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Hi everyone, I am really struggling with any kind of love life at all, and have been for quite a few years, I'm hoping someone on here, or several people on here might be able to give some advice because I'm totally lost. As I explain my dillema and tell you of the things I feel are plaguing me, please do not take it as I'm whining, self loathing, having a pity party, or anything of that nature, I'm not, I'm simply trying to give as many details as I can so those reading this can possibly point me the right way, I know this is kind of lenghty, but please read all of it.
I'm a single, heterosexual man, age 47, (nearing age 48), neven been married or had any children. I seem to keep hitting dead ends when it comes to any kind of dating and relationships, I've never had an issue with getting women to talk me or showing some interest and they are always cool with me so long as it's as friends or acquaintances, but it always seems the minute I start to show any kind of romantc interest or express that I have feelings toward a woman things turn south very quickly, especially the past 6-8 years or so. It's to the point now that I'm afraid to even express any notion of wanting to take something further with any single woman whose cool with me for fear that I will scare her off and/or ruin what connection I may have with her.
I've only had one real serious relationship that I considered for marriage, that didn't happen until I was 40, we were briefly engaged, but hadn't lived together yet, she pulled a complete snow job on me, turnng out to be very toxic and mentally abussive, thankfully the mask came off before I married her.
Since then I've been able to get very short lived flings despite wanting somthing more complete, things never went that way no matter what I did, I often would find out that I'm simply used a placeholder, a foster home for their hearts, or for whatever I can do/give to them, then I'm discarded when no longer needed.
One of the biggest causes for tons of rejection over the years for me has been my height, I'm 5'2" and that seems to be an automatic deal breaker for women, I personally have no issue with it and could care less if a woman is 5'7, 5'10, or 6', it's women that have the issue with my height, if I had a nickel for every time I was told "Damn you're short!", or I can't date you, I can't even wear heels with you.", I'd be disgustingly rich. I'm not into bars and can't stand nightclubs, I seldom drink and don't smoke anything, not for any particular reason, I just don't enjoy it. I often getting automatically branded by women as "boring" for not being into these things as if they can't have fun without getting their smoke on, their drink on, or having music blaring at 120db. Another dillema is a large percentage of women around my age have been divorced at least once and have children, I am not opposed to dating a single mom, or a divorced woman, it's usually the opposite, single moms seem to find it awkward dating me as a childless middle aged man, also they are cool dating a divorced man, but not a man whose never been married. The few women I have been close to something, sadly get sabotaged by their single girlfriends, many of whom I never laid eyes on oe ever spoke to, but somehow they are the expert on me, I can't even compete against that.
I've tried online dating (POF, Match.com, Tinder, and Bumble), had some dates over the years but having meet my toxic ex from online dating as well as a lot of poor success on there, height being the #1 factor, I've given up on it. I've gone to some singles events over the past 18 months, but almost all of them end up being at a bar or nightclub somewhere with nearly all of the women at these events were investing all of their energy in the same 3 or 4 guys and no one else. I hear advice from others like "Get a hobby", I have hobbies that I enjoy and participate in, but have had no luck there either, most of my hobbies seem to be prodominately male interests, the women that are there, are typically there with their husbands or boyfriends. I'm Methodist, there are plenty of women, but those who are single are significantly younger than me by at least 20 years or 65+ widows. I'm still apprehenssive about allowing someone to set me up with someone, especially if it's a friend or co-worker because often it's someone they wouldn't even want to date themsleves and if it doesn't work out, I know I'll get gaslit with the proverbial "Why not her?", "What's wrong with you, you're too picky!" rhetoric. I even resorted back in Novemeber to reaching out to a relationship coach and was told due to my height, age, and being middle aged childless, my dating pool is much shallower and was told "Attract what I can, work within those constraints.", needless to say I didn't go back to that coach.
I've been watching self help videos, reading some books on dating/relationships, certainly doing my best not to become cynical, down, and negative, I'm trying to remain confident and display it, trying to make women laugh when I can, show kindness towards them, and love myself as best I can, but it's becoming more and more difficult as time goes on, I get older, and having more and more failed dating attempts. I've even tried watching how other men who seem to always win over women do it, tried to copy and apply what they do, but those attempts produced far worse results and I looked like a complete jerk off, so I scrapped that plan and went back to just being myself, but all "myself" seems to get me is friendzoned at best. When I see other "happy" couples in public it seems to trigger some intense lonliness in me, the holidays this year especially hit me very hard because I lost a close friend to cancer 5 months ago, others have moved away, or were busy doing "couples things" over the holidays. I found myself this year trying to make the best of it alone, but when I attended a holiday tree lighting event and seeing all the couples all lovey with each other, as much as I love Christmas, turned out to be so much pain for me that couldn't bear to stay and walked back to my car and cried for several minutes. I almost had another episode in church on Christmas Eve seeing husbands and wives holding hands walking in and out of church, some giving a little peck on the lips while singing hyms during the candlelight vigil, it poked me in the eye to the reality of knowing I've never expereienced waking up on Christmas morning with the woman I love, and wondering if I'll ever love to see that.
When I was much a teenager and even into my 20's I saw the longevity of people like my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, etc. many had been married for 30, 40, even 50+ years and I said I wanted that too, but now knowing that a little more than half of my life is in the rear-view mirror, I have no other choice but to be at peace with knowing even if I were to marry a woman today, I likely won't have enough years left to see such milestones. Another thing that has been bothering me to a lesser degree, but still bothers me is it seems women my age have all already experienced nearly everything I could show them, almost a been there, done that type of thing, it kind of saddens me thinking that any woman I were to be with at this stage in life, would I ever experience any "firsts"? First time traveling to a certain place, first time experiencing an event, etc. etc.
I keep hearing confidence, confidence, confidence means everything, I try to display as much confidence as I can, but it seems no matter how much confidence I show, it never seems to be enough, no matter how much I work on myself, I'm always lacking "something". I feel like I'm always having to be in firece competition against other men, having to sell myself as the best "option" to women, and hope they see my value. Am I looking in all the wrong places? Am I horrible at interpreting a woman's intentions, needs, and subtle hints? Am I saying or doing something obliviously that's killing any attraction? Am I too kind, too honest, or too loving? Do I need to hide my feelings for women more instead of disclosing them? Am I too picky when I can't afford to be? I don't want to settle for anything just so that I'm not alone, I know I deserve to be loved right and be with someone who values me as much as I do them, but do I need to be open to women outside of my normal preferences (lives longer distance away, much older than I'm normally open to to, someone in the workplace, etc.). Do I need to just stop looking and let love find me? Is it just not my time or just having incredibly poor luck? Is it a combination of these things, or something else I'm missing? Could the right one be in front of me and I'm blind to see it? Did I just start too late in life, or even missed the boat on too many great opportunities? Or is it just simply, love is for thee, not me?
I'm really lost and don't know what to do at this point, I really need some advice.
Thanks everyone.
I'm a single, heterosexual man, age 47, (nearing age 48), neven been married or had any children. I seem to keep hitting dead ends when it comes to any kind of dating and relationships, I've never had an issue with getting women to talk me or showing some interest and they are always cool with me so long as it's as friends or acquaintances, but it always seems the minute I start to show any kind of romantc interest or express that I have feelings toward a woman things turn south very quickly, especially the past 6-8 years or so. It's to the point now that I'm afraid to even express any notion of wanting to take something further with any single woman whose cool with me for fear that I will scare her off and/or ruin what connection I may have with her.
I've only had one real serious relationship that I considered for marriage, that didn't happen until I was 40, we were briefly engaged, but hadn't lived together yet, she pulled a complete snow job on me, turnng out to be very toxic and mentally abussive, thankfully the mask came off before I married her.
Since then I've been able to get very short lived flings despite wanting somthing more complete, things never went that way no matter what I did, I often would find out that I'm simply used a placeholder, a foster home for their hearts, or for whatever I can do/give to them, then I'm discarded when no longer needed.
One of the biggest causes for tons of rejection over the years for me has been my height, I'm 5'2" and that seems to be an automatic deal breaker for women, I personally have no issue with it and could care less if a woman is 5'7, 5'10, or 6', it's women that have the issue with my height, if I had a nickel for every time I was told "Damn you're short!", or I can't date you, I can't even wear heels with you.", I'd be disgustingly rich. I'm not into bars and can't stand nightclubs, I seldom drink and don't smoke anything, not for any particular reason, I just don't enjoy it. I often getting automatically branded by women as "boring" for not being into these things as if they can't have fun without getting their smoke on, their drink on, or having music blaring at 120db. Another dillema is a large percentage of women around my age have been divorced at least once and have children, I am not opposed to dating a single mom, or a divorced woman, it's usually the opposite, single moms seem to find it awkward dating me as a childless middle aged man, also they are cool dating a divorced man, but not a man whose never been married. The few women I have been close to something, sadly get sabotaged by their single girlfriends, many of whom I never laid eyes on oe ever spoke to, but somehow they are the expert on me, I can't even compete against that.
I've tried online dating (POF, Match.com, Tinder, and Bumble), had some dates over the years but having meet my toxic ex from online dating as well as a lot of poor success on there, height being the #1 factor, I've given up on it. I've gone to some singles events over the past 18 months, but almost all of them end up being at a bar or nightclub somewhere with nearly all of the women at these events were investing all of their energy in the same 3 or 4 guys and no one else. I hear advice from others like "Get a hobby", I have hobbies that I enjoy and participate in, but have had no luck there either, most of my hobbies seem to be prodominately male interests, the women that are there, are typically there with their husbands or boyfriends. I'm Methodist, there are plenty of women, but those who are single are significantly younger than me by at least 20 years or 65+ widows. I'm still apprehenssive about allowing someone to set me up with someone, especially if it's a friend or co-worker because often it's someone they wouldn't even want to date themsleves and if it doesn't work out, I know I'll get gaslit with the proverbial "Why not her?", "What's wrong with you, you're too picky!" rhetoric. I even resorted back in Novemeber to reaching out to a relationship coach and was told due to my height, age, and being middle aged childless, my dating pool is much shallower and was told "Attract what I can, work within those constraints.", needless to say I didn't go back to that coach.
I've been watching self help videos, reading some books on dating/relationships, certainly doing my best not to become cynical, down, and negative, I'm trying to remain confident and display it, trying to make women laugh when I can, show kindness towards them, and love myself as best I can, but it's becoming more and more difficult as time goes on, I get older, and having more and more failed dating attempts. I've even tried watching how other men who seem to always win over women do it, tried to copy and apply what they do, but those attempts produced far worse results and I looked like a complete jerk off, so I scrapped that plan and went back to just being myself, but all "myself" seems to get me is friendzoned at best. When I see other "happy" couples in public it seems to trigger some intense lonliness in me, the holidays this year especially hit me very hard because I lost a close friend to cancer 5 months ago, others have moved away, or were busy doing "couples things" over the holidays. I found myself this year trying to make the best of it alone, but when I attended a holiday tree lighting event and seeing all the couples all lovey with each other, as much as I love Christmas, turned out to be so much pain for me that couldn't bear to stay and walked back to my car and cried for several minutes. I almost had another episode in church on Christmas Eve seeing husbands and wives holding hands walking in and out of church, some giving a little peck on the lips while singing hyms during the candlelight vigil, it poked me in the eye to the reality of knowing I've never expereienced waking up on Christmas morning with the woman I love, and wondering if I'll ever love to see that.
When I was much a teenager and even into my 20's I saw the longevity of people like my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, etc. many had been married for 30, 40, even 50+ years and I said I wanted that too, but now knowing that a little more than half of my life is in the rear-view mirror, I have no other choice but to be at peace with knowing even if I were to marry a woman today, I likely won't have enough years left to see such milestones. Another thing that has been bothering me to a lesser degree, but still bothers me is it seems women my age have all already experienced nearly everything I could show them, almost a been there, done that type of thing, it kind of saddens me thinking that any woman I were to be with at this stage in life, would I ever experience any "firsts"? First time traveling to a certain place, first time experiencing an event, etc. etc.
I keep hearing confidence, confidence, confidence means everything, I try to display as much confidence as I can, but it seems no matter how much confidence I show, it never seems to be enough, no matter how much I work on myself, I'm always lacking "something". I feel like I'm always having to be in firece competition against other men, having to sell myself as the best "option" to women, and hope they see my value. Am I looking in all the wrong places? Am I horrible at interpreting a woman's intentions, needs, and subtle hints? Am I saying or doing something obliviously that's killing any attraction? Am I too kind, too honest, or too loving? Do I need to hide my feelings for women more instead of disclosing them? Am I too picky when I can't afford to be? I don't want to settle for anything just so that I'm not alone, I know I deserve to be loved right and be with someone who values me as much as I do them, but do I need to be open to women outside of my normal preferences (lives longer distance away, much older than I'm normally open to to, someone in the workplace, etc.). Do I need to just stop looking and let love find me? Is it just not my time or just having incredibly poor luck? Is it a combination of these things, or something else I'm missing? Could the right one be in front of me and I'm blind to see it? Did I just start too late in life, or even missed the boat on too many great opportunities? Or is it just simply, love is for thee, not me?
I'm really lost and don't know what to do at this point, I really need some advice.
Thanks everyone.
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