of leverage for her.

Here, too, she seemed to lack empathy. During our final argument, she told me, “That’s my business. If you’re stupid enough not to end contact, that’s on you.” She has a point. But what she didn’t want to understand was the role she played in it. If someone is in love and therefore behaves stupidly and naively, then that may be stupid and naive, but it isn’t immoral. If someone takes advantage of or deliberately plays on another person’s stupidity and naivety, however, then that is immoral. She obviously couldn’t understand that perspective.

Our contact is over. I’ve been blocked. For her, the feelings are gone. I’m honestly devastated right now. During our final weeks when we started cuddling she told me she experienced some of the most beautiful moments of her life with me (which was most probably an exaggeration too). Later, she said that I had manipulated her and that she never would have agreed with me about anything. For example, during one of her more erratic phases, she said, “I’m just sick and incapable of being in a relationship.” She later claimed that I had pushed her into thinking that way, which was why she said it in the first place lol.

I mean, I started most of the arguments. But I also didn’t see any other option. I wanted more reciprocity, and I never felt completely comfortable with this one-sidedness. I even started deeply disliking the selfish person she is. The way I approached her was often wrong, probably because of this growing dislike. I’m no innocent party here; we argued a lot, and it got ugly. But nevertheless, I poured so much of myself into this. Every evening, I would throw my plans out the window just to talk to her on the phone. She never did that, and never would have. She was constantly out, constantly busy, and everything revolved around her rhythm. I don't even know what to think. I ask myself whether I fucked up or whether she really was that problematic or it was all my fault for even trying to change a dynamic that was never going to work? Am I tripping?

Is there anybody here who knows this problem? I'm a virgin guy (30 years old). I spent much of my twenties being too shy to seek women's attention. By my later 20s I started realizing that being more outgoing actually leads to me getting at least some opportunities. I've had the chance to get intimate with roughly 4-5 women I've dated over the last 2-3 years. But the catch is, despite this painful urge to do the deed I realized that physical attraction matters to me like a lot. It's a terrible place to be in mentally because it makes me feel like a shallow douche and makes me question how valuable these relationships could ever be. I dated these women because there was a spark initially which is what happens I guess, when you've been craving for attention all your life. I thought I found them attractive and all of them were in their own beautiful ways, it just ended up to be a not my type/not for me type situation. The urge to sleep with them while we were dating or cuddling was almost nonexistent and the more we kept dating the more my hope was crushed that attraction could develop through repeated dating and cuddling/togetherness. It's so frustrating because at the time I genuinely enjoyed the company of these girls and thought there was potential but when the initial excitement of "damn, this girl is into me" wore off it came over me like a shocking realization that this was not going to be the girl of my life/I wanted to get sexual with. So I played it fair and cut ties with them as soon as I realized this. But oh lord, here I am, still lonely, still a virgin, still no real intimacy. I know from reading through this sub that people who are perceived as having higher standards are not very popular and I get it because I was in the situation of getting no play at all until 28 or so but it still is sort of a form of well let's call it voluntary involuntary celibacy and I don't see how it's at least effectively terrible to endure in that sense. I don't know why I'm posting this, maybe to hear some similar situations.