At what step do you struggle the most?
I have trouble wanting to invest all that energy to effectively reduce my own autonomy in the end.
I currently hate my body and don't feel comfortable dating until I like it again, as dating involves finding others who like your body (and other things about you, but still)
I'm sure there are people who would want to date me in my current body as well as my future (hopefully improved) body, but I just can't summon any confidence while I feel like this.
Obviously there's some mental health problems I need to work on too. I'm fortunate to have decent psychiatric care at this stage in my life and am slowly progressing in that area, and trying my damnedest to ramp up body improvement efforts.
I went to the gym today, at least. :)
Best interpretation of the question.
We also just want to keep track of all these natural cycles that have no guarantee of having any reasonable ratio. Every calendar system except, like, Epoch is a little dumb because of that. It's unavoidable.
Talking to people I don't know and initiating conversations in general. If the other person doesn't approach me first, I can't do it myself. I'm not much into dating, but it's really inconvenient for socializing in general.
Just not very interesting. Most people just don't show much interest in me beyond work buddy status, and work is pretty much the entirety of my social life. Down-side of moving to a new area. Making friends as an adult is hard, dating doubly so when there's no one to introduce you to new people.
But historically the hardest part for me is expressing anything that can't be back-pedalled into "just meant as a friend, buddy." The second you cross that line, nothing will ever be the same for better or for worse. I hate committing to that change. Just feels like I'm ruining things irreparably every time. I'll toe that line all day, crossing is just a bitch.
I work from home and live on a sailboat, sailing up and down the west coast (south in Winter, north in Summer). Not exactly a lot of opportunities to develop or maintain social connections other than on Discord/Steam. How would I even meet anyone during the week or so I stay in a given town before shipping out? And who wants to date a guy who's only in town for a week or two per year?
The only way I could maintain a relationship would be an LTR where she lived onboard with me, but I don't see how I could every date someone to establish that LTR in the first place. Kind of a chicken and egg situation.
I may be one of the few guys in the 6, 6, 6 club who's been single for years with no hope of finding a woman. And I just don't think the changes I'd have to make to my lifestyle to make that easier would be worth it. So... I guess I'll just die alone?
Predatory lesbian brainworms, I have forced myself to set the benchmark of "if someone repeatedly compliments your appearance they will probably be flattered even if they don't reciprocate" and that has helped.
To all of the people whose reasons are something self-deprecating about their confidence/appearance/personality/etc:
I'll go on a date with you, if you want! ☺
Actually finding people i guess? I meet tons of people with my shared interests but none I want to date. I am demi so maybe that's part of it
I'm an astoundingly selfish person, and unapologetic about it. Makes for having relationships, romantic or otherwise, pretty much impossible.
I'm middle aged, dated, had relationships in the past, etc., and honestly just don't have the drive to make relationships work. I do the bare minimum to keep my professional relationships in tact, which honestly is exhausting enough, and otherwise just keep to myself. It's so much easier than when I was trying so hard to pretend I was interested in where another person was coming from or what they were going through. Now at least that effort ends after I clock out for the day, and there's less socializing where I work, so there's less of those kinds of social expectations overall.
