Ask HN: How is your dating/romantic life? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How is your dating/romantic life?

1 pointthrwythrwythrwy9 comments

And now, for something that’s not related to AI or B2B SaaS :) .

For some personal context: 29 year-old below-average dev, live in a large city in the US and no real hobbies to speak of. As a lot of my friends and acquaintances around my age settle down into long-term relationships or get married, I’ve been feeling a bit left out and lonely. The latter is something new to me since I’ve always been a loner and never sought out others’ company. I tried to improve on this aspect of my life before but I didn’t really get anywhere. I’m socially awkward and can come off as having a bad personality. After a few unsuccessful attempts at dating, I pretty much just gave up. But I know I can’t procrastinate on it for too long, because the longer I stay single the harder it gets to learn about what I want and actually find a partner.

I’m interested in hearing from others here who might have dealt with this issue. Did you reach out for help? Put down a personal plan for improvement? Just let things be and whatever happens happens?

"live in a large city in the US and no real hobbies to speak of". "I’ve been feeling a bit left out and lonely". " I’ve always been a loner and never sought out others’ company." "I’m socially awkward and can come off as having a bad personality".

To me those sentences above are key to address your issues. You simply need to forget about dating and improve your social life. Embrace curiosity and a sense of wonder, explore hobbies, meet new people, listen others and share your life.

You live in a big city so opportunities are all around you.

Focusing on dating without having a social life is like trying to run without being able to stand on your feet.

Are you a caring person? Do you find yourself good with children or animals? Empathy and being able to take care of another life is one of the most important characteristics if not the most important in a relationship.

If the answer is no, that's okay. Do some soul-searching to see what kind of childhood you had. Try to work through any demons you have before engaging in a relationship. Know yourself. Seek therapy if it would help and try to become a better person who cares about others. And not pretend care, actual desire to help others, make others happy, etc.

Even though it is a bit old today, I would recommend Ross Jeffries "How to lay girls guide." Just critically think, because a lot of the stuff is ethically questionable to/bad.

There is a whole community around ex losers that call themself pickup artists...

I guess that’s the kind of advice that I’m trying to avoid. I can understand and appreciate someone telling me to be more assertive, take care of myself physically etc. and I’d have no problem with it. But a lot of the pickup artistry stuff goes beyond that into things that even I can tell are unhelpful.

I think there is some valuable advice in there that goes beyond simple pickup artistry. Maybe you just subconciously do the mistake to "present" yourself in the wrong light.

It sounds like OP is trying to find a romantic partner, as well as a way to improve himself - not just someone to fuck.

You need to learn to walk before you can learn to run.

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