Fucked up parallels

[Hielario]

Something has been running through my head since last year.

The extremely few women about whom I can safely say that they have wanted me physically at some moment (it never worked out, lost interest, etc) are pretty similar in some aspects.

First: all of them were overweight.
Second: all of them were, in retrospective, untrustable. Two of them were mentally unwell, the last one just gave excuses that got proggreasively less plausible.

I am worried about what this says about me as a man. Has anybody else ever seen a pattern like this in their own life?

[Datelessman]

In my life, the only women who were "no doubt about it" romantically (or at least physically) attracted to me tended to be way older (60-70+ years old) and far and away not my physical type. It was true in high school and it's been true ever since. I've frequently joked I could be a "nursing home gigolo", if I had no shame, that is. It's been frustrating, to say the least.

The only exception was an OkCupid date I got in college, but I was in too much disbelief to really make much of it. But, I always saw that as the exception that proves the rule.

I suppose I could understand being worried about emotionally unstable women going after you. It also be a matter of not having many opportunities with different types of women.

[inbloomer]

Honestly, I'm more and more coming to the conclusion that getting intense crushes on people you barely know is a sign of immaturity and insecurity. As such, I don't think it's at all surprising or unusual that the lowest-hanging fruit - the people most likely to show fast, direct interest in you - are people who come with big catches in the small print.

With people who would actually make good partners, it will be a slow build: their interest just isn't going to go from 0 to 10 in the first couple of meetings.

[Hielario]

You sound like a cheap hollywood movie, inbloomer. By your logic, anyone who has sex without waiting and waiting is damaged.

[inbloomer]

It's not about artificially "waiting and waiting". But if you actively spurn getting to know people, considering it an irritating chore that's just postponing the fun part, and then complain about the calibre of people you're attracting and quality of connection you're having ... maybe that's something to think about.

[Hielario]

You have literally no idea of how much effort I dedicated to getting to know these, or any available women I've met for the almost ten years I've been plugging at this bullshit, or the opinions and behaviour I had when I met them, so don't go around making unfounded assumptions merely because I'm currently fucking tired of the whole stupid deal.

[Enail]

<Mod> Guys, you both need to dial the temperature down a few degrees. Inbloomer, I want to see more respect for people who operate differently from you; Hielario, you asked for thoughts about a pattern you're experiencing, that means being open to ideas about what's going on, even if they're critical.</mod>

Speaking not as a mod, three people in ten years, who share one very common trait, and for whom two shared a (rather broad and also quite common) second trait and one handled not being interested in a passive and annoying way - that isn't a terribly strong pattern, so I'm not sure it'll be very informative to put that much analysis into it. But people do often land up inadvertently filtering in ways they don't realize in how they meet potential partners and how they interact with them, so it's not implausible something like that could be going on there either.

I do want to point out that mentally unwell doesn't mean untrustworthy or not potentially a good partner, even if you don't think it's a trait you'd be okay with in a partner or if these particular peoples' way of dealing with their mental illness was a problem.

[Hielario]

Perhaps you're right, Enail. It's just... I have nothing else since a certain offer from my past was revealed as a joke. Pretty much all of them were from online dating, and I don't think I did anything special that I didn't do with any onther woman online.

I feel like I need to punctualize a couple of things, though.

I don't know if I'm misusing the word "overweight" or canadians are just fatter, but, lin any case: I'm talking about ladies shaped like Melissa McCarthy in SPY. Being *that* fat isn't "very common"where I live, much less in my age group. Happens, but you don't see it every day. (And I've seen that a lot of guys find it disgusting at worst and unattractive at best).

And yes, being mentally unwell doesn't make people untrustworthy. But in their case? It did. I saw a behaviour, I was informed of an issue, and the connection between them was obvious, especially since I have some experience in the matter due to family issues.

[Enail]

Hey, there's no need to be mean about people's appearances ("frying pan to the face"), or to report on the details of what cruel words other people say about those they find unattractive, I'd have understood what you were saying without that.

If you're talking about people who you believe have a hard time finding interested partners, the fact that you're looking only for very forward, overt approaches for sex in the short term might explain some of this pattern (if it is one, which I'm not sure it is): a certain percentage of people who have a harder time finding partners might decide their best bet is to be more forward and to make more approaches rather than waiting for others to approach or taking it slow with the risk of only finding out the other person's not interested but just being polite.

Of course, in general a person is more likely to get clear approaches from people who are very forward in approach and message more people than you are from people who prefer to be selective and either message only when they're extremely interested or limit themselves to the people who approach them first. But if your profile indicates that you're into that kind of approach, that seems likely to increase that tendency.

[Hielario]

Yeah, you're right about the pan thing, I already had erased it before reading you.

Indeed, sometimes I feel that they were into me because I was one of the few attracted to them, and I was either blind or permissive to red flags in behaviour.

But...

the fact that you're looking only for very forward, overt approaches for sex in the short term might explain some of this pattern

.
Look, in case it isn't obvious, I've used more approaches than haircuts. I haven't spent all these years doing the same thing. Not even wanting/searching for the same thing. I had periods when I wanted a relationship, periods where I wanted to get laid ASAP... Periods where I would talk for weeks trying to figure what kinda person they were before even floating the idea of meeting , periods where I just put the cards on the table... And everything inbetween!

It doesn't seem to matter, I met them in different years and with very different approaches, both on my part and theirs (beyond the fact it was always through online dating).

Although I'll concede that I'm not very sure about how could I signal that I'm open to directness through a profile, except for the period where it openly said that I wanted casual sex or a relarionship.

Say, what about you, Enail? What kind of ladies do you attract?

[Enail]

Oh, okay, from what you've talked about wanting recently, I assumed that had been your style for all of this. Then, my best guess is that either it's actually coincidence, or there is a commonality in that they're going with forward/frequent-approach but it's just that that's the set of people who approaching more people, so anyone is more likely to encounter them than women taking less forward strategies.

I wouldn't say I particularly have a type I attract exactly, I've been married for quite a long time, so haven't done the online dating thing, and have never had tons of women throwing themselves at me regardless.   Most women who've shown an interest have been friends or people I'd be likely to be friends with regardless, which filters for smart, probably a sarcastic and/or silly sense of humour, and similar type of weirdo to me - I'm definitely a "someone's shot of whiskey, not everyone's cup of tea." I guess maybe slightly leaning towards femme? But that one's iffy. That's about all I can think of that might be common.

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