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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2365 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 8, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I wish more people were introspective and aware of their internal motivations. It's annoying to have a girl say "I'm just not feeling it" after a few dates with no further feedback.

Maybe she just isn't feeling it (physical attraction). I know you want to think there is some deeper motivation given its ego protective, but Occams razor still applies here.

From my limited exp, I can tell you this happens when you don't follow rule 2. Rule 1 is the entry, rule 2 is the maintenance.

Out of curiosity, how many dates?

Let me turn it back on you a bit. Think deeply about your read of her, and of you. Why do you think she ducked out? Can you get that feedback even if it's not actually coming from her?

I think about five dates.

I can think of lots of potential reasons, but I'm clueless as to which we're most impactful.

In any case, I empathize with your disappointment.

Being a fellow male, I can't help but provide some minor advice. When I didn't make it with a woman, there were three, and only three reasons:

  • They didn't find me physically attractive.
  • I didn't try hard enough and schedule enough time for them to figure out who I was.
  • I became too vulnerable and emotional too quickly.

There's details under each of these, but they were the buckets. Another source of frustration for many men is the fact that #2 and #3 represent boundaries you have to work within.

I hate being in that situation. Really hard to tell if its just a personality mismatch or (if it has been happening regularly), there is some behaviour you have that is unattractive to most girls.

That kind of feedback would be really useful, but since you might only exhibit it on dates or one-on-one private situations with girls (an example would be being a really bad kisser; not saying this is you), its not something that your friends can help identify.

So you're kind of stuck and can't really improve without second guessing all of your dating behaviour.

Non-solicited advice (and this probably won't apply to you, but is generally useful for guys who keep finding themselves in this kind of situation): Some low hanging fruit can be optimising your fitness/fashion/hygiene. Another thing I find useful for 'very online' guys is to make sure that you are not mentally drained before your dates. If you've just spent 5 hours programming/playing games, you are not going to be a good date. Take a break from screens for a few hours before your dates or, in an emergency, meditate for half an hour. This will help you be present and improve your conversational ability.

Echoing self_made_human, not telling you the reason doesn't mean they don't know the reason. They might not, but, also, it's standard advice to never give a reason in such a situation. Among other problems, giving a reason makes some people think the reason is a problem to be fixed and then the relationship will happen after all, not merely an explanation.

I know. Still frustrating either way.

It's entirely possible she has concrete reasons, but doesn't wish to tell you because it might hurt your feelings or she's afraid you'll rage over it.

There's no point pressing it, and there plenty more fish out there either way.

I mean, the most likely scenario is she has concrete reasons she's not telling you, and those reasons are more like 'vibes' and are poor approximations of the load-bearing causes.

Also, though, if you revealed all of the tells you use to read someone, it makes it a lot easier for them to fake it later. Plus, I've heard women say that when they've given the men the honest reasons they didn't make it, the men react negatively.

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