Might have to read through this thread. But I'm in the same boat, or at least pretty close... 39 years old and never had a girlfriend. I never really even felt the desire for one until around my mid 30s. I'd say I'm wanting it more than ever at my current stage, but it's still not enough to get me to overcome my issues with anxiety to actually go and put myself out there for it.

I do have an observation that I've noticed about guys that tend to have girlfriends/wives. The guys, maybe about 90% of them, I just don't know what their better half sees in them to make them want to be with them??? I tend not to like them for their personalities, lacking hygiene, bad habits and how they behave and interact. I can say I'm completely opposite to them in comparison in every way. Though of course I have severe social anxiety and these guys that are in relationships don't as far as I can tell.

I'm gonna try and answer your question.

OP, you are just normalizing.

100+ years ago, maybe more, the western world ditched the clever, but artificial tactic of arranged and plural marriages that insured that most surviving people reproduced.

What we are seeing now is the result of generations of natural selection where most men (i.e. like most bucks) did not reproduce because they were not supposed to.  That's the way it was for hundreds of thousands of years.  You can't get away from the fact that we are still animals, even if we are at the apex of the system.

However, nature did not account for birth control and abortion, so, unless they are banned, many western women will not reproduce as well.

You don't have to be the prophet Daniel to see what our world will look like in a few more generations--you can even see it happening now.

Can't beat Mother Nature...

Play the numbers.  Even if you aren't the hottest dude.  If you ask twenty women for their number with confidence you'll get it from at least one if not more.   If you do this everywhere you go you'll get lots of numbers.   Invite girls on a fun first date.  Not dinner where conversation is forced and makes everyone awkward.    Take her bowling, to an arcade, a gun range, one of those places you can hit golfballs and drink.    Conversation is easier when you are doing something else.  

Repeat until you find a good one
Lots of dudes lack confidence because they don't try with enough women so rejection odds are higher on a given day. The only time playing the odds doesn't work is if you are in a really small town.  Youight need to move.

But where does a guy say 30 years old actually meet women other than bars or church.

Literally asking for a friend, as I am happily long term married and no where near 30.

If a person goes anywhere where there are women or knows anyone who knows a woman, said person can meet women. Over half the population is women, and there aren’t any travel or chaperone restrictions on them.

Just go where they are. Store, post office, bank, etc. Just look for opportunities when you see them, and have the self-confidence to act on it. There's not a Service Merchandise full of women to view and order from, just figure out the kind of woman you want and go where they are. Geez, some of you guys make this more difficult than it needs to be.

Your advice is in line with a lot of the other posts in this thread. What's cringe about self-awareness followed by targeted self-improvement?

It would be interesting to hear more about what you're like. First things first would be to calibrate whether the view of yourself is the view that the world has of you.

But none if that matters if you're not willing to do what it takes to get what you want.

Just start saying hi to women. Go to church

Except there literally is, it's called Tinder. Or hinge. Or Bumble.

You can swipe through women and see who's out there. GD thinks the dating apps are still ONLY/Mainly used for Hookups but that's not even true another. Hasn't been for nearly a decade. It's a dating app.

You can get the full spectrum from IG goes to nice old fashioned girls who know this is the main way to meet these days.

I specifically mentioned Service Merchandise, not ordering from the Sears catalog where you can't see stuff and actually touch it before you order.

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This is pretty much how everyone's life goes (replace dog and rifle with more cats if applicable).  The older you get the more your social circle dwindles.  Once you and/or your friend group start getting married and having kids, you just wake up one day and realize it's been years since you even talked to the people you used to hang out with every weekend.  


What was the most common way for couples to meet? Through mutual friends, according to the survey, which was conducted by market research company ReportLinker. An impressive 39% of respondents replied that they met their spouse this way.

Meeting at work came in second place, with 15% of respondents answering that they met their significant other at the office. Next on the list was in a bar or public area (12%), through a sport/religion/hobby events (9%), family (7%), and school (6%). Just 1% of poll takers said that they met their beloved at a speed-dating event.

While dating apps are as popular as ever, they might not be the best way to meet a potential romantic partner. That's the takeaway from a recent survey, which found that only 8% of people polled said that they hooked up with their significant other via online dating or a dating app.


We've been told/taught that marrying young is a bad idea.  To spend our 20s dating around to figure out what we want in a partner.  To focus on a career and not worry about marriage until we're financially secure.  Etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile, people are losing the big advantage they have of finding a mate through the largest social circle they'll likely ever have in their lifetime.  I mean, friend groups are like an effortlessly pre-selected pool for you.  People tend to congregate together when they already have things in common.  It's pretty rare for someone to have 2 polar opposite groups of friends----they tend to value the same things in people.  With rare exceptions, I'm probably going to like the same people my friends like for the same reasons we like each other.  

I didn't read all of this thread, but it seems like most of the advice is focused on more surface level things.
Because of past experiences (physical, sexual or emotional abuse for example) mostly in childhood some people are incapable of having close or intimate relationships with anyone without some kind of treatment from a mental health professional.

Women aren't real

I would like to think that the people that applies to know and understand that and are already seeking treatment but in reality I think childhood trauma and how it mis-wires people is very, very underrecognized and hard for people to even accept, much less want to confront and work through.  

There are plenty of people here who post in marriage/divorce threads and it is completely evident that either they or their spouse have legitimate mental/emotional disabilities (sometimes it's full-on admitted in that thread or in other threads that this is the case) yet they continue to post as if that isn't a factor and is just another case of being *fooled* into a shitty marriage/shitty woman.  

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TC

Exactly there's the truth
I've always loved women there not to be afraid of just be careful

You may meet 50 and not find the one you don't want to live without, but it's fun trying
If you don't try your never going to find a good one

They meet them through getting setup by their friends’ GFs/wives….  

Kind of like:
Hey, we are going out to this restaurant/bar after work and my wife has this friend from work that she thinks might be a good match. You want to meet her?  If so, we will ask her to come too, no pressure.

I've done it several times, back when I had lots of chick friends.  Of course, it's possible that I was the one friend zoning them, and not the other way around.

SoCal, PHX, SWFL, DEN/CO… Quite a few places have (and encourage) healthy lifestyles. The NE, South and Midwest do not.

There are some fine, fit women in those areas but lots of fatties with no interest in getting in shape.

TC

Take care of yourself.

Get a facial ....talk to someone on clothes and hygiene.


That's it.

Get a mirror and look at it once in a while.

Spot on! Problem is, like any "condition", they don't realize that THEY have a problem. They almost never get to Step #1. It's always someone or something else. I've found that daughters of alcoholics, for instance, have a hard time keeping their lives together. I know one, on the surface seemingly "normal" but divorced 20+ years ago, got knocked up on a one-nighter, lived the life of a single mother, had some good jobs but quit them for one reason or another. I'm sure she has had plenty of opportunities over the years but rejected them all. And possibly wonders why she is now 60ish, living with her cats and struggling to keep her house. Told me years ago "I love being single."

I tried to get past the brick wall (which she admitted to) and get something going with her but, like others I know, seems to have some "phobia" or some social anxiety issue.

Hellz yeah! I don’t have the time or patience to train an amateur up to pro levels.

Sluts rule!

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TC

Well-written and insightful way of noting that "to each and everything there is a season..."
Baring luck, bad decisions have bad outcomes.
If you don't plant in a timely manner, don't complain if there is less (or nothing) to pluck up!

one of the good things about online dating apps is you can get a lot of the bs out of the way up front.  

i was married for 12 years to a woman who turned into a liberal nutter.  there was no online dating when i met her 20yrs ago.  

could have dodged a massive bullet.  the only good is my 2 kids, but that bitch is straight worthless.

Clean out your inbox. You'll be mister popularity in GD if you decide you want a facial.

The first couple of pages were good. The last 4 or so . . . I guess that's why OP went AWOL other than making a thread to hope other people sympathized with him instead of telling him what he needed to hear.




Truly, one of the best posts in this thread.




No doubt.

I've thought this for awhile: Women can sense desperation like a shark senses blood in the water. Just a slight hint and it elicits a reaction




Yup.

Absolutely the secret to talking to women right there . . . listen to what they are saying and ask questions that make them expand. It's basically the Socratic method applied to learning about someone, but with an attractive woman while you tell yourself she isn't attractive so it doesn't get weird.



I'll give an example from just the other day:

I went to my bank to get money to buy a skid steer like 2 weeks ago. Cheap 80s Bobcat, they wanted $5k for it but I had to come get it that day so off I went.

I'm building a shop and I have the funds for it in that particular account (sold my house and moved) so it has quite a bit of money in there (~$100k)

Walk in and the teller is a smoking hot latina. Easily an 8, borderline 8-9 dressed up/makeup at a club/bar on a Friday night.


I walk up and say I'd like to make a withdrawal from a checking account. I hand her my ID and punch in my account number on the keypad. She asks how much and I said "all of it".

She's looking at the screen and in 2-3 seconds looks up at me with kinda big eyes and I say "just kidding, $5000 is fine". She laughs it off and says something about how she was thinking about how they'd have to get the cash since they don't have that much there.

*I'm not interested in dating her or anything, just making small talk but when you get a woman laughing, you're halfway there.*

She then tells me she'll have to call her manager over since she doesn't have the $5k in her teller machine.

She rings the bell for the manager and we wait for a couple of seconds (I see no managers up and moving) before I tell her the money is for a cat.

She asks what breed of cat is that expensive?

I tell her the cat I'm looking at is 4,000lbs.

She looks at me like she doesn't understand so I tell her its a '82 bobcat 540, still doesn't understand so I state it's a skid steer loader and I'm buying it to move gravel around. She gives me that side-eye smirk.

Then I tell her I'm not a cat guy but I'll make an exception for that one.

Manager gets there, punches in some code to open another compartment, get the cash together and she apologizes for the wait. Told her no need to apologize, that I'm just glad they have the cash so I don't have to drive to another location (it's at my credit union and the branches are 30-40min apart).

She then asks if that's what I do for work, tell her no that I just moved out to the middle of nowhere and need one around the house since I now have land.

*At this point, I have nothing left to actually do at the bank so if this is a potential date, you gotta make your move here*

Got her to laugh, got her to ask a question about me, pretty sure I could have gotten her number right there (no need, I'm married) but it only came about by trying to be engaging and avoiding she was hot and treat her like a normal person.

Instead, I grabbed my envelope with cash and told her thanks, hope she has a great rest of the day and she told me thanks for coming in today.


You gotta start there and once you get comfortable doing that, you're golden.

This! And, I’ll add lack of confidence to the mix, too. They’ll take a ugly dude with game and self confidence over a good looking, well to do guy who has no confidence any day.

If I could bet on that in Vegas, I’d be rich.

TC

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TC

Wow! Fourteen pages in a thread about not being able to score some tail.

Well, Arfcom certainly has a lot of experts on the subject.

They also don't want to have sex with you, but what you can possibly provide for them down the line.

If you want flowers to grow in your yard, you have to tend to them regularly.

If all you want to do is pick flowers and smell them, they won't last in your yard.

You must water, fertilize, till the soil and cull the weeds to have flowers year after year. It's hard work, but commitment and attitude is everything. You may not get to pick flowers every day, but when you do, you pick the best ones for yourself.

After bad relationships, I lost interest around 27 or so. I feel like 37 is kind of like a second wind. There are a lot of roughly 25 year olds showing interest.

I assume they want to steal half my shit, so I'm staying single unless one really piques my interest.

Honestly baffles me. It’s too fucking easy attracting women but maybe some guys as posted on page 9 and 10 are holding out for some mysterious super standards woman they won’t share examples of with us plebes lest we learn of these secret desirable women and want one of those too.

Ehh I was scared about it before my divorce. Not great at online dating but most of the ones I do meet work lol.

And once you've got one or two, you relax.

Got a fwb, a another woman chasing me and can still date to find the right one lol.

It's funny when they don't care there are others to lol, seems to make em more interested

Where is WoWPro?  He could clear this one up in a heartbeat.

I miss wowpro threads

I really only have a tiny little bit of an idea of how people outside of myself view me. My social circle that I can glean any feedback from is so small that I can't honestly even call it a social circle. I know that the few people that do know me seem to like me and think I'm a very hard worker. I've heard it once mentioned by the wife of one of the guys that I've worked for that she thought I was "shy".

How I view myself is reserved, pretty quiet, unbelievably boring and very uncomfortable socially to the point of avoidance at almost all costs... So pretty close with the "shy" observation. I've only talked to 2 women in my whole 39 year existence and this was fairly recently over the last few years, the only 2 women I've ever been interested in at all really. One was online only, and the other I saw around for a few years because she kept her horses boarded at my boss's place. I only briefly talked to her once when she needed help guiding her tuck back up to her trailer one time. I also wrote her a message and left it in her trailer last year as she left due to my boss getting out of the horse boarding business. She responded well to the message (she wrote me one back) and I felt really good about that, but dang, the anxiety I had during that experience was intense.

You're dead right about the part I highlighted in red, but I just can't get past the anxiety. At my age I feel it's a lost cause trying to fight it and I know that exposure type therapy would be like trying to pee in a hurricane and thinking the wind is on your side.

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I should clarify that it was the only 2 women I've ever talked to that I had any interest in. I have talked to other women (small talk, I hate small talk) outside of that throughout my life, such as at the checkout at the supermarket, the hygienists at the dentist, my GP is also a woman.

But just your normal everyday passing by interactions like that are very anxiety inducing to me... Doesn't matter if it's with girls or guys, it's just as equally awkward and uncomfortable feeling.

Maybe you should seek an anxious female and be anxious together.

I get flirted with ALL the time whenever I go out.  Not a humble brag, I'm just saying.  I'm relatively in shape (as in shape as you can be at my age with an American diet), I drive a nice car, have a sense of humor and can talk to a woman and treat her like just a person versus something to worship on a pedestal.

In fact, I've gotten picky as shit and I have an internal list I go by when I'm actually looking for another plate to spin.

If you can't get laid and are roughly average sized, can form a normal sentence in English, have a job, a car, etc., I don't know what to say.

Move to where the women are.  Northern VA is a hotbed of fit, single, career women with no kids (some of whom have never been married).   If you can't land one of them after a couple of dates just give up.

Try to get some help, bro. You don't have to live like that. There's somebody out there for everybody, so get that fixed so you can find your woman to share your life with. You can do this, just need to get busy.

OP, I didn’t read past page one, but did anybody suggest alcohol? It lowers inhibitions and standards. If you can find a drunk chick while you’re drunk yourself, a series of synergistic bad decisions could lead to true love. Or herpes. Or both. Ya never know.

Sounds like a potential bad decision in the current climate. Just saying. Legally neither side can give consent at that point and rape accusations are all the rage.