Terrible Dating Advice
Go to Google Play or Apple Store and you’ll discover a myriad of dating apps waiting for you to download and meet attractive new singles. It’s a great idea until you realize that it’s not dating but rather a kind of self-promotion in which you try to draw attention to the positive aspects while obscuring the other.
The year 2017 was the one I completed my four-year service in the military and I was employed as a part-time employee. The pay wasn’t great, but it was a way to pay the expenses. Despite all the accomplishments I achieved in the military, my abilities with women were lacking. I was even unsure about how to entice a girl who I worked with and wanted to meet and gave up and downloaded two dating applications such as Bumble as well as Tinder. I was lonely and searching for a partner however, I re-read my experience and realized that it was the wrong reason to search for love. One thing I’ve come to realize is when you’re struggling, you have to examine yourself. Find yourself and embrace the parts of yourself you find “unacceptable”.
When I turned 30, I had reached my 20s and had never had a relationship with a woman before. I was not entirely right regarding the amount of confidence and self-esteem I had gained from my childhood trauma. The social abilities I had were a mess and I was extremely shy and I knew nothing about spotting women. In the blink of an eye, following my first use of Bumble, Lydia (no, it’s not her real identity) and I was matched.
If you’re unfamiliar with Bumble It’s a wildly popular dating app similar to Tinder (the one in which swipe left to say “No” and right for “Yes”). However, women must contact the person first in case there’s a chance to meet. If a woman doesn’t contact within 24 hours, the match will be lost.
I had no idea that the moment I swiped right on Lydia changed my life. I remember exactly the question Lydia initially asked me to do when we first met.
“How many tattoos do you have?”
When we began to date I realized that I had achieved what I had always wanted. I have found a woman who I love and am interested in. It’s wonderful.
My life was gradually improving. I had a friend who liked me, I had regular hours at my job, and it seemed to be getting to where the way I wanted it. However it wouldn’t be as straightforward for me. I’m still unsure of the reasoning behind why Lydia was interested in dating one of her friends when she was planning to move back to her home in two hours. My younger self didn’t even bother asking her the reason. This caused some resentment within me toward her for moving away when she had graduated from college. We both used to do things like the “long-distance” thing up until the outbreak of COVID-19. We used to visit one another on weekends, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy me. I felt that she was not interested in me, even though she had already made plans to move out before we even met.
We got engaged in the year 2019, and we eventually got married in a brand new house in 2020. It was a great time for a while however, there’s always a hit. Three years later, I’m dealing with the ache of a split. We believed we would be married however, our relationship failed to succeed. We were in a mutually dependent relationship. Neither either of us had experienced such a serious relationship and neither of us had the time to keep it going.
After our split, I started making use of these dating apps once more. I downloaded Tinder Hinge, Bumble and Plenty of Fish and Bumble. Everything. I was scared, desperate to be on my own and felt abandoned and unwelcome. I believe I have an account on eHarmony somewhere. Perhaps a month or so afterward I was convinced that I had healed from the break-up. I had been lying to myself. If there’s anyone you should not commit a lie, it’s yourself. You can lie to anyone and get people to believe you however, deep inside you’ll never really believe the lies that you are telling yourself.
I had one acquaintance who was as fascinated in the same way as watching dry paint. I was smacked by a different woman, and she said that I looked bored during our date. I guess disappointed is an appropriate word. Confident that I was eager to begin the next chapter of my life with a different person I began to date an unknown girl who I met through a different application known as Hinge.
But, about three weeks after I started dating this girl I was forced to leave her. There were a lot of indicators of neediness, clinginess and insufficient hygiene, unattractive physical characteristics, and the possibility of codependency in the future. In the back of my mind, I wasn’t happy about the breakup with Lydia that was as if a wound was opened every time I went out with her. I tried to pretend that her physical appearance was not important to me, but actually, I was not impressed with her appearance or her standards for hygiene. Her personality was not attractive either I couldn’t get through an entire day between her texts or becoming unfriendly around me. And the worst thing about it was that I accepted everything for the time I did. We had several points of interest in common, and she joked that we were soulmates on our first date. After two weeks of dating, she announced, “I love you.” It was extremely painful for me to say and I responded: “I hope you understand that I can’t tell you that right now.”
I thought I would have to be on my own for a while after dropping her. For the next week, I fought with myself over whether I was settling with her, and if it was time to let her go. That’s how low my mental state was at that moment. I was in such a state of desperation that I was scared that I would lose a woman who was worthless for fear of falling in love and again.
In retrospect, I should have stayed away from all the relationships I had, however, I was able to meet a woman on Hinge. Yes, there was another girl on Hinge just a few months later, in February. The girl I met was much more attractive than Lydia, and I was hurt after she broke up with me one month later. I did bring an abundance of anxiety and a sense of dread of losing her just as I did with Lydia. We enjoyed a wonderful time together and I’m sure she began to notice some aspects regarding me that I need to address within myself. But, I’m not able to claim that she didn’t have the same of my insecurities, if not more. She was always engaged in discussing what was happening in her life than sharing information about our own lives. I was snubbed at times that we dealt with, and I was able to forgive her for it, but I never felt like I was valued the way I should be when I was around her.
In the last month, I put my dating plans in a bind to heal from all the pain and emotional trauma. After the second girlfriend, my goal was to let things rest for a bit and get better however, girl #3 kind of popped up. After girl #3, I stayed the promise I made and took time to recuperate and rest and concentrate on aspects outside of work and meetings to “figure things out”. There was a person on Tinder who ended up matching me after a time away from these situations. We were planning to meet in person but I had to pull the plug on her due to her divulging several personal information about herself via texts before we even met to meet! In reality, she wasn’t very pretty in any of her profile photos and it was an issue I had to stay clear of.
Although I’m not keen on the notion of fate and having everyone have plans drawn up by God, I believe that God (or at the very least, my unconscious) gave me the right signals to stop this kind of nonsense. To be honest my profile was not receiving many matches and the ones I received weren’t those I normally consider attractive and neither were they women I would want to meet out of desire in the person (even Lydia). There was certainly room for improvement to be made to my profile however, I was tired of these apps and they seem to result in poor relations in the past.
I was a victim of the negative assumptions that my parents had that were drilled into me in my youth such as: “You’re shy.” “You’re an introvert.” The whole nonsense changed the way I behave and perceive the world. I quit the apps and began meeting ladies in person. For me, as a male, I believe we are at a disadvantage when using dating apps as the majority of them males are significantly more popular than females and it’s difficult to be noticed as a potential partner or a hookup when there are thousands of men to pick from. In the real world, we enjoy the privilege of being among the guys too are the ones who approach women while they are waiting for us to arrive.
Being in person with someone can be a stressful experience. I don’t know the number of times that I’ve been uncomfortable approaching a woman when shopping at the supermarket or the park, but it’s an opportunity to get to know someone, instead of waiting for a match through Tinder or something else and hoping that they’re as attractive as the image on their profile. When I feel nervous when I approach an attractive girl I don’t believe this is normal. One thing I’m doing right now is reflecting on the reasons. Yes, many people will say that they become nervous because they are afraid of what their partner will say, or the way they’ll be judged. this is the case for me. It’s not sustainable though, and the underlying cause for me is low confidence/self-esteem that stems from toxic conditioning in childhood and my teens.
I believe that the capacity to create or maintain relationships and friendships is directly influenced by how you perceive yourself. At the time of writing this post, I’ve lost a significant amount of confidence over the last 6 months or a year due to the aftermath of the breakup. I had no friends at the time and still do not at present but I’m working on my connection with myself to establish the foundation to be solid later on.
