Avoiding Relationships

[BuddyBoi21]

How do I stop liking women so much?

For some reason my attractions work like this: I'm extremly meh about guys but every now and again one dude will really catch my attention but I never act on it. I'm found of other non-binary people but they aren't on my radar too often and I usually have a mix of "I wanna date you" and "I wanna be you". But with women, whenever I see or meet a woman I'm attracted to I borderline (or full on) pine after her.

I want to impress her and make her feel safe and kiss her and I want her to like me.
However this is all unrealistic and also in many cases to many women creepy so I just try to stuff my feelings but kindly approach and make conversation if the setting allows it.
I get their number, I try not to come on too strongly but at the end I still get rejected.

Everyone close to me tells me I should focus on myself and I really want to but every time I meet a pretty woman I want to go talk to her and tell her she looks nice and just take the risk even though I have no chance.

I just want these feelings to go away so I can have an easier time focusing on myself.
Sure maybe some day I'll get a girlfriend but that will never happen until I improve myself, look handsome and come off as less threatening.

What can I do to make it easier to stop liking girls or at least to stop thinking about dating them so much?
I want to be just as meh about women as I am about guys.
I hope this isn't weird to ask.

[Jacob]

Hey Buddy,

And boi-o-boi can I relate to some of these feelings.

I think it's important to have a clearer idea of what is actually happening when you approach someone to date and know what you are looking for. By the sounds of it, you're not doing anything majorly wrong but haven't met people you actually click with.

I do think that bringing up appearance when you have first met someone isn't necessary, and can make people feel self-conscious. I know I would feel weird and a little threatened in that situation. But another factor is that you also have very little idea of what it's like to talk, flirt and interact with that person, i.e. 'the chemistry'.

Have you thought about that side of things?

Also, it sounds like you enjoy chatting with new people. I don't think you need to 'improve' yourself before doing that!

Feeling better about yourself and feeling like you have cared for yourself is always a good thing though... so you can maybe do both?

If it does feel like a distraction from your own self care, of course, you can just dial down the approaching-people thing. Stopping being attracted to people isn't likely to happen though!

[BuddyBoi21]

Hey Jacob,

I feel really dense when it comes to telling the difference between friendly behavior and flirty behavior.
Also as a young, more masculine presenting queer person I'm almost always shoved into the pursuit side of this.
It's very rare feminine people approach me first and it bugs me a lot because someone could like me and I wouldn't know unless I say/do something first.
I could make the decision to not say anything because I don't mind having a woman or femme person as a friend but I also feel like if I don't do it nothing would happen.
Recently though I've been in two different situations where I've misread "signals"and pretty much end up making an idiot of myself or at least feeling that way (both girls have boyfriends, I feel awkward and I just wanna crawl into a hole for being "that person").

I'm just emotionally exhausted and I don't want to make the first move anymore with anyone because of this.
I feel like I creep out people that I'm attracted to so I feel like I'd be doing everyone a favor by being their friend only and nothing more unless they ask or say something.
Regardless of all of these not-so-jazzed feelings, I still feel this sort of need for intimacy that I can't exactly satisfy with my friends or family but it feels like I won't find any sort of significant other or someone along those lines for a while and should just adjust to not having this desire fulfilled.
I may not be able to stop being attracted to women but I can just tell myself she's just my friend and that's it, right?

[Mo]

It's definitely ok if you feel like making the first move winds up feeling exhausting or awkward. I think that in some ways, it can get easier with practice, but it can also feel like a series of awkward conversations so it's just fine to take a break from that. Maybe cultivating friendships with a lot of women who you think are pretty great is an easier goal right now; you might find that a relationship grows out of one of those friendships, but it might feel less stressful if you focus more on getting to know them gradually and building friendships first.

[BuddyBoi21]

Hey Mo,

You make an excellent point however I don't think that'll happen.
From past experiences, most women who befriend me only see me as a friend. If I've tried to approach it I get heavily "hinted" or directly told I'm just a friend.

I'm great at being friends and I don't mind my feelings being returned because I can't really do much about it at that point besides move on.
I just don't think it'll happen because of my experience with this route before. (In one instance I developed a huge crush on my friend at the time in high school tried to ask them to homecoming, ruined our friendship and tried so hard to swallow my pain and instead made everything worse, prolonged my personal healing and just made my senior year of high school ten times harder).

So after that that was (one of) the last time(s) I tried to romantically pursue a friend and I essentially vowed I wouldn't try to date my friends because they only see me as a friend due to "poor timing" and/or aren't going be easy to get over if we still hang out (thus possibly ruining a friendship).

So yeah do with this what you will.

[Siân]

From what you're describing, it sounds like you have been trying to cultivate friendships in the hopes that they turn into relationships, and then deal with a lot of (understandably) hard emotions when they don't grow into anything else? What do you think about having friendships with women you find attractive and not needing them to be anything other than a friendship?

You might find that by genuinely focusing on the friendships, with no other motive, that you save yourself some of the emotional burnout you've been describing, get some awesome new friends (which can bring intimacy and a sense of connection) and become more comfortable approaching people you *are* crushing on later.

[BuddyBoi21]

Hey Siân,

Well it's more like I have either gone into a friendship and have developed unrequited feelings or I openly expressed my interest, the woman in question wanted to get to know me and she decided she wasn't interested.

I feel like anything with friends will never happen simply because I'm a much better friend than romantic partner, potential or otherwise.

I'll be friends with women I find attractive if a friendship happens organically but I won't go out of my way to establish a relationship or a friendship to save myself from the possible heartache.

I will focus on friendships or at least myself but I know for a fact this will not increase my chances of having a girlfriend.
Also I feel like I won't really find myself attached/attracted to these people because I know myself well enough to avoid further attachment.
Example: I'm very affectionate and respond very nicely to physical touch so if I restrict this contact with the friend/crush I'm attracted to then the feelings will eventually go away on their own.
I don't think I should be in a relationship even though I feel the need for affection (I also don't think this will happen either).
So yes maybe my social skills will improve with women but I don't think any woman will actually like me.

[Sam W]

Hi BuddyBoi,

Can I ask if this is a topic you've brought up with your therapist lately? I ask because there are echoes of some things you've described struggling with before, such as framing things you want as the least likely or an impossible outcome, or avoiding attachment as a way of trying to forestall getting hurt. If you've talked about this with them, how have those talks gone?

[BuddyBoi21]

Hey Sam,
I have somewhat discussed these issues with my current therapist. How I would like to be in a relationship even though it's probably the worst choice for myself at the moment.
She tells me this won't be forever and that I don't know what will happen or how long I'll be single (which is both true and fair).
But at the same time I am told to focus on myself but every time I meet a woman I'm attracted to I want to blow off this rule and take the risk and always end up in the same spot. I get rejected for reason or another or we simply just don't match up.

I'm tired of actively (or passively) pursuing people and getting hurt so the best way to keep myself from impulsively pursuing anyone is by telling myself "we're just friends and nothing else" and actively taking steps to avoid developing feelings (or reduce the chances) since a relationship (long term or not) feels like it's "bad" for me or simply predestined to just to happen at this point in time.

The further away I keep it from my mind the less I feel inclined to look for anyone. I'm also hoping that if presented with the (rare) opportunity to be asked out I will just say no and take comfort in being alone and just simply not want to be with anyone at some point.

Sure, I don't want to get hurt but regardless of how much I've gotten hurt, I've consistently pined after potential partners, dates and hookups alike for some sort of consistent contact when all I really need is to be alone for a while and love myself.

So yes this idea sounds counter-intuitive but I'm only discouraging "potential" relationships now so that way I can have an easier time focusing on myself and just not think about women so much in a romantic or sexual context.

I hope this made sense and I will go more in depth with these thoughts if you feel like I should.

[Sam W]

Glad to hear you've been discussing these issues with her. Have the two of you talked about strategies or tools you can use to balance those two ideas in your daily life: that it's best to focus on yourself but that there will be times when you feel attracted to someone? And that there's nothing wrong with cultivating non-romantic relationships while working on yourself?

Too, it may help to think of attraction as something that can (and often does) happen without us consciously choosing it, but the degree to which we choose to act on it is well within our control. So, if you feel an attraction coming on, you can acknowledge it's there but still choose to not do anything about it. Does that make sense?

Also, do you feel like you tend to be attracted to the majority of women you meet and wanting some sort of romantic relationship with them? Or is attraction to people not that frequent?

[BuddyBoi21]

Hey Sam,
We haven't gone too much in depth about what strategies I can use for balancing my attractions while working on myself. Also it's not like I feel that cultivating non-romantic relationships are bad. Honestly I've felt the opposite since shifting my thinking recently and all of close friends and family highly encourage this so much more than me seeking any sort of girlfriend.

I know I can acknowledge the attraction early on and not do anything about it which is one way to approach it but it can become difficult if the woman seems even slightly interested. I start taking risks in hopes "maybe this will actually go well" only to be disappointed which is why I've taken on a new mindset on dating and relationships. Nothing is guranteed, no one can truly promise a commitment, I can't promise anything no matter how much I don't want to and women are friends (or they only see me as a friend).

Through this thinking I've been better at discouraging myself from even taking any deeper interest in a woman and pursuing her and with time if women begin to pursue me I'll just say no.

I don't exactly feel attraction to every girl I meet but more so when I do meet a girl I'm attracted to I do tend to be very interested. Lately however I have only some interest and want to proceed further but have been unsure since these have been more "traditional" settings rather than going online to meet women. I don't go to a party intending to pick up women but when I meet someone interesting I try to "prepare" by asking a friend if she's single, if she's straight, etc, hoping that I won't be rejected if the "odds" feel like they're in my favor. After recent attempts with this method in the last 3 or so times I went out though I've learned quickly it doesn't work for me.

I was told by my therapist recently to look at external locus of control and while yes I can continue to groom myself to be better and hopefully deemed more attractive, women that I'm attracted to simply just aren't attracted to me.
Whether it be myself coming off as desperate or maybe even creepy without realizing or simply "fate" or whatever won't allow for it, women that I'm interested in have no interest in me and I should just leave them alone.

I know it may sound extreme but regardless I just shouldn't date anyone.

[Sam W]

It's sounding like, from the feelings you're describing here, that your best option in approaching these thoughts and feelings is still with the help of your therapist. You could work with them on balancing those seemingly competing feelings, as I mentioned before, getting more comfortable with the limits of control and predictability that exist in our lives, and some of the very black or white thinking that you've expressed in this and other threads.

I'm also suggesting that course of action for you because we've sort of reached the limits of how we can help you around this issue right now. From your description, the worries and feelings you're having around dating are tied to, or at least being heavily influenced by, the things you're dealing with in terms of your mental health. Since we're not trained mental healthcare providers, we're not equipped to help you with these issues in the way that would likely be most effective for you. So, the most responsible and kind thing we can do is encourage you to use the tools you have access to that can help in a way that will hopefully be effective. Do you see what I'm getting at there?