Well one thing is that with friends they can come and go a lot more often than romantic relationships. The other thing when it comes to romantic relationships is where you feel a connection which is special and it’s not like spark but more so a level of comfort. A more important aspect that differentiates between friendships and romantic relationships is the vulnerability it offers for men like me but hear me out it’s that men cannot feel the same vulnerability with friends even if you’re the closest heart-to-heart level I’m talking but with relationships it’s just you don’t feel the need to hide things. Sex is the obvious difference lol but that’s like the last thing I’m interested in cause that’s like when we’re the most vulnerable. I mean this is the best I could come up with what makes friendships and romantic relationships separate.

Quite a lot actually, its just that friendships are not really an issue for me but more so like romance I guess. I feel like I can't for the life me flirt or anything that'll convey that I am romantically interested without scarring them off or just get friend zoned (friend zoned is not a bad thing for me I am more than happy to have more friends in life). Its just you know it feels like you're in stuck under a glass ceiling that you can just can't break is what I feel about dating in general.

For me its the latter cause its hard to find like-minded people and to keep it going. Life is already hard for a lotta people so friendships suffer so does dating as well cause that's the easiest as people would let it take the backseat.

I agree, it is definitely skewing how I perceive the age vs relationship when I see a lot of people who've been in relationships multiple times before they hit 25 when I moved to the US when I was like 19. Other things that could be skewing how I perceive is how I think I look which is another reason why I am trying to lose weight as well. Thank you for your reply tho, I really appreciate it.

Thanks for responding to my post! It’s just that, I come from an immigrant background and I never really had the chance to date tbh. It’s just my thinking is that the longer it’ll take to find someone the more likely I’ll be seen as a walking red flag. Sure I’ll hopefully be in a good position career wise, great social life but never having had dated anyone isn’t a good look. It’s just in my experience a lot of people brushed me off cause of that so it just makes me feel trapped I guess. That’s why I felt that it’ll be too late.