Scarleteen

Hi, I'm a cis het man, 21. I'm also bisexual but I don't think I'm Bi-romantic, or at the very least, I feel way more comfortable with the idea of being emotionally intimate with women in real life. I hope that makes sense. I'm officially out of college. Never been in a relationship and I feel sad about it very frequently as it's been a thing I've on and off been sad about since I was 17. I say on and off because sometimes I'm actively trying, sometimes I just give up. I don't really have hobbies that facilitate socializing because I'm pretty introverted and don't care for just talking to people just because. To me, I enjoy talking to friends, and feel like I'm annoying people if I talk to them in person, and I'm also not super find of being talked at randomly because I feel like I have to put on a normal person face.

Every once in a while I try dating apps again, and every time I do, it makes me EXTREMELY sad. I feel worse without fail, every time, and not just because I never ever match, but it also just feels so horrible having to take so much time considering my potential compatibility with someone, only to swipe them away forever for all I know.

Whenever I'm sad about how impossible it seems for me to find a girl where we mutually fall in love, I see "Stop looking for love and you'll find it" Or similar variations of that piece of advice. I genuinely think I can't wrap my brain around it, I don't get it. Maybe I'm taking it too literally, but to be honest, I struggle to properly understand what taking something too literally means either haha. To me, thinking about the words of a sentence seems like the entire point of language.

Anyway, I want to find love. I enjoy plenty of things in my life, I've enjoyed them for years and years of my life. I have other goals that aren't romantic, I have friends. None of that fills the unique hole I feel I have when it comes to my lack of a partner. So... It doesn't seem super easy to just stop wanting that. How do I stop wanting that? How do I stop wanting to find love?

Furthermore. I don't know what looking for love means universally. I feel like I've stopped many months at a time. Especially during college, when I was focused very frequently on the stress of assignments. Then I usually go back to actively looking because I realize that... I am alone... Probably because I stopped looking. Not that like, I'm great at looking I guess.

Like, I feel another way I'm supposed to interpret this is to engage in your hobbies and/or socialize, but without the intention of finding love from it, just do it for fun. Which seems like advice tailored for people that A. Have a privileged amount of free time, and B. Have hobbies that facilitate human interaction. I don't. My hobbies are very solo and the most stereotypical undatable thing ever. I like drawing, I like messing around making and editing little videos, I like watching videos, movies and TV, I like mainly older, single player video games. Thing is, I don't feel unsatisfied with my hobbies, but NONE of them are "Go out and express yourself" hobbies... Not that I even want to do that anyway.

Like, I'm introverted. I love having friends, I don't hate people. I just genuinely don't feel any kind of inherent pleasure in going out and socializing with random people. I also don't feel sad about that. Like, I'm not like "Gosh, I sure with I enjoyed going to the bar on karaoke night." Like no, I don't care. I don't want to, I'd find it loud and annoying. If my friends had a party, I'd absolutely want to go, but that's because I'm not total strangers with the people there, I prefer my friends, but also, that means I'm not meeting any potential partners really, unless someone I don't know is there. But ALSO I'm not supposed to be looking for love, so even if someone there was someone I might like and might like me... I should not be thinking about it? But couldn't that also just mean they think I don't care? I don't get it!

Like, I feel no matter how I try applying this advice to my life, it ends up paradoxical. If I stop looking for love, I'll find it. But I stopped looking. Nothing else in my life lets me naturally find people. My hobbies are stay at home, I'm okay with that for my own sense of satisfaction, and not to mention I now work 42 hours a week in a very small wearhouse with a few co-workers and a 45 minute commute time so my free time is already limited.

I still feel an empty hole inside me having never found any partnership. The emotional connection and intimacy, both emotional and physical, the idea of someone understanding me

So, in addition to the question of "What does this advice mean" I guess I'm also wondering... What's the advice that I actually should consider right now? Unless asking for advice alot is in itself bad, I dunno.

Hey again, CakeFlake.

You know, my interpretation and my experiential understanding of that advice when it's actually helpful, not just an annoying cliché -- "stop looking for love and you'll find it" -- is to stop looking for someone (or someones) to fit into your romantic ideal and to instead focus on living your life, including meeting and building relationships of all kinds with people who you just appreciate, enjoy and click with as people, not as Potential Great Loves. Then, as you spend more time together with people, you keep focusing on what you two are together, what feels right for you both, what feel like places where you deeply connect, and love, in whatever form it shows up, will reveal itself in one or more of those relationships over time.

But you still have to be open to love, and doing the things with people that build love, because of course, if you're not, and if you don't, it's not just a thing that magically happens, or like, falls on us from the sky.

You know, I get a lot of what you're saying as a fellow introverted person. And for sure, the apps -- especially when you haven't yet had any other dating experience, I feel so much for so many folks like you in your generation who find themselves in that position -- can be really demoralizing and dehumanizing. They also really do tend to ask for a lot of time and attention if they stand any chance of working at all. I think there's a different way to use them than a lot of people do, and we can talk about that if you want, but using them as effectively as you can still doesn't make them feel awesome to use. I continue to hope for better alternatives for everyone, like, every day.

If it helps, the way I have tended to approach dating, especially when it starts with things like first meetings off an app, is as someone who is just pretty fascinated with people, even if a lot of people at once or a lot of time with people without a solo recharge burns me out. I tend to ask a lot of questions and take in a lot of stories: I'm personally pretty fascinated with other people's life experiences and feelings and relationships. I've also used it as a way to honestly just get myself out of my own space, like as a way to try a new restaurant or see a show I want to see or take a walk in a new place. Not sure if any of that resonates with you or not.

I do want to remind you that more people your age than not, especially due to the way lockdown really messed with people's social developmental timetables, have not yet had partners at your age, and many of those who have tend to have had very short-lived or unsatisfying partnerships, just because, again, of the timetable of human development. I've observed that more people's first dating relationships are happening in their 20s or even 30s than teens. I know that can be cold comfort when you care more about exploring love than being the same as other folks wanting it and not being there yet, but I figured I'd offer that, too.

In the meantime, there are a few lines I absolutely love from the poem Sisyphus, by Anis Mojgani, to the degree that I have them framed and have long kept them in places I pass by every day, so I never miss it:

It is possible to be wild and kind at the same time. It is possible to be both alone and be loved. I have known this to be true. In others. In me. To be loved. And to also still be alone.

I think it's important for our well-being (and for the way I like to live in this world, personally) we remember that love and being single are not mutually exclusive. I think keeping in mind that we can give, receive and experience love in a plethora of contexts not only makes it more likely we'll find it, it keeps us open to it in a larger way than just looking for -- or even finding! -- a romantic partner does. Your friends, for example, can, and hopefully do, love you and vice-versa, and if that hasn't happened yet, that's certainly something you can build over time. Same goes with family, be it chosen or otherwise, or with pets, or even with things we do that we put our heart into: a garden, a story we're writing, a meal we make, a letter we write someone having a hard time.

In my experience personally and professionally, one of the the biggest barriers to finding love is actually bitterness. If we get too hung up on finding a certain kind of love, it's so easy to get jaded and depressed and bitter -- even mean -- and people pick up on that and the smart ones will get gone fast, because someone in that kind of space obviously isn't someone in the headspace to create something good, you know? It's not always easy to keep your heart open when you're feeling the way that you have been, but I think it's always worth it and I hope that you can. <3