Now I will say it's not really anyone's fault. Women looking for men probably don't see what the other women on the site's profiles look like. Likewise my profile might be a trope as well. But men do have to go out of their way to stand out to get a decent chance at a connection.
You're right. Everyone is interesting once they open up a little.
The goal though isn't to show how you're different from the herd, it's to show that you're better than the herd, for whichever sub-herd you're signaling membership. That strategy preserves maximum choice.
Something interesting I've noticed, is that trying to break that mold is considered negative. If you look at subreddits that tend to give out advice (typically to men) on dating profiles, they advise people to do things that make their profiles more generic.
I personally avoid dating apps, because I'm not attractive enough (or at least, not photogenic enough, somehow cameras almost always manage to clown me) and I'm not outwardly interesting enough to attract people by reducing myself down to a few pictures and text snippets.
This needs to be hugely caveated. If you skip dating for five to ten years, you're gonna jump back in fresh and probably fuck things up terribly the first few times. Too eager, too indifferent, too clingy, too distant, etc... you're gonna be terribly out of practice at it all.
It's a skill, like anything else it takes practice. There's altogether too much BS out there about people being "meant to be" versus people putting in the work on both sides to create something real.
These are generally personality traits of someone who is not well adjusted. If you are the type of person who can become professionally and personally (think friendships and any other non-sexual relationship) successful, then you'll probably be fine jumping back into the dating pool even if you've only dabbled casually for a pretty long period of time.
You might also quite reasonably be confident in your professional and personal-friend lives, but be lacking some of that confidence in dating, since you haven't done it for years. These aren't transferable domains for a lot of people.
I was on dating sites and apps for several years before I started having any luck finding much, much less something serious, and every moment of it was valuable practice in an area that didn't come naturally to me at all. My career situation also improved throughout those years, sometimes faster than my dating skills, and I quickly learned that having a nicer car did me 0 favors while I was still uncomfortable on a date in the first place. None of that professional practice applied - was I going to talk about load balancers and HA strategies on the date?
I've had a long string of failures after starting dating (Post covid vaccine) and just felt so incapable of being next to another person.
It's like all this time quarantined as put my dating skills back to zero (not that they were ever good). I feel so broken, like shards of glass that cuts anyone who tries to touch me.
But you have inspired to to once again glue all my broken shards together and try and try again.
Thank you.
That’s why you should never stop dating, even after you’ve met someone. You never know when you’ll break up and have to find someone else. Best to stay sharp.
I don't know... I'm not sure most women would be comfortable dating a man in his early 30's who'd never had a relationship of any kind...
Because you then have established so much of who you are independent of the interactions between yourself and a who-would-be spouse, there's a greater chance that you'll have even more to disagree over.
You're only creating more difficulties for yourself. Beyond the intricacies of a crystallized person, there's a smaller dating pool, it's more difficult to get pregnant, you have a greater difficulty acquiring assets not having another person you're working together through life with.
Yes, those women in their 20s will want to date you, but if you're in your 30s, you're effectively dating a kid. They absolutely do not have the same experiences you will have at that point in time unless you did no personal growth for a decade.
And also as I mentioned below but just to make sure it's clear: if you aren't comfortable dating, then you should date as often as you can because it can be genuinely fun and fulfilling and lead to very positive outcomes. If you _are_ comfortable dating and do well with the opposite sex of your preference, but just aren't satisfied with what's out there or it feels forced and unenjoyable, then you _might_ benefit from focusing more on developing yourself rather than focusing on the partner search. It's a cliche but once you're truly in a good place with yourself, you tend to attract to the right people into your life.
Temporarily. Then you divorce and lose all of those assets. It’s not a gamble I would recommend based on expected financial gains for sure.
P.s. I've learn just enough bass to meet my wife !
I go out socialising/partying less now, and am on the PC more (games, projects, etc - most of my interests are on PC). Your advice creates the people in the article!
"Today" is an interesting word choice. This seems like a lingering problem originating in the past, when women were entirely expected to depend on a man to provide, and were NOT expected to have stuff going on in their own life beyond being fertile and useful around the house and of good family background...?
What's the line? "Feminism is for men too"?
Men who just want hookups can keep such women's calendar filled for a while but aren't going to be really doing that providing in the long run.
But in general, the obsession with not being a loser is dangerous for everyone: not everyone will be in the top 10%, and not everyone will attract someone in the top 10%, by simple math, and yet people of both gender's are convinced that it's the other group that has the unreasonable standards...