Overcoming personal and social barriers related to lack of dating experience.

[themortalgod]

Hey friends, long time listener/lurker, first time poster. I've got an interesting (though likely not uncommon, situation) that I thought I'd toss up here for discussion. I've managed to shoot through my 20s without dating whatsoever and am now finding it quite difficult date due to a combination of personal barrier that I've self imposed and social barriers that many women in my age range look down on men who have no experience whatsoever. (Not even a first kiss or romantically holding hands)

I recognize that this is entirely my own fault and thus it should be something I overcome. I've always rationalized away dating for one reason or another. Some more rational than others. Probably worth giving a quick overview of my history but I think it is an issue that plagues many guys.

 

When I first reached dating age I was quite small and suffering from a fair bit of bullying (14 or so). Which didn't really put me in a dating headspace. As I progressed along in puberty I managed to shoot up like a weed which nicely rid me of the bullying. Unfortunately, with the growth spurt came obesity and severe acne. The obesity was more or less my fault, I ate too much junk food. The acne less so. As a result I never really had the confidence to date at the time. The acne was very severe, far more than most. At any given time I looked like my face had been recently dipped in acid. Fortunately, at that time I had discovered philosophy particularly enjoying stuff like Plato and Aristotle. Which did me a world of good building my confidence and bringing me back to being positive in live which led to a quite happy existence though at the time I never really considered dating.

 

This transitioned into college where I was very focused on my work. Which went great, I graduate with a 4.0 and it led to a fantastic job upon graduation. I was a very happy person. For the job I moved to another city and immediately started making personal changes to become healthy. At the time it was for me, I didn't really think much about dating at the time. I figured I was building a career and working on myself, I could always worry about girls later though at the time I really had no interest in pursuing marriage or children as I felt the earth was already way too overpopulated. It wasn't until years later that Stephen's arguments on the value of higher IQ people having children that I started to reverse my position.

My health improved dramatically, I shed almost a hundred pounds over a year and a half and transitioned from being obese to being an athlete. I was never happier. The acne, however, stuck around so I really would have had no confidence to date even if I had wanted to. This persisted for the majority of my 20s, despite trying virtually everything I could to get rid of the acne it didn't finally bugger off until I was 27 or so and had given up on it ever going away. At the time I was knee deep in a business venture and from then through until about my 29th birthday I was working too many hours to ever even consider a social life let alone dating.

Which leads us to my position now. My life is freeing up a bit and I'm starting to wonder if I'd made a big mistake not trying to date sooner but the past is the past and I can't change it. My future, however, I can.

As I'm starting to try to date I've run into 3 very specific barriers that I was wondering if anyone had any advice on. Hopefully they are the sorts of barriers that I'm not the only one who has encountered so that others can learn as well.

1. I'm not sure whether to hide my inexperience or be honest and open from the get go. Friends I've discussed it with all think I should hide it as it is a "major turn off" but I'm struggling with beginning a potential relationship on a lie. Should it be something I just don't mention unless it comes up? My goal is to continue to invest in being the best possible person I can be but I've run into a chicken/egg scenario where I can't build by dating "value" without becoming experienced and I can't be experienced without having value. 

2. Finding like minded women to ask out is also a huge problem. I imagine my inexperience isn't helping things but being a non-religious, objectivist individualist has been making it spectacularly hard to find like minded potential partners. The vast majority of women in my social circles are very left leaning. (I'm a photographer so models, makeup artists, etc). I've tried joining social groups based on other shared interests (co-ed sports, for example) but found similar and on the off chance I encounter someone with similar more right wing beliefs they tend to be quite religious and uninterested in dating a non believer. I've also tried going to events related to the alt right (example, The Red Pill screening but those evens seem to be a bit of a sausage fest with maybe one woman in a room full of guys)

3. Overcoming and building my own confidence in this venue. As a whole I'm a pretty confident guy relating to things I know I'm good at. (you have to be as a portrait photographer). But this is a blind spot so I always find myself too stuck in my head which kills my ability to be socially confident in potential dating situations. When reaching out to a gorgeous model il be shooting I have no issues whatsoever. When potentially asking someone on a date its like any potential charm hides deep away in my mind. I know this is just a mental barrier but I'm really struggling to overcome it.

 

Anyhoo, hopefully my wall of text wasn't too big. Thanks so much for listening if you got to the end and any advice would be very much appreciated.

[aviet]

Hi,

 

I asked a similar question about 6 months ago:

 

https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/47553-answering-why-i-have-never-been-in-a-relationship/

 

There were some pretty good responses.

 

To your one query about how to answer why you've not been in a relationship. My conclusion on this is to just be open about it. You can somewhat sweeten that fact with the truth that you have been working on your career. I'm in the same position as you on this. I've been working 60-80 hours / week pretty solidly for 5 years and am going to look more into relationships soon. If a woman discards you simply because you haven't put part of your body in a woman and ignores any strong traits you may have, then she would probably be the type to cast you off for an upgrade at any opportunity.

 

I would recommend giving online dating a go, at least just to get your feet wet. I tried this about six months ago. It is frustrating. There are a lot of chancers - people will message you and then quickly drop off. I was lucky that I was contacted by a girl who had set her profile to private and we had a lot of common interests. She was more mature and serious and messaged me. Our online conversation was huge and we met, which went well. But it seems for whatever reason they didn't like me as after a few messages more I never heard from them again.

 

This rejection in itself was a good learning experience and I now feel more confident of ploughing on through the further inevitable rejections. I think I'm going to be rejected at least three more times before I have an opportunity; and I am kind of relishing it - the pain, the reality.

 

I think our big problem, that you hit on, is our lack of ability to be charming, flirty etc. and that we are more suitable for Christian women, but we are caught in between the space of modernity and Christianity, the genuine benefits of both.

 

As for not finding women who are of a similar mindset, with similar interests. I think it's important to temper such expectations. If your benchmark is FDR, you are going to have a hard time finding anyone. I think it's better to look for markers that suggest a woman could be receptive to such ideas. Someone made a good post recently on this, but I don't remember what it was. For example, the woman I went on a date with was a Catholic who goes to church every week but is of the cultural Christian ilk. I'd describe her as being quite heavily latently left and she did make a statement along the lines of disliking capitalism. But there was certainly a lot of room for conversion. A lot of women are latently left in a very whishy-washy way. Their leanings are very casual and typically based on a drip-drip of background inputs and not strongly formulated philosophies.

 

If you don't already listen, I'd recommend The Gavin McInnes Show. Along with Trump, he's been quite instrumental in changing my mentality into one that is more conducive to success in these areas.

[Rventurelli]

I recognize that this is entirely my own fault and thus it should be something I overcome. I've always rationalized away dating for one reason or another. Some more rational than others. Probably worth giving a quick overview of my history but I think it is an issue that plagues many guys.

 

When I first reached dating age I was quite small and suffering from a fair bit of bullying (14 or so). Which didn't really put me in a dating headspace. As I progressed along in puberty I managed to shoot up like a weed which nicely rid me of the bullying. Unfortunately, with the growth spurt came obesity and severe acne. The obesity was more or less my fault, I ate too much junk food. The acne less so. As a result I never really had the confidence to date at the time. The acne was very severe, far more than most. At any given time I looked like my face had been recently dipped in acid. Fortunately, at that time I had discovered philosophy particularly enjoying stuff like Plato and Aristotle. Which did me a world of good building my confidence and bringing me back to being positive in live which led to a quite happy existence though at the time I never really considered dating.

 

This transitioned into college where I was very focused on my work. Which went great, I graduate with a 4.0 and it led to a fantastic job upon graduation. I was a very happy person. For the job I moved to another city and immediately started making personal changes to become healthy. At the time it was for me, I didn't really think much about dating at the time. I figured I was building a career and working on myself, I could always worry about girls later though at the time I really had no interest in pursuing marriage or children as I felt the earth was already way too overpopulated. It wasn't until years later that Stephen's arguments on the value of higher IQ people having children that I started to reverse my position.

 

My health improved dramatically, I shed almost a hundred pounds over a year and a half and transitioned from being obese to being an athlete. I was never happier. The acne, however, stuck around so I really would have had no confidence to date even if I had wanted to. This persisted for the majority of my 20s, despite trying virtually everything I could to get rid of the acne it didn't finally bugger off until I was 27 or so and had given up on it ever going away. At the time I was knee deep in a business venture and from then through until about my 29th birthday I was working too many hours to ever even consider a social life let alone dating.

 

Which leads us to my position now. My life is freeing up a bit and I'm starting to wonder if I'd made a big mistake not trying to date sooner but the past is the past and I can't change it. My future, however, I can.

 

As I'm starting to try to date I've run into 3 very specific barriers that I was wondering if anyone had any advice on. Hopefully they are the sorts of barriers that I'm not the only one who has encountered so that others can learn as well.

 

1. I'm not sure whether to hide my inexperience or be honest and open from the get go. Friends I've discussed it with all think I should hide it as it is a "major turn off" but I'm struggling with beginning a potential relationship on a lie. Should it be something I just don't mention unless it comes up? My goal is to continue to invest in being the best possible person I can be but I've run into a chicken/egg scenario where I can't build by dating "value" without becoming experienced and I can't be experienced without having value. 

 

2. Finding like minded women to ask out is also a huge problem. I imagine my inexperience isn't helping things but being a non-religious, objectivist individualist has been making it spectacularly hard to find like minded potential partners. The vast majority of women in my social circles are very left leaning. (I'm a photographer so models, makeup artists, etc). I've tried joining social groups based on other shared interests (co-ed sports, for example) but found similar and on the off chance I encounter someone with similar more right wing beliefs they tend to be quite religious and uninterested in dating a non believer. I've also tried going to events related to the alt right (example, The Red Pill screening but those evens seem to be a bit of a sausage fest with maybe one woman in a room full of guys)

 

3. Overcoming and building my own confidence in this venue. As a whole I'm a pretty confident guy relating to things I know I'm good at. (you have to be as a portrait photographer). But this is a blind spot so I always find myself too stuck in my head which kills my ability to be socially confident in potential dating situations. When reaching out to a gorgeous model il be shooting I have no issues whatsoever. When potentially asking someone on a date its like any potential charm hides deep away in my mind. I know this is just a mental barrier but I'm really struggling to overcome it.

 

Anyhoo, hopefully my wall of text wasn't too big. Thanks so much for listening if you got to the end and any advice would be very much appreciated.

To be fairly honest with you my friend, our generation (you mentioned being 29 if I understood it correctly), Millennials (those born between 1984 and 1999), is relatively "inexperienced" sexually. The orgies of the Baby Boomers and early Generation Xers are over, and actually Millennials are twice as likely to be virgins than Generation Xers (those born between 1965-1983) when they were the same age, also 15 percent of Millennials claimed to be virgins until 25 vs 6 percent of Generation Xers[1]. While I do not fall in this category, I did have very few sexual partners for a man my age compared to previous generations (three so far).

 

I can relate a lot to you. I suffered myself an immense amount of bullying and also had acne problems, not the obesity though. This is kind of an important question though, please answer it truthfully: why were your acne problems not treated as a teenager? While physical appearance for men does not have the same impact it has for women, it is still one of the four factors that attract women to men (money, physical beauty, intelligence, popularity and to untie is height.)

 

By this question I mean, did your family did not care about your woes? If they did not, your life was even harder than you just described as you lacked a supportive family. There are many effective acne treatments, I used roacutane and after slightly over one year I had zero acne.

 

It seems to me that you do not have much to worry about, as you seem to be very intelligent and to have a good paying job, which already means you score high in at least two of the most important things that women look for in men. How attractive would you rate yourself in a scale of 0 to 10? How popular are you? What is your height? As long as you are at least average in your appearance, you are already a very good match for serious women.

 

You did not make any mistake whatsoever in focusing in your career instead of dating in the first 30 years of your life. In this regard, men and women have opposite lives: women have 30 years of their prime beauty to try to attract a reliable man to settle down with and it goes down-hill from there. The first part of a woman's life is the easy part: beauty is a genetic thing mostly and the socio-economical aspect a distant second although still important (dentists, skin care, clothes, etc). If a woman just goes sleeping around and does not secure a reliable man and/or does not invest in a career, this pretty much spells doom for her in the rest of her life. Men are totally the opposite, our first 30 years are the harder ones: when we have to secure a career, get our own house, car and reputation straight. While beauty is mostly innate, women being born already valuable, men must fight for those things mentioned to have value. So, a man's life gets easier after 30, women actually start chasing men of value and not the other way around.

 

Now your numbered questions, in Roman characters:

 

I- Be totally honest if it comes down to them asking, just do not go out volunteering the information if they do not seen to care much about it. Let me give you the profiles of the two types of women you should look for, those are coming from logic, reading and personal experience:

 

A- Inexperienced younger women. While it is normal for men to marry younger women, it is my opinion that the age difference can become a huge problem when it reaches certain gaps, as the age groups will have different dispositions, desires, life experiences and goals. My recommendation would be for you to put an age limit of eight years, and even that is already stretching perhaps too much, but assuming you are 29, put a cut off age of 21, do not look at anything younger than that and if possible narrow it to 23 and up.

 

If you date a 21-24 year old who is virgin or had at most one sexual partner that was in a long-term relationship, they will probably be religious and/or Conservative, which means that they do not value sex too much, at least for now. Especially if they are virgin, they will probably be relieved to know or suspect that you have no sexual experience yourself. They are probably worried it might hurt, might want to wait until engagement/or marriage or if they had sex with only one partner before, in some ways it might be better for you. Aim for those for marriage.

 

Allow me to explain. When I was 16 I had a 19 year old virgin girlfriend. I had sex once before and it was not a good experience at 14, that I regretted, so I was pretty much virgin too. When I was 18 and she was 21 we had sex the first time. The relationship was great while it lasted and I have no reason to believe that she cheated on me or anything, nevertheless, after the break up, she started sleeping around like crazy. Long story short about her: she was somewhat Conservative and her family was very Conservative and wanted her to marry virgin. We had sex before marriage, her parents found out and made her brake up with me, however, the "damage" was done, she was no longer scared of that and then showed up her true face. People show their true nature when they are allowed to freely express themselves, she had a slut tendency that was kept in check and when the check was not strong enough she showed her true self.

 

For example, if you have a woman that has the tendency for cheating, but she was born in Saudi Arabia, the threat of being stoned to death for adultery may be strong enough to keep her from cheating -- if you move this same exact woman to Canada, she will probably cheat, because there is no more threat to her life as a consequence.

 

So if you find a young woman in the age group 21-24, so in the prime of her beauty, that had one sexual partner before and still maintain sexual restraint, I would say that she has proven to be truly moral and is not going to cheat on you or complain about your performance. Reason being that she is not scared anymore that it might hurt or that God or her parents will punish her for not marrying virgin -- in other words, she is that way because she is that way, not because she is scared into being that way.

 

B- Experienced older woman. If you just want to get yourself some experience without getting too much attached for now, it would probably be your best bet, just please, please, for the love of God, do not get romantically involved. Assuming again your age to be 29, in this category I would put women from 30-40. There is a positive and negative side here, so proceed with caution.

Some older women like the idea of "initiating" a younger man. Especially if they are childless, it is in a somewhat sick form their way of behaving as mothers: they are teaching you something. Since they are over 30, they are lowering their standards, and believe it or not, many men in their late 30s and early 40s already start having problems with getting their penises erect and women hate that, preferring younger and more energetic men to have fun. Just be careful, as you are inexperienced, to not go home with a Lola (hopefully you will get the reference).

 

While they are easy and will have some patience with you, their patience will disappear fast. They are getting desperate to have children or at the very least to find a bread winner, they know their clock is ticking and after just a little bit of sex-dating they will want to get serious with you and stop having patience with your inexperience, so again, please brother, do not fall in love with them and run after two or three nights of sleep with them.

 

Some background here, I was a young lad at 19 years of age, almost 20, had had sex with only two women in my life, met this 29 almost 30 years old woman and she was not virtuous at all, made herself sexually available literally day one and I was the one who delayed it. I was a fool with an enormous white knight complex, we got engaged, we had sex and it was exactly as I said, patient and amused, acting as a "mom" at first. Patience ran out extremely soon, week one of being married and she was already very resentful and wanting me to find a good job immediately and get her pregnant soon. She was 30, I was 20. Got a job and treated it very seriously, but it was not good enough for her. The marriage was absolutely miserable with her lack of patience and extreme anger issues, divorced at 22 and her at 32.

 

II- You do not need to tell the religious and/or Conservative women that you find their beliefs to be infantile, irrational or anything like that. If you show respect for their faith while stating that yourself is not religious, most of them will be fine with that. Will give you again a personal example: I believe in God, but I am not religious. What I usually say is that I am culturally Catholic as I was born in a majority Catholic country and went to a Catholic school. I say (honestly) that I did not receive any religious education from my family, pretty much never been to a church and feel that this is kind of a hole in my personality. This makes the religious one try to give you counseling and get their hopes up that they might make you a believer. Just please do not say those things if you are not at least open to the idea of one day going to church with them.

 

Women tend not to be very ideological, that being the case with the Alternative Right or New Left. Problem with the Alternative Right is that women that show up are already committed and, if they are not, they have every single men in the room hitting on them. That gives more than ever all the power to them. Got two dates with this incredible woman I met in an Alternative Right conference and she shows no interest what so ever in contacting me again, probably some other guy she met in the conference showed up to be better than me. Am I mad? Not at all! She is young, she is beautiful, she is intelligent and virtuous, she can have better looking men, richer men, more popular men and I am only average height, so I cannot complain that she probably wants better for herself.

 

My suggestion is to keep living your life and going to events that you enjoy, not caring about the odds, love will find you, you seem to have very good prospects in this regard.

 

III- Older experienced women are easy to get, will be open to you and will build your confidence up. Just please, do not get romantically involved and run away from single mothers. Watch out for "Lolas" as you are probably very naive and not good in spotting those things as you lack experience.

 

Best of luck and keep us informed!

 

[1] http://time.com/4435058/millennials-virgins-sex/

[themortalgod]

@Rventurelli, thanks so much for the details response, il try to answer your questions as well as possible:

Regarding Acne treatment: I saw many dermatologists and tried a miriad of treatments over the years. Most were ineffective, some made things worse. Nothing helped. And in the spirit of openness at the time I didn't really care as much as I probably should have so refused to stop eating junk food which likely was making things worse. Thats on me though, my family did push me to eat healthier. I think, looking back that I ate as a coping mechanism for the bullying but also because I really really loved food hahaha. If you had asked 16 year old me to choose between being healthy and the bottle of Pepsi in my hand, he would have chosen the Pepsi. 

 

I do have a reasonably decent job. I live in Vancouver (most expensive city in north america) so the money doesn't go terribly far but I am well ahead of all my friends in terms of income. (almost 6 figures). 

As for looks, I've never liked the way I looked. (Thus stuff that can't be changed, shape of my eyes, ears, etc) So personally based on my own perception I'd rate my self really low. That said, objectively to an outsider I'd probably be higher than that. 5 or 6 maybe? Its hard to say, my instinct is to say 0 but I know thats not true. I'm 6'3", athletic. I do have acne scars but they have faded quite a bit. I can't grow facial hair (or body hair) so I tend to look younger than I am but I also have a receding hairline and am starting to go silver a bit. Strange mix of a 14 year old and middle age guy hahaha. 

Personally, I don't see a relationship ever working with someone who is religious, at least for me. While I do recognize the positive influence christianity has had on communities It would drive me insane always being put up against completely irrational arguments based on evidence coming from a book that appears to be a work of fiction. I have some friends who are religious and while we can move past it, I do often find their reasoning and objectivity extremely difficult to deal with. 

I should mention that my goal in all this isn't intercourse, its more the relationship, companionship, and partnership that I'd be focused towards. 

And yup, no single mothers for me. 

@aviet:

Also big thanks for your thoughts. I have been trying online dating. I've worked on online dating services before in my career so know how much of a scam they are designed to be (their business model is all about making think you almost have found someone but not actually finding someone so you keep paying). I figured it can't hurt to try a OkCupid though which I've been using to mostly poor results. I find that it quickly runs out of local results and starts bombarding me with matches from the states (even though I have my settings set to limit distance). I'm not really looking for a long distance thing that means years of having a relationship with instant messaging so it does make it tough. 

So far my experience has been pretty poor, I'm amazed at how many profiles, at least in my local area are of women who take no responsibility for their physical health. Which is important to me, I'm not looking for a model but I also would want someone who is committed to being healthy like I am. (now) The words "single mother" and "feminist" seem to come up very often which I'd consider also an immediate "no". I recognize that it is possible that I'm in the wrong city (Vancouver) which is incredibly left leaning so the number of Feminists/SJWs here are pretty concentrated. Of the women who I have messaged, only one (1 in 40 messages) has responded and she turned out to not even be local and only set her profile to local because she was "thinking" about moving here but after talking with her if she was to move it wouldn't be for years and I'm not really after a relationship with an IM client.  
My benchmark certainly isn't FDR. If it was I think I'd be on a hopeless hunt. Like you said, most women who are like us found their prince charming years ago and rode off into the sunset. My criteria is more or less pretty simple in that they seem reasonable and open to new ideas while holding some semblance of conservative values. I'd also like there to be some level of physical attraction, I'm not hunting for 9s and 10s only but there needs to be some attraction. I also would love to find someone who shares my love of hiking and adventure outdoors but I don't consider a lack of that a deal breaker. I'd also like to find someone that will make a great mother which means she probably has to be younger than me, I'm thinking the optimal age would be mid twenties and needs to be at least open to concepts like peaceful parenting. 

 

thanks again! 

[KeepOnGoing]

In my opinion your lack of dating experience would not matter for someone really interested in you. If someone is not interested in the "real" you why to even bother? I know it's easier to say than to do it but this is just a reality. If you want to have a good relationship you have to be honest. It's that kind of a deal - take it or leave it - because sooner or later the truth will come up and there is no need to waste so much time. Rejection in the dating business happens to everyone. Learn from it and move on. Dating for me personally was at some times interesting but in most cases just tiring. You have to swim through many rapids until you land safely on the shore but at the end it's worth it even though you might came out with bruises or even with some fractures. I'm happy that I don't have to worry about it anymore. I'm 34 and actually I have female cousin (35, never married, no kids) that for the last few years is trying to find a man. Nothing to be jealous about. It's difficult for her (she is still very attractive) but there is always something wrong. I offered her help, advised her therapy but she says that there is something wrong with guys not with her. Dating is a hard work but it's not that there is only something wrong with the other side. There are sometimes things in us that prevent us from finding the right person. If I would be in dating again I would try to find a man with similar interests like mine so I would look for him in places connected to it. I would not date single father since I don't have kids myself. I'm not religious (even though I had pretty strict catholic upbringing) but maybe Christian man could be a good fit. Christian but also openminded and respectful towards my beliefs. It's very important. I could also be interested in the Right wing environment - conservatives, nationalists, traditionalists etc. I would also tried someone who is not into politics but can think logically - I could work with that. Left wing? Waste of time in my view. There is no point in changing someone. I think the beginning of the relationship should be great and exciting and with time should only get better. Of course you change and your partner changes but in kind of natural way. There shouldn't be pressure. I've been actually to Vancouver last year. I'm not a fan of big cities but BC is beautiful and if you are into hiking there are many opportunities for sure Maybe you can try in this direction. Btw. I find my partner when I wasn't looking for anyone (at least not consciously). I have some dating experience for sure but many times I've lost hope to find someone good. But like I said it before: it's worth it and hey... we have some duties to fulfill. Making the next generations great again

[themortalgod]

In my opinion your lack of dating experience would not matter for someone really interested in you. If someone is not interested in the "real" you why to even bother? I know it's easier to say than to do it but this is just a reality. If you want to have a good relationship you have to be honest. It's that kind of a deal - take it or leave it - because sooner or later the truth will come up and there is no need to waste so much time. Rejection in the dating business happens to everyone. Learn from it and move on. Dating for me personally was at some times interesting but in most cases just tiring. You have to swim through many rapids until you land safely on the shore but at the end it's worth it even though you might came out with bruises or even with some fractures. I'm happy that I don't have to worry about it anymore. I'm 34 and actually I have female cousin (35, never married, no kids) that for the last few years is trying to find a man. Nothing to be jealous about. It's difficult for her (she is still very attractive) but there is always something wrong. I offered her help, advised her therapy but she says that there is something wrong with guys not with her. Dating is a hard work but it's not that there is only something wrong with the other side. There are sometimes things in us that prevent us from finding the right person. If I would be in dating again I would try to find a man with similar interests like mine so I would look for him in places connected to it. I would not date single father since I don't have kids myself. I'm not religious (even though I had pretty strict catholic upbringing) but maybe Christian man could be a good fit. Christian but also openminded and respectful towards my beliefs. It's very important. I could also be interested in the Right wing environment - conservatives, nationalists, traditionalists etc. I would also tried someone who is not into politics but can think logically - I could work with that. Left wing? Waste of time in my view. There is no point in changing someone. I think the beginning of the relationship should be great and exciting and with time should only get better. Of course you change and your partner changes but in kind of natural way. There shouldn't be pressure. I've been actually to Vancouver last year. I'm not a fan of big cities but BC is beautiful and if you are into hiking there are many opportunities for sure Maybe you can try in this direction. Btw. I find my partner when I wasn't looking for anyone (at least not consciously). I have some dating experience for sure but many times I've lost hope to find someone good. But like I said it before: it's worth it and hey... we have some duties to fulfill. Making the next generations great again

 

Thanks for your thoughts. I'd tend to agree with the issue that the lack of experience may be a red flag that would turn someone off who would have been fine with it had they got to know. I feel like this whole dating game is so critically about first impressions that odds are that even if you encounter what might be the perfect person often you are two passing ships in the night as either or both of you filter each other based on some trivial red flag used to weed out undesirables. 

 

For example, in this case, I can imagine a woman thinking they don't want to deal with a man who has never dated because it likely means he is unconfident or a basement dwelling neckbeard. That isn't the case for me, but if I'm already filtered away based on that characteristic before I have a chance to overcome the bias and prove it wrong there is a potential for loss. 

 

And yup, certainly been trying via joining outdoor activities and intend to continue using that. So far the groups I've tried have been mostly full of left wing hippie types that love nature and spend half the hike/climb/whatever talking about identity politics. I intend to certainly keep trying though, I'm assuming that while that sort of mindset may be prevalent in this city it certainly is representative of all.

 

The other major problem I've run into is that I HAVE met a few women who actually are very likeminded but unfortunately, they are always in long term relationship before I meet them. (not really a surprise, amazing people tend to find amazing people and they tend to stay together). For example, one friend who I met through another friend at an convention last year. She doesn't live locally but we quickly became fast friends and she is very much into objectivism, self knowledge, etc. If I had met her 5 years earlier I suspect we would be soul mates but she was in a committed, long term relationship on the day I met her.

[Ninja]

Just be yourself

 

Don't worry about trying to be anything other than genuine about yourself because you want your partner to love you for who you are.

Trying to control the way your potential partner perceives you is manipulative and may create conflict later.

The best thing you can do is be completely honest with yourself about what you want and focus on finding that. If you come across a person you are truly drawn toward don't hesitate to be literally honest about what it is about them you think sets them apart and makes you curious to know more about them.

Search from a place of freedom.

[themortalgod]

Just be yourself

 

Don't worry about trying to be anything other than genuine about yourself because you want your partner to love you for who you are.

Trying to control the way your potential partner perceives you is manipulative and may create conflict later.

The best thing you can do is be completely honest with yourself about what you want and focus on finding that. If you come across a person you are truly drawn toward don't hesitate to be literally honest about what it is about them you think sets them apart and makes you curious to know more about them.

Search from a place of freedom.

 

I would quite agree with that in theory. Though I think there is also something to be said about making that first impression. Being open and honest is a given, but I imagine I also want to put my best foot forward then move into the rest over time.

[Rventurelli]

@Rventurelli, thanks so much for the details response, il try to answer your questions as well as possible:

 

Regarding Acne treatment: I saw many dermatologists and tried a miriad of treatments over the years. Most were ineffective, some made things worse. Nothing helped. And in the spirit of openness at the time I didn't really care as much as I probably should have so refused to stop eating junk food which likely was making things worse. Thats on me though, my family did push me to eat healthier. I think, looking back that I ate as a coping mechanism for the bullying but also because I really really loved food hahaha. If you had asked 16 year old me to choose between being healthy and the bottle of Pepsi in my hand, he would have chosen the Pepsi. 

 

I do have a reasonably decent job. I live in Vancouver (most expensive city in north america) so the money doesn't go terribly far but I am well ahead of all my friends in terms of income. (almost 6 figures). 

 

As for looks, I've never liked the way I looked. (Thus stuff that can't be changed, shape of my eyes, ears, etc) So personally based on my own perception I'd rate my self really low. That said, objectively to an outsider I'd probably be higher than that. 5 or 6 maybe? Its hard to say, my instinct is to say 0 but I know thats not true. I'm 6'3", athletic. I do have acne scars but they have faded quite a bit. I can't grow facial hair (or body hair) so I tend to look younger than I am but I also have a receding hairline and am starting to go silver a bit. Strange mix of a 14 year old and middle age guy hahaha. 

 

Personally, I don't see a relationship ever working with someone who is religious, at least for me. While I do recognize the positive influence christianity has had on communities It would drive me insane always being put up against completely irrational arguments based on evidence coming from a book that appears to be a work of fiction. I have some friends who are religious and while we can move past it, I do often find their reasoning and objectivity extremely difficult to deal with. 

 

I should mention that my goal in all this isn't intercourse, its more the relationship, companionship, and partnership that I'd be focused towards. 

 

And yup, no single mothers for me. 

You and I are opposites in this regard -- when I get nervous or stressed out I cannot eat or I feel like I am going to vomit. When I had my separation I lost 60 pounds, was looking like a walking dead. Now I recovered, but am still close to being underweight.

 

Do you live in Vancouver proper? I have a cousin that lives there. If you have a car, I would suggest perhaps moving to a nearby suburb and you will probably be saving hugely in rent/mortgage.

 

You can do things to try to hide features you dislike or to highlight ones that you do like about yourself. I started losing my hair with 17 and now at 23 I have a big hole in the top of my head. What I usually do is to keep the hair I do have short so it does not stand out too much, keep a somewhat long sideburns and always wear hats. Not hipster hats, good ones, like Fedoras, imported stuff from Australia and so on and so forth. Also, I always wear button down shirts and mostly non-jeans pants. Man, you have no idea how many times people (usually 40+ women) stop me daily to say they like my hat and that it looks very manly. It quickly becomes your signature mark and makes you feel more confident about yourself.

 

Try to look at religion with a cynical perspective instead of a literal one, my friend. Imagine trying to explain how the world worked, why being moral is preferable to people over two thousand years ago. Kind of impossible to do so rationally for the great masses of the populous, isn't it? Come on! Many rabbis are atheists themselves! My ex-wife was a self-hating Jew and her mother belonged to an Orthodox Synagogue and the rabbi said he did not believe in God!!! See the bible or whatever religious book as a book of fairy tales designed to keep lower intelligent people moral by inspiration and/or fear. You do not tell that to your friends and lovers, but that is their tool to aid them in a moral life so let them be.

 

Will give you a practical example of how religion can help people: we all have sometimes nasty thoughts. For example, you are driving and there is horrible traffic, you think or even say "how I wish I could have a monster truck and ran over all those people". Paranoid people cannot simply understand that this is nothing more than a stress relieving thought; they start thinking "oh my God, I am a horrible person, I am thinking about running over people." This person goes to church and tells the priest he is having murderous thoughts. The priest tells him to pray 20 Holy Marries and forget about it. The priest might not know that, but what he is doing is correct, as Nietzsche said, nothing is truly erased that is not substituted. The paranoid will replace those thoughts with the prayers whenever he has nasty but harmless thoughts.

 

I know that you do not look for casual sex. That is not the purpose of this forum. What I am telling you is that it might aid you in feeling better with yourself and more secure if you have one or two casual encounters. It will at least be better than the way I started and which left me less instead of more secure. Where I come from, it is a tradition for boys reaching 14 to have their fathers, uncles or older cousins to pay him a prostitute, so the "boy becomes a man". That might be okay and enjoyable for the rabble, for more moral boys that want bonding, "K"s instead of "r"s, this is absurd, meaningless and even boring. If you get to have the casual sex-dating one or two times by your own merit, without paying, you get the sense of "I did that in my own merit", so it is a little more than totally meaningless, just do not allow yourself to fall in this dark hole.

[themortalgod]

I did recently move in August, though I stayed in Vancouver proper, though not by choice. I was unexpectedly renovicted. (a loophole here that allows the landlord to suddenly evict a fixed term tenant at the end of their lease based on the grounds of wanting to renovate with only a month's notice. The landlord then immediately re-lists at a much higher rent). At the time Greater Vancouver was cresting the rental crisis so availability was incredibly low, especially for someone with a large dog. I hunted for the month and the place I'm currently in was the only one that was even remotely viable. (Believe it or not I looked at once place that had duct tape windows that was listed for $1800/month) Though the nearby suburbs didn't offer much savings even if I had found a place. In order to lower that nasty price I think I'd have had to be looking in the 2-4 hours per day of commute range. It just is what it is though. I'm no victim, I choose to live in this city. I was more or less just pointing out that by most cities standards of income I'm fairly well off but by Vancouver's there is no way I'd be able to support a family so I'm not "that" well in the eyes of say someone looking to start a family. I have more resources than most people my age but that just means I get to live alone instead of with 3 roommates. Its why Lauren Southern claims to have left Vancouver, men with good jobs don't have the resources to support a family. 

Ha, thats fair, perhaps a paper bag? hahah kidding. Rationally I don't necessarily feel that the aspect of myself that I dislike are aspects that most people would comment on or care about. Its more an internal thing. I've always been very hard on myself in regards to everything I do. In my creative life I have kinda developed a perfection or failure mentality with my work and I imagine that has bled into my perception of my own appearance. (Which is why I think im probably objectively 5 or 6)

I have been working on my physique quite a bit, though my body has a tendency not to really react visibly to working out. I get lighter, thinner, and stronger, but I never develop any definition no matter how hard I work out. That said I'd rather be tall and slender than tall and pudgy so I will keep working at it. I also have a bit of a posture problem, its not horrible but I had a back injury when I was younger and have had a bad back ever since (despite medical help), over time I've developed a bit of a slouch. I'm also working to correct/marginalize it and recently ordered a medical device designed to help pull me back erect.

I'm not sure if its a big factor driven by my subconscious but I've never had anyone express physical attraction to me in any way shape or form. I recognize, though, that this is just as likely a product of me not making myself available as it is a reflection of me being unanimously unattractive.  

I certainly recognize the benefits of religion as a social construct, unfortunately I really struggle seeing past it as a series of objective delusions used to manipulate ignorance in a positive way. I don't bemoan those who choose it. to each his or her own. Its just for me I can't imagine ever being compatible in an intimate relationship with someone who has a distinctly contradictory perception of reality. In a sense I see religion in a similar sense to drugging all the boys to act like girls. Sure it works, but do I agree with it? No. Personally I define myself as Agnostic as I haven't ever encountered objective evidence that proves that a divine being does not exist so I can't claim atheism. That said, if a god does exist I suspect that it does not care about our worship any more than we care about being worship by insects. Regardless of the existence of a divine being I'm fairly sure that religion is strictly a human creation. (Though again, I lack decisive evidence to prove it so cannot claim in the absolute). In all though, I respect the believer's right to believe but in my persona intimate relationship I'd prefer to build it based on shared beliefs that allow us to have discussions and make discussion based on the same values.

 

[KeepOnGoing]

The first impression matters but you will get better in it. There is no magic but only practice Some people are lucky enough to find someone good pretty fast. Some need more time to be successful in their search. Some never will. That's just the way it is. There is no need to be sentimental about female encounters in your past. Maybe if the circumstances would be good for you maybe it would work out maybe not. It's in the past. Sometimes we have tendencies to idealize things that had the potential but there was no way to pursue them. Leave them be and focus on the present and the future. I had many men interested in me, few of them were really crazy about me. I could choose from rich and poor, from smart and successful, from simple minded, good men, bad boys, Christian men, artists etc. I tried to reason with myself, giving a try. Nothing worked out. When I didn't trust my guts I felt nauseous and I had to stop lying to myself. The bad boys were too bad and the good men were too good. I knew that if I would meet a virtuous man he will see through me and realize how damaged I was and that he will not want to have anything to do with me. Btw. I also had few rejections and it hurt me. I couldn't understand how it was even possible. Silly me. The hope of finding someone was making me miserable. I tried even to lie to myself that I'm not looking anymore but of course I was looking. Deep down I wanted to be happy. I've been always interested in psychology but that time I decided to really dive into it. Therapy didn't work out. I also didn't want to take "happy pills" and since I'm "do it yourself" person I've read a tons of literature on the subject (my ACE score is 5). I met my partner in the middle of that process when I was 27. In some way I wish I knew what I know now but I'm happy now so there is no point of dwelling on the past. Everyone has their own unique path. Go out and practice and trust your gut. In some way dating is like going on an job interview. Both sides have something to offer, being an expert in something doesn't always mean you get the job because other factors also matter. Same with the relationship. You need someone that will get the job done and that you will get along with each other. Before you find a good employee you have to surf through many applications. Nothing wrong with that because good things very often don't come easily.