Re: considering opting out of dating FOR GOOD.

[Guest]

The one thing that I'm unsure about with all this is: why have you not only decided to let us know but, in spite of being pretty dead set on your decision not to date any more, also asked us to prove that you should change your mind?

I can think of a few reasons why this might be the case. I just don't know which one you've gone with.

BECAUSE I AM FUCKING CONFUSED!! I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I WANT IN LIFE, I JUST DONT WANT TO BE LONELY, IWANT THE LIES AND ABUSE TO STOP, I WANT TO BE ADMIRED FOR WHO I AM, NOT FOR HOW MUCH MONEY I HAVE, NOT FOR MY LOOKS , NOT FOR MY STATUS, I WANT TO LOVED AND ADMIRED FOR BEING ME. I CANT LOVE MYSELF BECAUSE NO ONE LOVES ME! HOW CAN I STOP HATING MYSELF IF NO ONE TELLS ME "I LOVE YOU" IN WHATEVER CONTEXT: PARENTAL, PLATONIC OR ROMANTIC LOVE. I FEEL COLD AND LONELY!

But I am so confused... I lost the spark, but I feel so cold...

[Enail]

Hey, Alex, it's okay to not know what you want, or to be confused about the way to get things you want. You do know that you're upset and hurting really badly right now, so maybe the best thing to do is to spend some time doing things that make you feel better. It's hard to think usefully about this stuff when you're overwhelmed with your feelings! Watch an old favourite movie, play with your puppy, take a walk and sit under a tree, whatever feels good and calming. And then when your pain isn't quite so immediate, you'll probably be in a better shape to think about what's going on, and you can talk about your confusion with your therapist and see if they can help you come up with some next steps.

[Guest]

Hey, Alex, it's okay to not know what you want, or to be confused about the way to get things you want. You do know that you're upset and hurting really badly right now, so maybe the best thing to do is to spend some time doing things that make you feel better. It's hard to think usefully about this stuff when you're overwhelmed with your feelings! Watch an old favourite movie, play with your puppy, take a walk and sit under a tree, whatever feels good and calming. And then when your pain isn't quite so immediate, you'll probably be in a better shape to think about what's going on, and you can talk about your confusion with your therapist and see if they can help you come up with some next steps.

I think I need a shoulder to cry on...

[Conreezy]

I am not generalizing per se, but if women want my trust again, they have to prove that they are to be trusted.

This makes no sense. Of course that's a generalization.

My father walked out on me when I was 12, I don't remember him ever wronging me.

Walking out on you wasn't wronging you?

[Guest]

I am not generalizing per se, but if women want my trust again, they have to prove that they are to be trusted.

This makes no sense.  Of course that's a generalization.  

My father walked out on me when I was 12, I don't remember him ever wronging me.

Walking out on you wasn't wronging you?

.....

[Guest]

BECAUSE I AM FUCKING CONFUSED!! I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I WANT IN LIFE, I JUST DONT WANT TO BE LONELY, IWANT THE LIES AND ABUSE TO STOP, I WANT TO BE ADMIRED FOR WHO I AM, NOT FOR HOW MUCH MONEY I HAVE, NOT FOR MY LOOKS , NOT FOR MY STATUS, I WANT TO LOVED AND ADMIRED FOR BEING ME. I CANT LOVE MYSELF BECAUSE NO ONE LOVES ME! HOW CAN I STOP HATING MYSELF IF NO ONE TELLS ME "I LOVE YOU" IN WHATEVER CONTEXT: PARENTAL, PLATONIC OR ROMANTIC LOVE. I FEEL COLD AND LONELY!

But I am so confused... I lost the spark, but I feel so cold...

For clarification: do people admire you for your looks and your money and your status?

And one more: have any women actually humiliated you, or have they simply been ignoring you? I've seen you write about your asshole army buddies insulting you for being a male virgin, I've never once heard of any interaction you've had with a woman in any context.

Have you ever attempted to approach a woman and begin a conversation with her? I'm not saying it's simple (it's not, just that thought alone is enough to make me nauseous).

Do you have interactions of any kind with any woman you're not already related to?

They're unbelievably simple questions, and it's not really anything I can get you about, since I'm in the same boat as you (adult male virgin). I'm merely positing that it's not exactly fair to condemn the entire gender if you haven't even talked to any of them, or very few of them.

No, none of them are returning your affections. Unfortunately, that's entirely on you. Not fair, but they have no obligation to feel any way about you.

Advantages: being in the military, you gotta be in pretty decent shape. Being a soldier is also considered pretty attractive to most women I know (especially near me, the soldiers on leave tend to get laid the most). Talking about your time in the military would be a fantastic opener, even though you wouldn't do that until a conversation had already started. You sound passionate about it, so use that.

Disadvantages: like me, the only way you'll get any kind of self-esteem for yourself is through sex with women. You want the social status that goes along with it. You resent everyone else for whom obtaining sex is painfully simple. Hell, I'm just listing my own problems and we probably share at least a few.

Nor will I claim that it's a simple solution or that a solution is guaranteed, because if that were true, I wouldn't be a virgin still. But there was certainly a time that I resented women without even attempting to interact with them, just admiring them from afar. I wasn't treating them like people, I was treating them like an obstacle course.

Plus women are fantastic at reading between the lines. They can tell we hate ourselves, they can tell we're desperate to impress them, that always scares them off. They want confidence and self-esteem, the two things we have none of.

Can you fault a woman for wanting those things? She doesn't want a guy ranting about how much he hates himself, she wants a guy who likes himself. Which is, like I said, really hard to do when you've been ignored and neglected your entire life.

See, what took me the longest time to figure out about women is that they have an entirely different problem: they will be wanted, they can obtain sex easily, but it's not the kind of sex you'd want most of the time. Women don't want to be just a receptacle for a man's release. That's how I was treating them before, I was treating them like receptacles, like validation givers. I wanted them to fix me, it was a very unequal sort of relationship, and kept most of them, aside from the really insecure ones, from ever wanting to be around me.

A woman wants to be wanted for herself. She wants a guy who wants her, not just a moist spot to stick yourself in. They want to be valued.

The solution is simple, but hard to implement: you treat women how you treat men.

This will not get you laid on its own. That's not the goal now. The goal isn't to hope that she'll like you and want you, because she never will. She can detect that mindset instantly. As long as you have it, you have no chance in hell. The goal is merely to talk with her. I'm not even advocating approaching complete strangers and artificially starting conversations, because I still can't do that myself.

Basically, you get downright observational. You don't just do this with women, you do this with everyone. In order to start a conversation with a woman, you must be able to start a conversation with a man. And that's not easy either, even if you don't wanna fuck them.

The dirty secret is that aside from the privates and gender exclusive body parts, there's not much difference between women and men. You want to fuck women, though.

You're not starting conversations with anyone if you're not in their line of sight. I made that mistake a lot. Don't do that. If you're standing beside them, go for it. Not even "hi, how are you?" Just something like "What kind of coffee should I get? You know this menu better than me." Like you already know them, like you've known them for years. Maybe something like "I shouldn't get a cookie, should I? I don't wanna be a total fatass." It's all jokes and games, that's it. They're interesting and you wanna say something to them, male or female.

See, you're seeing a girl and you immediately try to get into her pants, that becomes your mentality. I still do this all the goddamn time, I fucking hate it.

Women are always on the lookout for this mentality, because creeps have it too. I'm not saying you're a creep, or that this mindset itself makes you one. Just that creeps have the mindset and the entitlement to think they can do what they want. You're being respectful, it seems like.

So when you try to talk to any woman, they're on the defensive. They need to make sure you're not one of those. It's why chicks like guys who follow social etiquette, because creeps never do.

So how do you make contact? Well let's say this observation you've made has led to a conversation, the kind you'd have with your buddy. Maybe you high five them, but the best way to show interest respectfully (for me), is to shake their hand absurdly fast, pretending they're stuck together. You're not holding on, it's soft so that they can let go whenever they want. But you're just trying to be goofy. After they let go, say something like "Jesus Christ, woman, that's a crime in some countries." All jokes, all giggles.

And that shit takes months to get right. It's such fucking work, dude. None of this is simple, none of this stops the anxiety. What takes seconds for most takes months or even years for us. If we ever succeed, we're not even telling anyone publicly about how fucking hard it is. Do you think any girl wants to hear about how anxious they make us? Hell no. Confidence and self-esteem.

So take this shit with baby steps. I'm not guaranteeing jack shit, because nothing is guaranteed. I have no magic cure or magic bullet, I still haven't kissed a girl in over two years, and that was a fluke I can't explain. That's all I've done, dude.

But what you can do is get women as a gender off that pedestal. It'll do you good, dude. You don't got the red pill instinct in you. You're lost and you're lonely and you want to be loved, just like the rest of us. Shit, you don't know how much I want that, too. I can't give you the secret to getting any of that. I'm still shy as hell around pretty girls, I just got shown behind the curtain a bit.

One final note: I tend to respond to accusations of being a virgin by mocking the idea of sex itself. I used to respond with insults, but I realized that's just a tipoff. Instead, I jokingly play along and start making jokes so terrible about sex that it defuses the situation.

Some examples:

"Aw man, you got me! I wish I knew how to make the sex. You do it by peeing in the butt, right?"

"Can I put my wee-wee in your dirty spot, I wanna be a big boy!"

"Oh gee, a girl! Run away!"

Shit like that. It's infantile, but it suggests that the idea doesn't make you insecure (even if it does).

This works for sex stories, just by making them so outlandish that it's obvious that you're joking:

"Well after that night, your mom was never the same."

"You could say that I'm your stepfather, but I don't believe in commitment."

"I almost fucked Kim Kardashian once, then I decided I wanted to live."

"I had a threesome with a pair of conjoined twins. Was kind of a sticky situation."

And of course, if asked for real stories:

"Man, you just wanna get off thinking about me later, I know it."

"We can make one right here, right now. I'm not afraid to pull my cock out in public."

"Being gay ain't a sin, bro. I'm so happy for you!"

Jokingly offering to fuck whoever makes those comments is never a bad thing.


Like I said, all of this is learned and takes time to get on the right level so people laugh it off. I've gone to some extremes to preserve my secret, from gay slurs to accusing them of being rapists. I wouldn't do that, that tends to start fights.

I hope at least some of this was helpful.

[Enail]

<mod>Folks, just a reminder that Alex has said he doesn't want to be dating, so please steer clear of dating advice.

Alex, I'm leaving Glides' suggestions there because it's more about suggestions how to interact with women in non-dating contexts and deal with worries about being a virgin, so it seems like it could be useful to you regardless, but if you'd prefer not to be getting these sorts of suggestions, let me know and I'll change the thread tag to No Advice.
</mod>

[Guest]

<mod>Folks, just a reminder that Alex has said he doesn't want to be dating, so please steer clear of dating advice.

Alex, I'm leaving Glides' suggestions there because it's more about suggestions how to interact with women in non-dating contexts and deal with worries about being a virgin, so it seems like it could be useful to you regardless, but if you'd prefer not to be getting these sorts of suggestions, let me know and I'll change the thread tag to No Advice.  
</mod>

No problem, I just need to chill out for a while. as long as they offer advice on how to cope with my situation, I see no problem.

[Guest]

BECAUSE I AM FUCKING CONFUSED!! I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I WANT IN LIFE, I JUST DONT WANT TO BE LONELY, IWANT THE LIES AND ABUSE TO STOP, I WANT TO BE ADMIRED FOR WHO I AM, NOT FOR HOW MUCH MONEY I HAVE, NOT FOR MY LOOKS , NOT FOR MY STATUS, I WANT TO LOVED AND ADMIRED FOR BEING ME. I CANT LOVE MYSELF BECAUSE NO ONE LOVES ME! HOW CAN I STOP HATING MYSELF IF NO ONE TELLS ME "I LOVE YOU" IN WHATEVER CONTEXT: PARENTAL, PLATONIC OR ROMANTIC LOVE. I FEEL COLD AND LONELY!

But I am so confused... I lost the spark, but I feel so cold...

For clarification: do people admire you for your looks and your money and your status?

And one more: have any women actually humiliated you, or have they simply been ignoring you? I've seen you write about your asshole army buddies insulting you for being a male virgin, I've never once heard of any interaction you've had with a woman in any context.

Have you ever attempted to approach a woman and begin a conversation with her? I'm not saying it's simple (it's not, just that thought alone is enough to make me nauseous).

Do you have interactions of any kind with any woman you're not already related to?

They're unbelievably simple questions, and it's not really anything I can get you about, since I'm in the same boat as you (adult male virgin). I'm merely positing that it's not exactly fair to condemn the entire gender if you haven't even talked to any of them, or very few of them.

No, none of them are returning your affections. Unfortunately, that's entirely on you. Not fair, but they have no obligation to feel any way about you.

Advantages: being in the military, you gotta be in pretty decent shape. Being a soldier is also considered pretty attractive to most women I know (especially near me, the soldiers on leave tend to get laid the most). Talking about your time in the military would be a fantastic opener, even though you wouldn't do that until a conversation had already started. You sound passionate about it, so use that.

Disadvantages: like me, the only way you'll get any kind of self-esteem for yourself is through sex with women. You want the social status that goes along with it. You resent everyone else for whom obtaining sex is painfully simple. Hell, I'm just listing my own problems and we probably share at least a few.

Nor will I claim that it's a simple solution or that a solution is guaranteed, because if that were true, I wouldn't be a virgin still. But there was certainly a time that I resented women without even attempting to interact with them, just admiring them from afar. I wasn't treating them like people, I was treating them like an obstacle course.

Plus women are fantastic at reading between the lines. They can tell we hate ourselves, they can tell we're desperate to impress them, that always scares them off. They want confidence and self-esteem, the two things we have none of.

Can you fault a woman for wanting those things? She doesn't want a guy ranting about how much he hates himself, she wants a guy who likes himself. Which is, like I said, really hard to do when you've been ignored and neglected your entire life.

See, what took me the longest time to figure out about women is that they have an entirely different problem: they will be wanted, they can obtain sex easily, but it's not the kind of sex you'd want most of the time. Women don't want to be just a receptacle for a man's release. That's how I was treating them before, I was treating them like receptacles, like validation givers. I wanted them to fix me, it was a very unequal sort of relationship, and kept most of them, aside from the really insecure ones, from ever wanting to be around me.

A woman wants to be wanted for herself. She wants a guy who wants her, not just a moist spot to stick yourself in. They want to be valued.

The solution is simple, but hard to implement: you treat women how you treat men.

This will not get you laid on its own. That's not the goal now. The goal isn't to hope that she'll like you and want you, because she never will. She can detect that mindset instantly. As long as you have it, you have no chance in hell. The goal is merely to talk with her. I'm not even advocating approaching complete strangers and artificially starting conversations, because I still can't do that myself.

Basically, you get downright observational. You don't just do this with women, you do this with everyone. In order to start a conversation with a woman, you must be able to start a conversation with a man. And that's not easy either, even if you don't wanna fuck them.

The dirty secret is that aside from the privates and gender exclusive body parts, there's not much difference between women and men. You want to fuck women, though.

You're not starting conversations with anyone if you're not in their line of sight. I made that mistake a lot. Don't do that. If you're standing beside them, go for it. Not even "hi, how are you?" Just something like "What kind of coffee should I get? You know this menu better than me." Like you already know them, like you've known them for years. Maybe something like "I shouldn't get a cookie, should I? I don't wanna be a total fatass." It's all jokes and games, that's it. They're interesting and you wanna say something to them, male or female.

See, you're seeing a girl and you immediately try to get into her pants, that becomes your mentality. I still do this all the goddamn time, I fucking hate it.

Women are always on the lookout for this mentality, because creeps have it too. I'm not saying you're a creep, or that this mindset itself makes you one. Just that creeps have the mindset and the entitlement to think they can do what they want. You're being respectful, it seems like.

So when you try to talk to any woman, they're on the defensive. They need to make sure you're not one of those. It's why chicks like guys who follow social etiquette, because creeps never do.

So how do you make contact? Well let's say this observation you've made has led to a conversation, the kind you'd have with your buddy. Maybe you high five them, but the best way to show interest respectfully (for me), is to shake their hand absurdly fast, pretending they're stuck together. You're not holding on, it's soft so that they can let go whenever they want. But you're just trying to be goofy. After they let go, say something like "Jesus Christ, woman, that's a crime in some countries." All jokes, all giggles.

And that shit takes months to get right. It's such fucking work, dude. None of this is simple, none of this stops the anxiety. What takes seconds for most takes months or even years for us. If we ever succeed, we're not even telling anyone publicly about how fucking hard it is. Do you think any girl wants to hear about how anxious they make us? Hell no. Confidence and self-esteem.

So take this shit with baby steps. I'm not guaranteeing jack shit, because nothing is guaranteed. I have no magic cure or magic bullet, I still haven't kissed a girl in over two years, and that was a fluke I can't explain. That's all I've done, dude.

But what you can do is get women as a gender off that pedestal. It'll do you good, dude. You don't got the red pill instinct in you. You're lost and you're lonely and you want to be loved, just like the rest of us. Shit, you don't know how much I want that, too. I can't give you the secret to getting any of that. I'm still shy as hell around pretty girls, I just got shown behind the curtain a bit.

One final note: I tend to respond to accusations of being a virgin by mocking the idea of sex itself. I used to respond with insults, but I realized that's just a tipoff. Instead, I jokingly play along and start making jokes so terrible about sex that it defuses the situation.

Some examples:

"Aw man, you got me! I wish I knew how to make the sex. You do it by peeing in the butt, right?"

"Can I put my wee-wee in your dirty spot, I wanna be a big boy!"

"Oh gee, a girl! Run away!"

Shit like that. It's infantile, but it suggests that the idea doesn't make you insecure (even if it does).

This works for sex stories, just by making them so outlandish that it's obvious that you're joking:

"Well after that night, your mom was never the same."

"You could say that I'm your stepfather, but I don't believe in commitment."

"I almost fucked Kim Kardashian once, then I decided I wanted to live."

"I had a threesome with a pair of conjoined twins. Was kind of a sticky situation."

And of course, if asked for real stories:

"Man, you just wanna get off thinking about me later, I know it."

"We can make one right here, right now. I'm not afraid to pull my cock out in public."

"Being gay ain't a sin, bro. I'm so happy for you!"

Jokingly offering to fuck whoever makes those comments is never a bad thing.


Like I said, all of this is learned and takes time to get on the right level so people laugh it off. I've gone to some extremes to preserve my secret, from gay slurs to accusing them of being rapists. I wouldn't do that, that tends to start fights.

I hope at least some of this was helpful.

I just can't do it, I am scared to do it... too much of a wimp...

[Enail]

It's okay to be scared, everyone's scared of something. You don't have to do anything you don't feel you can manage, or that you don't think is right for you.

[PintsizeBro]

Glides, that was a really good post. Do I agree with everything you said? Nope. But it was thoughtful and sincere and more savvy than you typically give yourself credit for.

[Guest]

I just can't do it, I am scared to do it... too much of a wimp...

I'd be impressed if you weren't scared. I'm not even pretending I can do that half the time. Just because I know what to do doesn't mean I'm any more likely to do it.

Why do beautiful women have to be so fucking intimidating? Don't know.

I forgot who said this, but it wasn't me: "being brave means feeling scared about doing something and doing it anyway."

I can guarantee this much: as long as you're not a total fucking creep about it and you practice basic hygiene, you will not be rejected.

It just doesn't happen. Friendly and noncreepy strangers just aren't worth being assholes to.

Bit of a challenge because it's not as difficult: try talking to a barista or a bartender, anyone you'd have to talk to anyway to get something. You're not trying to get a number, you're just having a positive interaction with someone. No-risk, they have to talk anyway and will be kind as long as you are.

They don't bite, I promise that they don't bite. The tiny minority of women who are like that are bitches and not worth worrying about. Anyone who treats you badly is not worth worrying about. People only treat each other badly to hide their own insecurities. Trust me, I would know after the sheer number of people I've pissed off over the years.

What will happen if you do what I say is that they will briefly respond and smile. That's it. Small talk. They gain nothing from hurting you. They won't think any less of you. They'll think "huh, that guy talked to me." You are a nonentity to them just by being a customer.

All you're doing is making observations, that's it. "Jesus, it's hot out, isn't it?" "Have you seen Mad Max? I'm just spreading the gospel." "I like your earrings, they go well with your outfit." Observations. Their responses to those will be as follows: "Goddamn, it really is." "I've heard about that movie, should I see it?" "Thanks, I'm glad someone noticed." That's it. Get your coffee or beer or whatever, "really nice talking to you, stranger," walk out.

Hell, you'd do this shit if you were talking to me. I'd highly doubt you'd be so scared of me. One, because I'm not in the military, meaning you can easily kick my ass. Two, because I'm a dude, and I doubt you're as shy around dudes.

All you're doing is finding your barometer of what to do next. No cold approaches, those barely work anyway and that's too high-pressure for both of us. Safe situations, proving girls aren't as scary as we've been led to believe.

That cute bartender or barista had to put on a shit-ton of makeup and have good fashion sense. She's been wondering all day if she's looking OK. Most women (not the narcissists) feel like this. They work their asses off to look good. They're not doing it for us, they're doing it for themselves.

You're not a wimp, bro. Wimps don't go in the military. Wimps aren't trained to be hardened killers. Think of all of this as a bootcamp for the mind, and you are recruit and drill sergeant at the same time. You're the one calling yourself worthless and a filthy little maggot or whatever Full Metal Jacket crap drill sergeants say. The drill sergeant wants you to be the one who breaks, he wants you to be Private Pile and give up. He spends every goddamn moment of every goddamn day telling you how worthless and hideous you are, how you will never succeed.

Who's going to judge you? Me? I'm still a goddamn virgin too, how the hell can I judge you without judging myself? I motherfucking dream of a day in which I can say to someone that I'm a virgin and they say back "Oh, OK." Like it's no big deal. Like I'll lose it whenever I want, whenever I'm ready, whenever I make a connection with someone, if that ever happens. So I say we start that fuse right here and maybe by the time we're dead, society won't be so judgmental anymore. Hopefully.

Do you think I'm a loser for being a virgin? Do you think I'm a freak, that I should die, because I'm a virgin like you? I think I am and you think you are, but I suspect that prejudice only extends to ourselves.

What if one of your fellow squadmates admits he's a virgin, or that he's gay, or trans, or anything that isn't a sexually active heterosexual Christian man? What if he comes crying to you the way we've both come crying to this forum? What would you say to him?

Jesus, I'm talking way too much. I even got Pintsize to say something nice about me.

[gaboz]

Glides. This is incredible stuff you wrote.

and Alex1989: maybe a small retreat and regroup?

[Guest]

Glides. This is incredible stuff you wrote.

and Alex1989: maybe a small retreat and regroup?

RETREAT!! RETREAT!! We'll regroup and reform the division. lol

[Sponsored content]