Am I too boring?

LegacyUser

Hi

Just would like some opinions on a problem I seem to have.

I am a 22 year old fella and am stuck in a rut as regards dating and social life. I have never had a girlfriend and feel that I may seem too boring to women.
I don't drink so the confidence is never that high when out.
I always seem to want all women to like me so I may be too nice at times and hence seem quite boring and bland. Women are rarely interested in me which hits an already low confidence level.

Any advice?

zoobizoo

Give it time.

I'm twice your age but it wad in my late 20s that I started coming into my own and started drinking less.

At 22 you may be trying to meet people in the wrong place like a nightclub.

Apart from the fact that yiu can't hear anything being said, there's pressure on to "chat up".

Those who can bull**** loudly do well in clubs. Never really worked for me.

Have you things going on in your life that are interesting? Have you hobbies or passions?

Remember that just because people are loud, doesn't make them interesting.

As I said, give it time.

Ursus Horribilis

I doubt you're boring. Do you have interests and things you can talk to with other people? What could be killing your chances is your general demeanour. Not the fact that you're sober or think you're boring. Women can sense desperation a mile off and will run to the hills. Regardless of how confident you are, pubs and nightclubs aren't for everyone. They aren't the only way to meet women. Lots of people meet their partners through friends or through hobbies. Try those instead. Oh, and if you can, try not to look at every woman you meet as a potential girlfriend. Try to work on making more female friends. This will have two benefits to you. Firstly, you might stop looking at women as some sort of exotic beast rather than as regular people. And secondly, women have female friends. You never know - miss right might be friends with a woman you don't fancy.

silverharp

OP you are still quite young and some guys only hit their peak in their mid to late twenties. Trying to be "nice" does come across as phony or weak. Basically you need to project in some way that you are going places, have passions and coming across as socially competent in a group doesnt hurt either. if you drink or not is neither here nor there but you cant be "the quiet guy in the corner" or you will be invisible.
How do you spend your evenings? if you are in 6 days a week and going to a pub once a week that will not get you anywhere. Depending on your funds start finding stuff to do that either stuff you want to do purely for your own enjoyment and that helps build an identity or give stuff a try that you reckon has a good social element. longer term if you have career goals mapped out and you start hitting them that will feed back into boosting your own self esteem and confidence which will be noticed.

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

Try to work on making more female friends. This will have two benefits to you. Firstly, you might stop looking at women as some sort of exotic beast rather than as regular people. And secondly, women have female friends. You never know - miss right might be friends with a woman you don't fancy.

I'd guess there isnt any hard rule either way but unless a guy has picked up some good female friends from school or college I wouldn necessarily recommend that a guy in his twenties goes out looking for female friends unless you mean in a very general wider social group setting? the OP has either just finished college or is hopefully working so I'd assume he has opportunity for loose friendships though work and the like. The OP's issue seems to be more about getting noticed as boyfriend material.

Ursus Horribilis

Yep, I meant in a wider social setting. I didn't make that point very well. What I was wondering was if he's not used to talking to women in general. That could be hampering him too.

LegacyUser

Hi.

Thanks a million for the replies.
I do have a lot of female friends and find chatting to women in general easy but am useless at chatting a woman up.

Tbh I have very little hobbies as there is not a lot to do in my town. It's no excuse as there are towns either side of mine about 30 minutes away that would have plenty of things to do but the distance doesn't help with motivation.

silverbolt

1234567891011121314151617181920 wrote: »

Hi.

Thanks a million for the replies.
I do have a lot of female friends and find chatting to women in general easy but am useless at chatting a woman up.

Tbh I have very little hobbies as there is not a lot to do in my town. It's no excuse as there are towns either side of mine about 30 minutes away that would have plenty of things to do but the distance doesn't help with motivation.

I can sympathise OP. You have cabin fever. Small towns are great if you never want to do anything but work in the local shop, marry a local person, raise local kids and have your funeral in the same church as you were christened in. And thats fine for some,

But if you want more - small towns are soul crushing boulevards of broken dreams. I know, I'm in one.

My advice. Get out of there. Find a job in a city, go back to uni. the more people who are around the better your chances of finding people with mutual interest and someone you could date

Conor Bourke

1234567891011121314151617181920 wrote: »

Hi.

Thanks a million for the replies.
I do have a lot of female friends and find chatting to women in general easy but am useless at chatting a woman up.

Tbh I have very little hobbies as there is not a lot to do in my town. It's no excuse as there are towns either side of mine about 30 minutes away that would have plenty of things to do but the distance doesn't help with motivation.

Ah. This is telling. I have to say that ambition and motivation are things that I would definitely look for in a potential partner. I'm not talking about aspiring to be junior Vice President of compuglobalhypermeganet or being a complete workaholic or whatever but just to be interested enough in something... anything that it motivates them. Even if it was just that you went to 5-a side once a week in the next town over!

How old are you? Do you drive? Are you working?

People may advise you to take up a hobby that allows you to meet women but if that's the only reason you're doing it A: it'll be really obvious to other people partaking in the activity that you're not really into it and B: you probably won't even keep the hobby up if you aren't actually interested in it, which will most likely in turn leave you feeling worse again. Solitary hobbies are fine if that's more your thing, and they'll still give you something to talk about when you find yourself chatting to women. Find things you love to do but don't do them with the aim of meeting women, do them for yourself. You shouldn't be looking to a relationship to fulfil your life entirely. It's vitally important for you to know yourself and have your own identity and part of that comes through pursuing activities that you enjoy.

Your posts come across as quite passive, is there any chance that this translates to you in person and is why you're finding it hard to "chat up" women? As with everything in life, a relationship will very likely not just drop in your lap so you'll have to be a bit more proactive.

Best of luck!

LegacyUser

Thanks for the replies.

I am 22 years old and do drive. I know it's all about pushing myself more but it's not easy as being honest I suffer from some mental health issues. I have got help and feel better in myself but at the end of the day pushing myself to go to a different town on my own to try and meet people isn't that all appealing.

I used to feel sorry for myself which I can admit and I know is by no means helpful.
I have tried to do things about it which included a lot of no's from women that I really liked but it doesn't mean I should give up.

LuckyLloyd

You have to work on yourself first - 'love your life or change it'. It doesn't really matter if you are boring or not (and there's no real objective standard of 'boring' anyway - one person's passion is another's snooze fest) so long as you believe you are or might be. Regarding points like:

- how you look
- how your career is progressing
- your relationship with your family / friends
- how you spend your free time
- how you engage with your community and the world around you

what matters is that you are where you want to be on them or feel like you're purposely moving towards where you want to be and have a plan. When you start improving those things (or some of them, Rome wasn't built in a day) you'll stop worrying about how you're perceived so much and that new found confidence in yourself will take you a long way and make things seem easier with women, but really people in general. And by 'improve' I mean think about where you are and where you'd like to be. Your standard for happiness is your own, but you do need to be honest with yourself and actively look to develop.

There are some men who instinctively "get" how to attract women at a young age and seem to be who they want to be but most of us have to undergo a process of growing into better people before stuff like that starts clicking for us. Time is on your side even if it doesn't feel like it.

Conor Bourke

1234567891011121314151617181920 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

I am 22 years old and do drive. I know it's all about pushing myself more but it's not easy as being honest I suffer from some mental health issues. I have got help and feel better in myself but at the end of the day pushing myself to go to a different town on my own to try and meet people isn't that all appealing.

I used to feel sorry for myself which I can admit and I know is by no means helpful.
I have tried to do things about it which included a lot of no's from women that I really liked but it doesn't mean I should give up.

Do you have to go alone? Why not invite some of your friends to join you in a new activity? And as I said before, if you set out solely to meet people, you may not find it goes to plan. The focus of your posts is finding someone, but the topic of your thread is whether you are boring. Why not consider changing your focus to finding something you enjoy doing, something that IS appealing. That will go a long way to making you feel more fulfilled and like you have something to talk about when engaging with women.

For years I was involved in a voluntary ambulance corps. I got into it in my teens because I was fascinated by the whole thing. I made loads of friends, had one or two romances, travelled abroad and learned lots of skills. Every September we would reconvene following the summer break and would invite new members to join. Some people joined for the same reasons I did, some because they were hoping to pursue careers in the statutory emergency services, some for the purely social aspect. It was always easy to spot when someone really wasn't fully engaged with the classes or duties but was more interested to know when the next dinner dance or competition would be or who was heading to the pub after the meeting. Nothing wrong with wanting the social side but you only develop the friendships through fully participating and working with everyone else. Some people stopped coming back after a couple of meetings once they realised they wasn't just a precursor to a weekly social, thankfully though most got stuck in and flourished as members. Don't just pick an activity for the sake of meeting people. Pick an activity you think you will enjoy.

The same goes for joining a sports team or any other activity. If you're interested enough, you'll persevere until you make new friends/meet new people and from there hopefully opportunities for relationships could blossom.

If you're not interested enough in anything to push yourself out there in the world, then perhaps you're not wrong to think yourself boring. I don't mean to be cruel but you're young, you can drive, you can do this if you really want to. These are things that can help to improve and strengthen your mental health by providing you with a sense of achievement and self worth, which should hopefully in turn make you more attractive to women.

osarusan

OP, I know it can be tough to chat people up if you feel you don't have that ability to do it, to say the right thing at the same time. I felt exactly the same when I was the same age as you. If that's not an environment you feel comfortable in, you'd be better off doing something else.

But not every relationship starts with somebody chatting the other up. Friendships can develop into something more. Would it be possible to just get involved with clubs or something that you are interested in? Sports, music classes, cooking classes, something like that? It might help get you out of that small town and expand your social circle.

And one thing I'd add is that when people are enthusiastic about something, it makes them a different person. I had a friend who was the quietest, shyest person you'll ever meet, and didn't really make much of an impact when she was around....except it came to the topic of cooking, and especially baking. When she was talking about that her face lit up, she had lots of passion, she had so much more energy, so much more presence.

Hope that makes sense.