Do you ever get the feeling....

[enelya_taralom]

that you're either being ignored completely or "picked-on"? I know it's not true but sometimes I just can't shake that feeling, especially when it comes to dating.

I'm 22 and have never had a boyfriend, there just haven't been any good opportunities for me. I don't mean good, in the sense that I'm being picky, I mean more in the "I wasn't ready for that" sense I guess. I'm sure I'm not explaining it right, but for example, when I was graduating High School my friend set-up a grad date for me with one of her boyfriend's friends. He was a nice guy that I was attracted to and knew he was attracted to me, however, not having any dating experience and knowing that they guy was sexually active I was timid around him and well needless to say I never say him after our grad. I don't regret not dating him as I know that because of our different views on premarital sex, it wouldn't have worked out and I probably would have just been hurt, it's just that things like that keep on happening to me.

The latest was about a year ago now. I was at a friend's house and met her brother for the first time. We instantly hit it off and I was amazed at just how comfortable I was around him, and well I guess it was kind of a love at first sight thing. Course afterward my friend was telling me that her brother was totally interested but she didn't want us dating as she felt he was lazy, and just not any good for me. I totally respect and love her so I certainly wasn't going to put our friendship at risk by dating her brother, especially when I respect and trust her opinion. She does, after all, know her brother better than I do. I don't resent her for that at all as again I know that it would have been a tough relationship, as he has a son (so again our views on premarital sex were different) and lives about an hour drive from me, so between that, his son and work just being able to spend time with him would have been hard, but it's just another situation to add to my list.

I also am not sitting around waiting for the guy to make the moves. I have approached two men, one I just asked to dance at a party and he took one look at me, scrunched his nose and walked away! He couldn't even dignify me with a "no"! The other I met when on a tour around Europe. I flirted with him for a few days then at a bar we both drank a bit too much, made out then he spent the next three days ignoring me. I finally pulled him aside to ask what he wanted to do, and he said he just wanted to be friends. I was willing to respect that so when we got back from the tour (we live in the same city) I sent e-mails out not just to him but everyone else from our city that was on the tour, just inviting them to join some of my friends and I at a pub or to go see a movie etc. I never heard back from him, and well after the first group e-mail I sent out, my e-mails started bouncing back. So I guess he blocked my e-mail address.

I used to not feel the way I do today as one of my closest “girl-friends” was sort of in the same boat, also 22 and had never had a boyfriend (course she hadn’t had the “court jester” (sorry but that just goes back to the whole feeling like I’m being picked on for amusement) experiences that I had, but rather had just never met anyone she was interested in), but now she has met someone that she has been dating for the past three months and is already falling in love with, and well I’m also loosing her as a friend. She started university and made a bunch of new friends and met her guy and know she is impossible to get together with and when I do see her she always invites either the guy or one of her other friends, so it’s never the two of us anymore and we’re definitely not as close.

I also have a sister three years younger than me who has had a boyfriend. They only broke up four months ago, and now she has met someone else. Her old boyfriend she met when buying a Playstation. He was working at the store she bought it at and actually asked her to join him for dinner as she was paying; they had never met before that! She had also had a co-worker take her out on a date a month before that but she just wasn’t romantically interested in him. The new guy she met when we were backpacking Japan and staying in hostels. We only met three people from our city, and well of course she met someone that not only did she like, but he liked her aswell.

I just don’t get it. I go to bars, shop, and have a social life as active as hers, yet she meets guys, and starts dating them under fairly rare circumstances (I can’t think of too many people who have been asked out to dinner when shopping or on the other side of the world!!!), and I have never even been asked for my phone number when I go to meet people at all of the “usual spots”.

I’m just starting to get frustrated with not only my situation but also with myself as all the people around me are falling in love and rather than be happy for them I get jealous, and just end up feeling worse /like a bad person because of that.

Anyway sorry for the long rant, I just had to talk with someone and well I don’t really have any close friends anymore, or at least ones that would understand.

 

[invisiblebabe]

I know how you feel. I started dating relatively late as well (I was almost seventeen when I first dated, and a senior in high school with my first boyfriend) and have had several bad experiences that made me too feel like the "court jester" (sorority formals, freshman year of college). I have also had more than a couple guys act interested to my face yet talk about me meanly behind my back.

My advice:
1. Do NOT blame your looks for this. There are plenty of below-average-looking or average-looking girls that I knew who started dating at 12, and plenty of gorgeous girls I know who did not date at all until age 19 or 20, so there's more to it than that.
2. Are you an introvert? Are you a more abstract/imaginative/theoretical type? If you're both, then you're in a group that makes up about 4% of the population, so it's naturally harder for us to find people we are compatible with. I suggest you check out some of the threads on "What personality type are you?" and the like around here.... or even better, do a Yahoo search for "MBTI." I know this sounds like rather odd advice here, but I think I may be onto something...
3. Consider waiting much longer next time before you make out with a guy.... at least until you are committed to him. Fewer regrets that way.
4. Don't forget to pray about it all, of course. God gives us answers sometimes in ways we may not expect.

PM me if you have any other questions, or anything. I know all too well what you're going through!

Blessings,
invisiblebabe

 

[Im_A]

i'm another one that knows how you feel.

i don't exactly know what to say but just to try not let it get to you. i'm 22, and i have had my shares of relationships, but now i really feel like i am not sought after. now grant it, i don't have a social life either, so i try not to complain too much, because it is contradicting to complain about being lonely if you don't have much of a social life.

but i think it's something that we have to deal with while we are single. i mean we're always going to meet people who don't seem interested in us. i don't think it matters if we've been in a relationship or not. i mean because in the end it comes down to either the one side doesn't take the chance or the moves to get into a relationship. i'm not the type of guy that likes to make the first move. i have never really been that way. but with the relationships i have had, yea, i have made some move, but i always seem to have an idea if they at least have a curiosity about me. i don't like rejection and if i don't know if that person likes me or not, i don't see the use to give my pearls away for hopes kind of thing. i guess i just want to become friends, and if i become friends with someone that wants more than a friendship and i'm interested in that too, then i'll give it a whirl. i guess i like the idea of a girl talking to me, wanting to get to know me more, before we just descide to date because of physical attraction. plus there are plenty of girls that i find attractive that i have no desire to date or be in a relationship with them outside of a friendship.

i think the feeling of being ignored comes from being lonely. that's my personal estimate, and i could very well be wrong, but i think that is where it stems from. i guess that's why now, i just believe in dealing with it as best as we can, and be open to the possibilites that may lead us to the one that we are mean't to be with and just have radical faith in God with this.