Hello all from Robert
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I had heard of “demisexual” via one of those HuffPo clickbait “Personal” articles. Less than 1% of the population falls into this category, which would help explain why Robert hasn’t run into anyone similar. I don’t think it’s the *only* thing going on with him, by any means, but it’s a promising theory. Note, it took dozens of people 2 years to ask the right questions to surface it. A skilled psychologist would have gotten there way faster.
Kate, I read the article in the link. Like BitterGayMark, I have never heard of the term “demisexual”, but it does explain things. I am definitely heterosexual (the article says demisexual and heterosexual/homosexual are two different things). I am not attracted to men at all, in that way, never will be, only attracted to women, but I cannot act on “those” desires until there is some sort of a bond. It doesn’t have to be full on deep love, but something deep has to be there before I can do the shallow.
Also, to BitterGayMark, I never said that interest in haunted houses and light shows indicates a deep connection. That is the type of thing that creates the initial attraction for me. Not just those, but other interests, are what gets me attracted to a woman.
That explains why I can be attracted to a woman who is not “conventionally pretty”. If two women were identical in every way, except one is pretty and one is ugly, I’d be equally attracted to both. I’d be looking for a tiebreaker that is not looks-related. Though, I have to admit…and I kind of feel ashamed to, in a way, but…if the looks were the only tiebreaker, I’d go for the pretty one, t be honest. It’s not as if I am totally blind to looks, but the deeper bond overrides that.
In middle school, even in high school, I think I was like everyone else, in that I would favor the prettiest girls. I think at that age everyone is like that, but in adulthood (and even in my high school years) the deeper things eventually took over.
Copa: I dated haunted house woman for nearly 3 months. I was ready for the physical to happen at that point, but she moved on before I could do anything. That’s been a frustration of mine going back into the 1990s. In my college years, I was so shy and awkward that I could not even tell a woman that I thought she was beautiful, or even compliment an outfit she was wearing if she made an effort (there’s a situation I’ll never forget in which a woman dressed up to specifically get my attention, but I didn’t realize it until long after the fact).
Vathena: Yes, it can take years of knowing someone, but it does not take years to “fall in love”, obviously, not even for me. The thing with my ex was that we both changed. After we were together for a year, my paradigm changed. I started thinking in terms of eventual shared goals. I was deeply in debt, like $30,000-$40,000 on credit cards PLUS student loans, trying hard to avoid bankruptcy. My desire to clean that up and not bring that into a marriage made me more ambitious, I just wanted it done, and she could not deal with that. On the other hand, she became less ambitious, and got frustrated that I worked outside of her obligatory 40 hour work schedule. She was not in debt, and not an overspender, but she always was unhappy that there was no money left after regular expenses, and played a victim. My attitude was, and still is, money is easy to get, just go to work. Her situation was a lot easier to fix, and I was frustrated that she was not fixing it.
Bottom line: She could not deal with the idea that I was aggressively trying to fix my problem, and I could not deal with the idea that she was not fixing hers. It would always be me, really, who would advance us toward our shared goals, and I need someone with whom to work together.
Peggy: I am not sure how I came across as arrogant, I only gave the description as points of fact. You said yourself, I expressed that here to make the point that the deep way overrides the looks/surface things. She actually had the ambition I look for, incidentally, in addition to other things in common, so that’s why my feelings started getting deep enough to think about acting on the physical. But, she backed away before it could happen, and my experience has been the same — pretty, ugly, fat, thin — whatever.
Kate: My “anger” and frustration has been with the idea that repeated women come to the conclusion after one date that there is no connection. I literally had no comprehension that the physical was more important than the deep. I think I am like anyone else that the connection for the deep takes some time, but did not see until now that the women were talking about a different connection. Yes, I agree that the “connection” for the physical can be determined quickly, but was not the connection I was thinking of, so hence my frustration.
I also do go far, far deeper than haunted houses and Christmas lights, but that type of thing is the initial attraction — the companionship, basically. It’s a start, and things get deeper from there.
Kate, that is true, regarding Robert methodically addressing our comments instead of getting mad/angry at us. Another indicator that he may be somewhat “flat” emotionally. To be fair though, if he did get angry, some on here would likely have taken him to task for that too. Fyodor sums up Robert’s issues perfectly.
“ My “anger” and frustration has been with the idea that repeated women come to the conclusion after one date that there is no connection.”
And you were never frustrated *with yourself* for continually striking out? Just with the women for not being interested? It was them, not you?
And wow, just the fact that you can imagine a situation in which two women are identical in all ways, but looks would be the tie breaker… that says a lot. It really gives credence to the idea that women are interchangeable to you. For most people, there’s that undefinable connection, or there’s a better fit with one person or another. You’re not experiencing that. Or it would take you months to get to that point.
I was. I have to be honest. I kept trying different things, to no avail. I think it was when I came to this forum, and Wendy assisted with my profile re-write, and it went over well, not only with me but the community here. It did get me more first dates, but also more “only” first dates, unfortunately. My frustration got serious when I could not get an explanation. I’ve always been willing to take a look at things — but look at what?
I can deal with the idea that there is no physical attraction, but all it took to find out what could have been said in a single sentence…
I was bring up two identical women to make a point. The two women would not be identical in real life. I get that. It was a statement to make the point that the deep qualities are what I am attracted to. I like when a woman is pretty, but I will not choose that over something deeper.
I do not see women as interchangeable. You and I see things the same way. I was merely making a point.
There’s not any explanation that a woman can provide you that will help. What Wendy and the community helped you with here, i.e. your profile and pictures, is superficial. It gets you in the door. We can’t help you with what happens after and your dates don’t owe it to you to help you figure it out.
You need to do serious work on yourself with the help of a therapist.
Robert, when I floated the “demi” term it wasn’t an ending, as if that’s the end of your story. It’s to help you realize what you’re working with and figure a best course of action from there. (No map helps if you don’t know where you’re starting from.) This is the same as why I said you should work with a therapist familiar with people on the spectrum. Your lack of picking up social cues isn’t the end of who you are either … but what you need is to learn how to build coping mechanisms to work around them.
I have a friend who is color blind. That doesn’t stop him from driving. He just needs to develop alternate ways of deriving information – like knowing WHICH light on a stoplight is on top, and which one is on the bottom, since he can’t discern the stop/go from the red/green difference alone. This is the kind of thing you need to learn to develop. You don’t seem to have a good sense of when you’re being “intense” so working with someone familiar will help you build the “rule sets” to moderate your behavior.
If you ARE demisexual, the value in KNOWING is that it may mean you’re better off trying to date in specific ace/demi communities rather than the general dating pool. That way you’re much more likely to meet like-minded individuals and spend less time on frustrating first dates. Developing social cue coping mechanisms will help you there to foster more relaxed relationships when you DO go on first dates, and may increase your chances of second and third ones.
The dating profile work was good, but it only gets people to your door. You need to be able to take it from there, and I’m pretty sure someone who works with you personally is going to have a much better ability to assist you than a bunch of web strangers who have only your second-hand retellings to base our guesses on.
For the millionth time, though, nobody owes you an explanation for why they don’t want to go out with you again! And even if you could compel every first date you went out with to tell you why she was passing on a second date, each woman would probably have a different answer. Because all women are different.
You also don’t need to waste paragraphs explaining to us that attraction is more than skin deep. That isn’t a “Robert thing” — that’s a “just about everyone” thing.
One thing that you have not tried: Getting into therapy and sticking to it. Though I still stand by what I said pages ago about how I don’t know that therapy will work for you because you don’t seem to want to do any inner work so much as you want someone to crack a code for you.
You contradict your own thoughts, Robert. You complain that women only go on one date with you and then don’t give an explanation for why there is no second date (it would be very uncommon for someone to give a reason, plus you likely come across as strange and potentially dangerous). But… you do date a woman for 3 months, apparently with no explanation of why nothing physical is happening. She left, because she was frustrated. Did you give her any reason for why you were so slow with the physical? Why it takes so long for even a kiss (I think you said a month)? Do you let her know how you feel about her during this time? As I read what you wrote, it seems you did everything possible to drive her away.
If you are demi-sexual. If it takes you months to be ready for anything physical, then I have two serious suggestions for you. 1) mention this in your profile. It is very unusual and likely to cause big problems with someone who doesn’t either go into dating you with this expectation or isn’t told this EXPLICITLY along with how you feel about her very early on. 2) you may be demisexual, and that may or may not be an actual thing apart from hormone levels, but I think you should get tested for testosterone level.
You write:
” I started thinking in terms of eventual shared goals. I was deeply in debt, like $30,000-$40,000 on credit cards PLUS student loans, trying hard to avoid bankruptcy. My desire to clean that up and not bring that into a marriage made me more ambitious, I just wanted it done, and she could not deal with that. On the other hand, she became less ambitious, and got frustrated that I worked outside of her obligatory 40 hour work schedule. She was not in debt, and not an over-spender, but she always was unhappy that there was no money left after regular expenses, and played a victim. My attitude was, and still is, money is easy to get, just go to work. Her situation was a lot easier to fix, and I was frustrated that she was not fixing it.” So… she is in good shape financially, isn’t a significant spender, and works a full-time 40-hour a week job, and isn’t carrying debt. She’s in great shape. You, on the other hand have $30-40K of high interest credit card debt, are doing gig work from which you take off two months a year, and you have the gall to consider her insufficiently ambitious? It seems you wanted her to work an extra job to help bail you out of the financial mess you made for yourself. You seem incapable of understanding that you were the one with the problem, not her. Yes, I can understand she would be frustrated with a guy who was so much in debt, but insisted on working on his schedule, rather than holding a regular job. Yet, she stayed with you. Your irrational pique caused you to dump an angel. The stake through your heart was pounded there by you.And… what were your relative domestic responsibilities. Likely she had far more work at home than you did.
It truly blows my mind that somebody who has as incredibly hard time finding a compatible mate as you do would just blow off a near-perfect match because she wouldn’t work more than 40-hours a week to solve your financial mess. How selfish can you be?
I don’t think you fundamentally understand what brings two people together AT ALL but it’s not chemistry that you aren’t having with these women who won’t give you second dates, Robert. You are SCARING women away. We’ve told you this repeatedly for two years. Part of it probably has to do with the many red flags we’ve listed off for you like, oh:
1) not having any friends
2) not having had any relationships in a decade+ (Isn’t it close to 20 years now?)
3) you deliver things for a living, which shows a lack of focus, career acumen, goals, skills
4) the hobbies/Christmas obsessions
5) your not-buried-very-deep anger towards womenPlease stop fucking around for more years and go to a professional therapist, counselor, clergyman, etc consistently for at least six months. Please. We can’t help you. We can’t tell you why women don’t like you. We can’t tell you why you don’t seem interested in maintaining relationships with friends or making new ones. It seems so logical to start there, making a friend. A first step to trying to date and have a real adult relationship.
It’s absolutely ludicrous for you to keep ragging on your only relationship that you ever had, Robert. She wasn’t as motivated, disciplined, financially focused for you, huh? And where did your motivation, focus, and discipline lead you? To a live of wealth and happiness? Come on. And then for you to even bring up a thought exercise and then choose the woman with better looks…wow, Robert. You sure are feeling pretty high and mighty to be so judgmental to other women in their size and looks. I remember your profile pics, Robert. You are no Burt Reynolds.
