Copa
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“Women willing to date much older men can be very selective in the older men they choose to date.”
Kind of irrelevant, but the pairings I’ve witnessed firsthand with large age gaps, these people generally have some issues.
And okay, I get it, Robert had other things going on during the pandemic that made dating less important, but if ever there was a time to insist on talking by phone or Zoom before meeting IRL without the other person thinking it was an added hurdle to an already-annoying process, it was 2020.
So to be fair to Robert, we don’t know that he’s choosing a weight loss coach over therapy since he has mentioned the cost of therapy was not an issue for him. Physical health is also important. My take at this point is that he doesn’t want therapy because doesn’t really think he’s part of his own problem past anything superficial no matter how much anyone tells him otherwise. I think we’re coming up on two years of Robert’s dating woes and, I mean, come on — it does NOT take two years to find a therapist you mesh with and trust, and stick with it. He thinks we’re wrong and will argue for paragraphs about why mini golf IS fun for everyone or whatever, he thinks his dates are wrong for not bending to how he is, he thinks online dating/apps are trash because he is unsuccessful on them. Since this is how he thinks, putting off or not going to therapy… well, fine. Because therapy only works if you do the work. And if you don’t actually believe there’s anything deeper going on with you, you won’t be able to do the work.
Agree that if you’re feeling down on the process, take a break. I took plenty while I did the online thing.
“I quite often wait for the man to message, I suppose due to lack of confidence”
Also, I will say, especially in situations when you are letting your date pay, you really should be reaching out after a date to say you had a nice time/hope to go out again if that’s indeed what you want.
If you dedicated as much time to being in therapy as you do to “working on getting into therapy,” you’d have made progress by now.
Also, please stop asking women you have a business relationship with to speculate why you don’t get second dates. It’s bad enough that you keep asking your dates.
From my experience, dates under an hour were definitely on the shorter side. The one date I mentioned in my response stands out as my worst date, it took us maybe 45 minutes to place our drink orders, drink them, and pay. The better first dates I went on lasted longer, maybe 1.5-2 hours, and usually involved a second round of drinks or sometimes even splitting an app.
So without actually going on dates with you, it’s hard to say what’s going on. If you’ve had multiple dates bolt quickly, something is likely off with you. I only did that on one date (I thought the guy was obnoxious and immature so I drank my drink quickly knowing the place we were at was about to close and declined his offer to take the date to another spot). Some additional thoughts:
Why would you even assume that you’re “repulsive” because you’re 29? That’s not that old. At 29, you probably don’t look much different than you did at 26. I certainly didn’t. So while I agree that the dating pool changes as you get older, if I had to guess based off what you’ve written here and how you’ve chosen to write it, you’re going on dates and giving off “I’m running out of time” vibes.
Prior to my current relationship, I became single again after an LTR when I was just shy of 28. I got back into the online dating scene later that year and during that time went from a suburb of a fairly big city to living downtown on a major city. Dating felt very different here — there are way more options so yes, it did feel like people treated it like their dates were disposable because there will always be more people to swipe through — and took some getting used to. I also only went on a handful of dates before realizing that I wasn’t able to keep an open mind on dates, I was still kinda messed up from my previous relationship but hadn’t really noticed until I’d jumped back into dating. I definitely giving my dates bad vibes and needed to work on myself, so I mostly didn’t date for about a year. So yes, maybe you just need to get used to dating in a big city, but hopefully you can be honest about how you are behaving on dates that may turn people off.
I noticed improvements in my dating life after I’d spent some time in therapy dealing with my baggage. During that time, I got settled in my new city and created a life I really liked. My dating outcomes improved when I was able to put less pressure on it. At some point around this time I also took advice from this site and upped my age range to include men up to about 40, which had honestly seemed a bit old to me, but the reality turned out to not be weird at all. I met some nice guys and the age gap was never the reason those didn’t work out. Still took a couple years of effort and there were definitely periods I felt frustrated and down on dating (I’d take breaks when I did), but I met my boyfriend of 3+ years that way in my early 30s.
Also fully vaxxed. I mostly don’t wear a mask at this point, but have one on me when I go out in case a business has a sign up or the situation warrants it.
I resume in-person therapy next week and am not sure if that’s a clinical setting that would require a mask. I’m fine either way. Glad we’ll be face-to-face again since teletherapy was no ideal.
It’s looking likely that my office will begin a hybrid in-person/WFH schedule in September, though it’s still definite. The plan is to see how things go at our HQ before bringing the employees in the regional city office back. I’ve been on transit a handful of times since COVID started, though not often, so I don’t know what rush hour is like.
Last summer, a coworker pushed her wedding out by 4-5 months. Well, the original venue ended up telling her she’d have to postpone again. Instead of doing so, she basically re-planned her entire wedding on short notice at a new venue that would let her max out her guest list to the extent possible under the guidelines that were in place at the time. She’s now citing all kinds of return to work safety concerns that didn’t seem to concern her whatsoever when it came to her wedding, so I’ve had a hard time taking her seriously and think she just wants to stay remote indefinitely.
Sorry to hear your dad was ill. I hope he is doing better.
I was going to write something similar to @ktfran. The reason I said you need to be willing to acknowledge that there is work to be done is because therapy is inner work that you do for yourself. You don’t go to a therapist to have them definitively tell you (or even speculate) why women don’t want a second date with you, then you go out on dates and not do that thing. Therapists don’t tell you what to do. You’re the one who will be doing the self-reflection and challenging your own beliefs. It takes time and progress can be slow. It took me a year of weekly sessions to feel like I could scale back in frequency, and I was someone who acknowledged that I had some baggage to sort through and work to do on myself. I was ready for it. Truthfully, I don’t know that you are; you still want your dates/the dating scene to bend to how you are no matter how many times the commenters here — many of whom met their partners online and understand what the process is like — tell you it won’t happen. This is why I don’t even know if therapy is worth your time, because your responses make me think you don’t want to do the work.
@shakeourtree Today I had success with a pair of AG jeans. I’ve been mulling over the Good American pair and they give me a flat mom butt look. I don’t like that look, I don’t work out just for a pair of jeans to give me that look. Anyway, these fit the best of anything I’ve tried lately and my butt looks great.
The Good American jeans arrived. Not bad, but I’m on the fence. I’ve never worn this brand before so I grabbed what I consider my usual size in most brands and a size up. Very comfortable and maybe even run a little big, though with women’s sizes I feel like that means nothing. My usual size is the best fit, but I still have a waist gap. I’m not sure if a size down would have worked better. I kind of wish the distressing hit in different spots. For a different price point I might say these are fine and keep ’em, but since they weren’t cheap, I want to really like them.
So, a few years ago I was having a lot of foot problems and a doctor told me I was facing surgery if I didn’t start wearing supportive shoes. One brand I sometimes buy now is Vionic. Some of the styles are… very much what you’d expect from podiatry-friendly shoes, but they do have some more stylish pairs. They have flats that may be worth checking out.
I just ordered some Good American jeans to try on, a brand I’ve never tried before. They have petite “girlfriend” jeans with just the right amount of distressing and offered $50 off. Will report back on fit.
