47 yr old and broken with no confidence.

amethyst1967

to anyone in a relationship this will seem a stupid thing for a 47 yr old fella to be saying,and probably a bit rediculas.but for me it has been a mountain that i could never climb and conquere.ive read loads of your threads to do with this topic and a lot of you seem to think 2 or 3 years is a long time since you had a relationship,im about 19 years and its realy getting me down to a low point that i have never been to before.in my work life i can get a conversation going with a woman of any age in a flash,and it usualy goes on and on,no problem,and i have loads of woman friends in my usual run of the mill life,and i do have to say,it comes totaly natural for me to get a laugh going no problem,its a joy to mix with people and be able to do that.im very polite and respectfull to everyone,men and women,friends for all my life,and building.i should be a perfect candidate for meeting people for dates,,,but im not,ive got chatting to a girl on a dateing site,a very pretty girl,romanian,41 yrs of age,she friended me,we have text back and forth a few times in the last 2 weeks,we never actualy spoke by phone but she gave me hers before i gave her mine,she have closed her account on the site so out of respect i did as well.to be honest she is a realy realy pretty girl,one that i would have tried to contact first if i had seen but i didnt,ive tried internet dateing sites for the last 4 years but after trying to form some kinda relationship wit loads of woman on these sites all i seem to get is 1 or 2 replies from anyone i pick out and then they just disapear,even when they make the effort to contact me,all the sites are the same,but this girl for some reason still replied, i make sure to be very polite to them all and not intrusive into there life in any way so i dont know why i dont get more genuine replies,but the real thing that is more important to me is the fear in side me about meeting this lovely girl,now that she seems to be staying in contact..she has done all she can do,she has no car so thats my job which i have no problem doin, after all i put up the profile hopeing some one would spot me,but the fear of meeting her is actualy makeing me shiver,to the point whare im goin to make excses why i cant go and meet her.this is realy destroying me,i want this so much and i just cant follow tru,and i know she will start to think that i am just messing her around,i cant even lift the phone and ring her,she have seen 1 photo of me and im no catch of the year.i feel this oppertunity will pass me by,after 4 yrs on dateing sites and 20 yrs single,with no child from past times or divorces stacked up i have a clean sheet,self employed,all the toys of normal life so there is no more big financial shocks left to be afraid of..can anyone out there trow me a life line of a experience you might have had because i can tell ye i have ben to the absalut bottom with this no confidence thing,its total soal destroying..its very hard not tothink that there is some thing realy wrong with me or the way i look,every one i know are either married or in long term relationships,they all tell me im lucky to be single,little do they know the real story thats eating up my inner soul.

orthsquel

amethyst1967 wrote: »

is the fear in side me about meeting this lovely girl,now that she seems to be staying in contact..

amethyst1967 wrote: »

but the fear of meeting her is actualy makeing me shiver,to the point whare im goin to make excses why i cant go and meet her.this is realy destroying me,i want this so much and i just cant follow tru,and i know she will start to think that i am just messing her around,i cant even lift the phone and ring her

Why do you have this fear? Are you nervous and anxious about meeting, fearing rejection? Or are you trying to sabotage yourself?

tbh you just have to pick up the phone and call. Meet and see how things go. There have been times when I've literally been practically scared and with palpitations just contacting someone, businesses even, or even opening letters addressed to myself absolutely dreading it and I brace myself for the worst and open it, and call. I know if I don't just do it, I'll build it up in my head into something worse and feel worse about it all. And I say to myself if I don't sort X out, who will? Nobody's going to sort it for me, I have to do it myself. So I bite the bullet.

In your case you have to look at it that if you don't at least try, then your situation is never going to change. And that is in both cases that you won't get the date if you don't try, and you won't gain confidence either if you don't try. And even if the worst comes to the worst that you get a no, or you get rejected, then you confidently congratulate yourself in having the courage to ask in the first place, dust yourself down and move on. Talking to someone on a date is no different than talking to the people you are used to talking to.

amethyst1967 wrote: »

its very hard not tothink that there is some thing realy wrong with me or the way i look,every one i know are either married or in long term relationships,they all tell me im lucky to be single,little do they know the real story thats eating up my inner soul.

I doubt there's anything much wrong with you at all. But I do understand the feeling of pressure with everyone else settled and that you should be too, and the emptiness in being told how lucky you are to be single and not have to deal with a partner or marriage and all that brings, when you don't feel so "lucky" being single.. You could open up to your friends and let them know how you really feel about your situation.

shaymus27

I think it's like anything you are scared of. You just have to do it. When you do it, you usually find it wasn't as bad as you thought it would be. You usually find you built it up too much in your head and it was nowhere near as bad as you thought it would be.

If you don't try at some stage you will wreck your head with the fact you didn't try and this would be worse than trying and it not working out.

The fact you haven't had a relationship in a long time means you will feel more stressed than if you had a more recent relationship. It is to be expected.

It's not easy to meet the right one for you (not for me anyway) and I think you will find that the more you find out about the women who reject you on websites or anywhere, the more you realise you wouldn't be interested in them anyway. Don't beat yourself up about women not being interested in you. A lot of women look nice but in reality some aren't that nice and some can lack in personality. When you haven't dated in a long time you might think that all those apparently nice women are so nice when in fact the more you get to know them the more boring and sometimes unpleasant some are. Obviously a lot of women are lovely and have great personalities, it's just getting to meet them is difficult. I doubt you will meet too many on websites but I'm sure some are there, just not too many.

I would be wary of women you meet on a website so be very careful if you do meet the Romanian woman. Talk a lot first on the phone to see if you are suited to each other. Do as women do and meet in a public place and be very careful. She can make her own way to wherever you agree to meet.

Being self-employed means you might not work surrounded by people and general loneliness can set in, besides loneliness from not having someone special in your life. Try look in to building up your self-confidence and general social life. The more content with yourself you are the better if you don't meet someone, and in order to help you meet someone.

I don't have an answer as to how to meet someone but there have been many posts on boards which touch on this. Maybe set up a new thread - how do I meet a woman. Meetup is a website I have seen mentioned on boards, you might look that up. It seems to be based in Dublin. There are a lot of different groups under the general Meetup heading.

Best of luck.

CollyFlower

The title of your thread seems to contradict your initial post... You seem quite confidence to me and have a SOH!.... I'd just go for it if I were you, what have you got to lose?. You sound like a good catch!

CaraMay

Op my cousin only had his first real gf at 48 and he is engaged now. Believe it of not, you are a catch and can afford to be fussy. He met the girl online and his life has totally changed.

You need to keep trying online and with girls you meet. Are you open to kids? If so stick to girls who also want the same thing. It's a numbers game but quite often a man with no ex wife and kids will be a mch sought after individual.

Enjoy it

Emme

OP, at your age and with your attributes you are definitely a catch. However if you message people online and send long paragraphs without using capitals or breaks for new sentences it might be off-putting. Send shorter messages, use capital letters where appropriate and get some good photos of yourself. Good luck.

You could also try meeting women face to face, are there any meetups near you?