My Stagnated Love Life

LegacyUser

Hi PI, and welcome to a fascinating tale of adventure, drama, deceit and hope that will envelop you with awe and fill you with sheer amazement.

Err... sort of....


I'm going through one of those phases in my life where I'm realising I'm slightly less than happy and that there's something missing. I suppose there are a number of areas I could improve on, but I'll focus on my love life for now.

By no means has it been an absolutely barren disaster, but I suppose I've been less successful than average with the ladies. I am only 19, which is pretty young, and I understand there's plenty of time to rectify the situation, but knowing where to start is the hard part.

I've had confidence issues for my whole life, which was a pretty crap handicap to begin with. Limited contact with girls (single sex education until 5th+6th year) meant that until I was about 15, the prospect of talking to a girl was quite daunting. Even now I have much less trouble talking to male strangers than female ones.

So, my love life. Was dragged twice to underage discos when I was 14/15 and kissed my first few girls there ("Will you meet my friend?" type affairs). Never got into the underage disco thing on a regular basis. I'm not sure whether this was a good or bad thing. In terms of confidence involving talking to random girls, it was probably bad. On the other hand, the idea of it all isn't too appealing.

Anyway, when I was 15 I started to hang out with girls for the first time. During that summer I was in a group with my friends and several girls. I usually just stood around silently, not being confident enough to say much. Two of my friends went out with two of them. One of the girls initially liked me and I liked her. I got as far as being alone with her at an oppertune moment. I couldn't bring myself to ask her out. She ended up with some other guy, probably eventually considering me a quiet weirdo.

At 16 I started hanging out with a different group of friends which involved some girls. They were more mature than previous friends and for the first time I actually felt confident around girls. After being sure she liked me by consulting with her best friend, I asked a girl out and she said yes. Though the manner by which I went about asking her out wasn't particularly brave, I actually had a girlfriend and was the happiest I'd been in a long time.

It was great for about 5 months, and then she changed completely and was quite psychotic. For some reason, probably me being too afraid to break up with her, we ended up together for a further 5 months (they were hell) before mutually deciding to end it.

The next girl I really liked I hung out with over the summer when I was 17. Unfortunately, despite having had a girlfriend, I was still the same shy person I was before. I should have asked her out early on. She knew I liked her, and I sorta knew she didn't feel the same way (I heard from friends that she had liked me in the past, but didn't now). Nevertheless, I continued to hang out with her. It was one of those typical "nice guy" scenarios. I think she liked the attention without being attracted to me. To be fair to her, she did at one point tell me that she was sorry if she was leading me on, but the attention she paid me confused me. Anyway, it ended up with me texting her while drunk telling her that I really liked her and her replying that she just wanted to stay friends. It wasn't really that awkward between us afterwards, but we kind of naturally drifted apart into different social circles.

Shortly afterwards, on an annual holiday I go on with my family, I clicked with this girl who's my parents' friends' daughter. We'll call her X. I'd known her for years, but never really got on with her til then. Over the next few months we texted and talked on msn a lot, and it was fairly clear she liked me. There was an event on which she needed a date for and she asked me to go with her. I got refused due to lack of ID. That was the closest we came to being in any way a couple. After (over)analysing the situation I convinced myself I didn't really like her. In retrospect, it's true that we would have been a horrible couple, but I think I should have just gone for it regardless. However, shortly after, I met a friend of hers who I had a lot in common with. We'll call her Y.

I had more in common with this girl than any other girl I'd ever met. We'd spoken briefly in the past, but she had a boyfriend and the thought of getting with her never crossed my mind, though I did find her attractive. Then one day I was out with her and X and we talked for ages. She was single at this point. I suppose it wasn't really that flirty, but we got on really well. Anyway, we talked on msn a bit after that and then one night soon after I was out and bumped into her and her friends. X had told me that she thought she liked me but was kind of ambiguous about it. I talked to her for an hour or two that night, again, nothing obviously flirty but we were getting on really well, and at the end of the night I decided to go for it and kissed her. In retrospect, it was probably quite random for her, and I was quite drunk, but she responded well.

Texted her two days later and asked her if she wanted to meet up. She said yes and we ended up going out, getting a coffee and then going to the cinema. Afterwards we went to a park (it was a nice day) and sat on the grass for a while. I leaned in to kiss her. This time she moved away and then explained that while she liked me, she was in a confused place and didn't want a boyfriend right now. I was taken aback and somewhat in shock. We actually ended up hanging out for another 2 hours after that. I'm still confused about that day today and wonder if I should have tried to persuade her or something. Meh. Met her 2 months later on Fresher's Week at our new college and we got lunch and ended up spending the whole day together. I thought I felt some attraction between us but I dunno. Haven't see her again apart from brief encounters. Bebo tells me she had a boyfriend about 2 months later and that they're broken up now (Social networking is a curse when you just wanna forget about someone).

Since then I've never come across a girl I'm really attracted to. I've only ever scored a girl in a club once (coincidentially, 2 weeks after being rejected by Y). In the last year I've come to enjoy going out and having a laugh with drinking, dancing and occasional drug use rather than attempting to get with girls due to hanging out with a slightly older crowd. In recent times I've tried to make an effort to talk to more girls in clubs, but even if I work up the (frequently Dutch) courage to talk to one, I feel like I have some kind of subconscious defence mechanism preventing me from attempting to kiss them, I also don't really know how to flirt, or at least, how to initiate flirting/indicate that I'm attracted to them. I did get with a girl I know through a friend in a club 2 months ago, but she made it VERY obvious she was attracted to me, so I really didn't have to do any work.

Another annoying issue is the fact that my 3 closest friends have all been in relationships for the last 3 years, which means when they go out, they're not interested in scoring, and therefore I have no examples to follow and there're no conversations about such topics. That said, I have new friends since college who are single. It's an all-male course btw, which isn't exactly great for developing skills to interact with girls.

Writing all of that has actually made me feel a lot better, even if it bores you people to tears. I suppose my main problems are finding a girl I like, and when I do, indicating I'm attracted to her. Though it's a bit meaningless, the first thing I think I want to focus on is talking to and scoring girls in clubs a bit more regularly, it's just I have an irrational fear of doing so. I suppose that although I've overcome a lot of shyness issues in my life, confronting strangers, especially female strangers, is still a bit of a scary area for me.

I hope that this mammoth of a post has been coherent. I suppose getting all of that off my chest is half of it. If anyone has any advice or can relate in any way then please post.

Thanks.

Miss Fluff

Your new college buddies, the single ones, are the people to be hanging out with right now. You don't have a hope of scoring if you are going out with attached mates. Going out with the guys who are in the same boat as yourself will give you a bit of encouragment and moral support. Once you score a few times, you will be fighting them off, it's all about confidence. You sound like a good guy so go easy on yourself, it will all come together for you.

hippiechickie

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LegacyUser

Miss Fluff wrote: »

Your new college buddies, the single ones, are the people to be hanging out with right now. You don't have a hope of scoring if you are going out with attached mates. Going out with the guys who are in the same boat as yourself will give you a bit of encouragment and moral support. Once you score a few times, you will be fighting them off, it's all about confidence. You sound like a good guy so go easy on yourself, it will all come together for you.

Thanks, I'll take that on board.

hippiechickie wrote: »

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I think you're misunderstanding me. I didn't use the word "sex" once in my post. By "scoring" all I mean is kissing really. Ultimately I'm looking for intimacy, and essentially that means I'm looking for a girlfriend, but in the meantime I'd like to develop confidence and have fun talking to girls and maybe scoring them.

hippiechickie wrote: »

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Well I have several friends who are girls, and occasionally I'll be attracted to one of them. Intimacy tends not to just develop, however. I mean, the last time I gradually got to know a girl really well, it just turned into a typical "nice guy" scenario, as I've described in my initial post. I suppose part of the reason for this thread is advice on how to initiate an intimate relationship with a girl.

LegacyUser

Thought I'd give this a bump. Nothing's really changed since I posted this. I can kinda relate to the OP in this[/url post. I feel lost and as if I have to do something practical about this now, but I don't know what....