I have given up trying to find a girlfriend. Even though, I am outgoing, have hobbies (I dance, which is actually filled with women), go to parties, talk to plenty of women. But I keep hearing the same thing over and over again: “I am just not so into skinny guys.”
I think this is fair from the woman’s perspective. I for one am only motivated to date attractive women. So, them not wanting to settle for less actually makes very good sense to me. There is absolutely no hate or bitterness regarding that. Fuck all that: ‘all women are whores’-noise.
That being said, I think I should just consider myself celibate by virtue of my own standards. But now bitterness is starting to take hold of me. Bitterness about my life and to me as a person. As I said I am very outgoing and don’t want to become the cynical asshole around my friends.
So how do I stop this?
Edit: I go to the gym on a regular basis.
TLDR: be happy to be alone, truly and genuinely. then it won’t matter if you find a partner, but you will be able to choose them with a clear mind if you do.
I’m basically a complete flip of you physically but I had the same problem for a loooooooooong time. I’m a tall, strong, heavy woman, and all i kept hearing was “you’re beautiful, I just don’t want someone taller/stronger/heavier than me”. I totally get it, I didn’t want to be taller/stronger/heavier than my partner either. But I’m like Fezzik- “it’s not my fault I’m the biggest and the strongest, I don’t even exercise”. except I did do cardio to try to slim down, I’m just built to survive famine I guess. ¯\(◉‿◉)/¯
What I didn’t understand was the ones who said they just wanted to be friends, because i just wasn’t their type, but would happily be fuck buddies, so long as we kept it hush hush. ಠಗಠ
Anyway, eventually after a bunch of very bad attempts at relationships where I took way more BS than I should have because I was just that hungry for affection, I decided I was just better off being single forever. I couldn’t seem to find a decent person who was attracted to me both physically and intellectually, so I decided to just stop looking. Not just stop looking, stop wanting. I actively wanted to be single for the rest of my life, in large part because I was just tired of the pain of being lonely. Like, “Jesus titty fucking Christ, we’re gonna cry ourselves to sleep because we’re SOOOO sad we’re alone AGAIN?! FFS, JUST STAHP!” So I stopped wanting a partner. I found I had so much more time and energy to do the things I was passionate about when I wasn’t futzing with all that stuff. I became the queen of getting shit done, remodeled my house myself, landscaped my yard, built a garden, went to the gym regularly, did weight lifting till I maxed out all the leg machines at the gym, and got close to maxing some of the upper body ones too. I was happy being single. I WANTED to be single. I craved my free time, the peace i found in solitude was better by orders of magnitude than any of the toxic relationships I’d clung to in the past.
After about two and a half years of that, a long time friend/ acquaintance started coming to me for massage ( I’m a deep tissue massage therapist with a focus on injury recovery and pain relief) and we would just talk throughout the sessions. Politics, philosophy, movies, anime, music, goals, food… Just everything. Eventually, after we’d just spent two more hours talking in the car after the two hours talking in the session, he said “Sooo… you know I’m flirting with you sometimes, right?” I turned him down. I said, more or less, “I’m happy single, I’ve had such a garbage time dating that I can’t pretend I’m not a decent part of the problem. I value our friendship and don’t want to hurt your feelings, and I’m not NOT attracted to you, I just don’t want to date ever again.” He was completely chill, said “no worries, no is no even if you’re attracted to me too. if you ever change your mind, let me know.” And he dropped it, never brought it up again… And fuck if that wasn’t the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. We kept being friends and talking and spending time together, talking about goals and wants and life plans and we found that our wants and goals in life were so in line it was uncanny. Importantly, neither of us wanted to get married, neither of us wanted kids, neither of us wanted to live with a partner ever again… It seemed like I could keep my peace, my space, my autonomy, AND have a partner who cared about my mind and emotions while also finding me wildly attractive. So we talked about what dating would look like and agreed to try it. It’s been 2.5 years so far and I’ve never been happier in a relationship. I still think if we stopped being romantically involved I’d probably prefer to go back to staying single, but I’m happy with him as a partner.
I tell you the whole story, kinda long and rambling as it is, because I don’t think I could have found a happy relationship if I had continued to want one with the same frantic energy as I had previously. I don’t think I would have been a person who could be as open and honest as I was with who I was if I’d still wanted a partner when we started to really get to know each other. I don’t think I was a whole person when I was looking for my “other half” and I don’t know if you can really find a good match if you’re not a whole entire person on your own. If I could distill the idea down to it’s core, I think it would be: be happy to be alone, truly and genuinely. then it won’t matter if you find a partner, but you will be able to choose them with a clear mind if you do.
be happy to be alone
That was a very moving story. I going to try this. Hell or high water I will try. Not for the possible prospects but for me. Thank you for sharing!
Also:
¯\(◉‿◉)/¯ ಠಗಠ
I like these.
( ๑‾̀◡‾́)σ» then you also may like these
Yay! I’m glad it helped. X) As to the faces, I use Gboard and there’s a ASCII art library in the list of emoji/gif options. It’s quite entertaining. (￣³￣) ⊂(・﹏・⊂) ᕦ(ಠ_ಠ)ᕤ (ノ｀Д´)ノ彡┻━┻
Hell or high water I will try. Not for the possible prospects but for me.
This is the right mindset!
I wish I could upvote this more than once
Well, technically no one is stopping you.
Comments like these are why I love lemmy.
“I just don’t want someone taller/stronger/heavier than me”
I hate this so much. It’s the inverse of women who will only date tall men.
Speaking for myself, I like women. And that means all kinds. It’s so hard for me to imagine seeing a woman who falls outside the “standard” and being turned off by that alone.
I stopped being so upset by it once I started examining social systems and propaganda. If you’ve been conditioned your whole life to think of women as weaker and smaller and someone to be protected to maintain your “manly state”, someone who doesn’t fit that mold is a threat to your subconscious sense of self worth. Same for women who don’t want to date shorter men, “if I’m not the property of someone who’s the biggest and the strongest, I’m worth less to this society.”
‘Society’ thinks men who are smaller than their woman are weak, and that the woman must be defective or she’d be with someone who ‘fits’ better. They’re dead wrong, but that’s the unexamined subconscious judgement that our society has conditioned into people. It’s easy to be less upset with individual people when you realize they just haven’t had the space to examine the abusive systems they’re forced to exist within.
It’s true that the more you want something, the harder it can be to obtain lol
Sometimes you just have to be zen about it and then it can happen naturally.
Therapy. Also focusing on your hobbies and filling your life with joys that don’t focus on a datemate. But definitely therapy.
Your comments are only about appearance, and thus shallow. Have you tried shifting focus to people rather than what they appear to be at first glance?
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I do not deny it’s shallow. I am absolutely not savoury when it comes to that (though I do need her to also have similar interests). Be that as it may, I just don’t develop any romantic feelings for them otherwise.
Dude… from your interactions in here, i am beginning to not like you either. If i was a woman that you’re talking to, using your outter looks to reject your personality is maybe more gentle than saying you treat people like npcs or that you are annoying.
Yeah, couldn’t agree more. He doesn’t sound like he even likes women, just feels he should own one and probably wants regular sex (on his terms only). I almost feel guilty writing a post trying to help him.
just feels he should own one and probably wants regular sex (on his terms only)
I never, ever said nor implied this. English is not my first language, so maybe I didn’t phrase it all that well. I rarely ever even flirt with women because I’m afraid it will make them uncomfortable. I, as any other person, seek companionship. I know it sounds shallow to put emphasis on looks. But no matter which way I shake it it is an important factor to me. Otherwise it just feels like another friendship to me. I can’t change myself in that regard. And the results speak for themselves. So here I am seeking help to at least not feel bitter about it.
I don’t know what to tell you. I only blame myself for being this way. And every woman I meet has every right to refuse me. I do not deny that. I think my bitterness about my life is unfounded. Because it’s all by virtue of my own choices. I do not want to feel this way. Not to gain favours from women but for myself. For that I ask help. That’s it. Sorry you feel this way.
It’s a been a long long time since I was dating, anyone who turns you down and says “sorry you’re too thin” is best avoided to say the least.
In fact I’m having a difficult time believing you keep hearing it, because it’s so rude.
Or it’s clearly just an excuse and there’s something else about OP
Be it my weight, face, or my personality, it actually hardly matters. Bottom line: There is an (innerly or outerly) ugly person who only wants to date attractive people, and by that they cannot get a partner. If that’s too much of a stretch for you, then there is no point explaining.
So you’re mad that people have the same criterias you do?
Did you even read my post? I am bitter about the fact I can’t find a partner, yes. That’s nobody’s fault. I perfectly understand and accept as to why. But yes I can still be bend out of shape about my loneliness.
You’re certainly ripe for the taking for the incel movement I can tell you that…
Wtf is wrong with you? OP is literally walking down the path opposite to incedom. Fuck off troll.
Pointing out their hypocrisy?
It could be an excuse to avoid the real reasons. If OP really wants to know the full story, he could ask one of the women who said this to be 100% honest with him about all the reasons she’s not interested.
That depends a lot on the sort of women he’s approaching. If he’s mostly approaching strangers he probably still won’t get a different real answer - if they’re brushing him off like this there’s a reason and “please be honest” isn’t going to change it.
This might work with an already good friend that he asked out, but that doesn’t seem to be the situation described.
Much of the advice in this thread is either “Do xyz and you’ll have better chances!” or “It’s ok to be unattractive, it doesn’t mean you’re bad! Feel better!”. But that doesn’t answer your question.
It hurts, a lot, to not have intimacy for extended periods. It can burn, it can ache, and it can be a slow, subtle sort of pain. It can give rise to bitterness, as you call out, and to anger, sadness, listlessness, frustration.
Why don’t you want to be bitter? It’s a painful thing that is happening to you. That feeling isn’t wrong, it’s telling you something. If you feel a lot of pain and then suddenly stop feeling pain, that is very bad - it usually means you’re dying or your nerves are damaged. There’s no quick fix or silver bullet that will allow you to hold this like an old stoic, it’s just a lot of work.
There’s three places you can intervene: thoughts, words, and actions.
Thoughts are where this starts. If you don’t have bitter thoughts you won’t have bitter speech or actions. When you have bitter thoughts, just let them be. Don’t spiral - feeling bitter about intimacy isn’t great, but feeling bad about feeling bitter strengthens both, and it feeds itself from there. When you notice yourself spiraling or wallowing, just stop. Find a distraction or will yourself better or whatever, just don’t let it feed itself. Meditation might help if this mental action is difficult. If you can find a positive channel for these emotions (which is quite hard to find), use it!
Speech is the first layer where this can affect others, but it’s significantly lower stakes than actions. Generally, be conscientious. People can’t willingly un-know things so be careful with what you share. Don’t vent unless someone willingly signs up for it (which you can ask friends to do!). Don’t put this out like it’s a problem for someone else to fix or the worst thing that ever happened. It sucks, but it is manageable - you are managing it. When you make mistakes, point and call them. Say out loud “I did/said xyz, that was a mistake because abc, sorry, next time I’ll do/say mno instead.” This helps make a memory for you and others so you actually fix things and opens the door for feedback.
Actions will hopefully only come into this positively. Do the things that make good thoughts and speech easier. Learn to recognize how frustration and anger and bitterness feel in your body so that you can better notice+control them in the moment, and so that you can physically release that tension/sensation. If you feel urges to hurt others or yourself seek therapy.
It sucks. It hurts a lot in ways that many don’t understand or sympathize with. And it is itself a significant barrier to intimacy. I haven’t figured it all out myself, but I hope this helps. Good luck.
Agreeing with others. Enjoy being alone, enjoy having fun what you want to do, and masturbate. Life has a funny way of working out when you stop giving a fuck and focus on enjoying life.
Do YOU love yourself for who you are? Do you accept yourself and all your imperfections? Is there anything you are not happy with about yourself that you can change?
This is all that matters. Stop trying to push things and appreciate what you have. If there is something about yourself that you can change, then change it. Otherwise, stop worrying about what others think and learn to love yourself.
When you figure this out and learn this, everything else will follow. How can others love you, if you don’t even love yourself?
Understand its not your fault and you shouldnt blame the world. Everyone goes through this at some point (esp guys) - be it skinny, fat, coloured or not, tall or short. Everyone has their preferences.
Giving up on actively finding a girlfriend is probably the best thing to do in your situation - but not out of spite - some women find an attractiveness in someone who has fun in their own presence. People want to be a part of that joy. Being bitter will only drive away friends and potential relationships.
With that said, do your own thing. If being skinny bothers you (and you alone, not what anyone else thinks), hit the gym and eat more? Try more activites either solo or with friends. Maybe even some extreme sports which a partner would otherwise not join you in. Just enjoy life and someone will come. I know people who found relationships in the most unexpected of times and places.
I understand theres an inch in the intimate department that cant be scratched with just normal friendships but idk, resist tbe urge or find other outputs to bring your urges back down enough so you can just be you and comfortable
If being skinny bothers you (and you alone, not what anyone else thinks), hit the gym and eat more?
And take up beer drinking. You’ll gain 30lbs.
Try alcohol free beer if you like your liver or don’t want cancer
In addition to the advice already given, I would suggest you look at mental attractiveness as well as physical attractiveness. Physical attractiveness can be a ton of fun but then when you actually start living with the person if they aren’t mentally attractive/compatible with your personality then they can be really hard to live with. Look for someone genuine and kind and into the same sort of things you are.
Here’s the thing about people…every one of them is different. You could be white, and find a girl who only dates black guys. You could be black, and a girl only dates white guys. You could be fat, skinny, or muscular. And you could run into the girl that doesn’t mesh well with your type.
I once saw a guy with nazi tattoos, and he had a nazi girlffiend. I told them they could go fuck themselves. They laughed it off, but I wasn’t joking.
Point is, if you think of yourself as not getting dates because you’re skinny, find the girls who like the skinny guys. If a nazi can get a date, so can you. You just gotta find the right crowd. I know two girls who likes red headed irishmen with freckles. But I bet somewhere out there is a red headed irishman who thinks theres no girls for him because he has too many freckles. Little does he know he’s a panty dropper with these two specifically.
Find your person!
I don’t believe that most women don’t like skinny guys. That’s likely just BS. I have no idea what kind of girls OP is asking out. Maybe he’s asking the super hot biddy girls who only wanna date bros from the jersey shore? No idea. But that just doesn’t seem accurate. Perhaps the girls really have another reason and are trying to come up with an excuse. I have no idea.
OP, if you wanna put on a little muscle mass without getting super into weight lifting, just do pushups/planks/other easy shit every day whenever you have a free minute. Merely doing that will add some muscle definition and make you appear a bit less skinny. You’ll notice some obvious results after a few months. You don’t have to go ham into weight lifting, unless you want to.
Also, you may have a fast metabolism OP. If so, you’ll be fucking happy when you’re older and all of your friends are fat - and you’re still skinny ;-).
Metabolism differences are negligible between people, barring some disease. OP might just be a genetic outlier in terms of being able to put on muscle mass.
You also dont need to be a gymbro to put on muscle mass, 2-3 times a week 30-60 minutes in the gym is all it takes.
https://youtu.be/cClSiXBNGa8?si=qxyWva8kRn__oTVv
This video is excellent and these exercises can be easily done in 30 minutes and will yield better results than doing random pushups during the day.
Huh? What do you mean metabolism is barely different between people? Some people are fat naturally even with a decent diet and some people are skinny af regardless of what they eat. What do you mean there is no or little difference? There is large variability in metabolism speed between people. I know multiple people who are skinny and do not put on weight regardless of diet. If I’m wrong lemme know but that’s how I see it.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Se1oaRu0Pbw?si=OEsWwQ223S9g04rv
Extending this into practical terms and assuming an average expenditure of 2000kcal a day, 68% of the population falls into the range of 1840-2160kcal daily while 96% of the population is in the range of 1680-2320kcal daily. Comparing somebody at or below the 5thpercentile with somebody at or above the 95thpercentile would yield a difference of possibly 600kcal daily, and the chance of this occurring (comparing the self to a friend) is 0.50%, assuming two completely random persons.
To give a sense of calories, 200kcal (the difference in metabolic rate in approximately half the population) is approximately equivalent to 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, a single poptart (a package of two is 400kcal) or half of a large slice of pizza. An oreo is about 70kcal, and a chocolate bar in the range of 150-270kcal depending on brand.
So a majority of people are within 3 pieces of Oreos in tems of metabolism difference and the extreme end is 9 piece of difference, but 96 % pf people are within 6 oreos of each other.
Interesting thanks. Appreciate the interesting information. Thanks for taking the time to type that out.
?si=qxyWva8kRn__oTVv
See this part of the link here? That’s actually a tracker by Youtube. You can omid that to make the link more privacy friendly like so:
Thanks for the recommendation by the way!
ClearURL extension for Firefox (might also be on Chrome) should remove that automatically when visiting a link. Also Firefox has a “copy without tracking” option as well when right clicking a link.
Edit: also uBlock origin has a filter list to clean links, however I find it doesn’t capture everything that ClearURL does.
My guess is, that you keep talking to the wrong women or you try to advance into a relationship too fast
In my experience, both women and men can and often do see past the physical outer and see the personality behind. The appearance is, as you say, the catalyst for initial attraction but if you keep at it, and maybe continue talking with people they should be able to see past their requirement of you not being skinny. If not, they may be using it as an excuse for not really feeling the convection. If they indeed like you as a person but not your body, then you are probably better off without them.
Also remember. No rellationship, is better than being in a bad rellationship. We all need to go through relationship’s to get better at being in one but there is no reason to look for one just to have one. It needs to be with the right person and looks play a pretty small part in this, in the long run
You’ve got to cast that shit out my man. Bitterness is a poison and will only turn you on yourself or others. I’m not in that situation but you have to look at things as if you haven’t met the right one yet. I won’t tell you to lower your standards but maybe consider trying to find the beauty of a person in a different light. Their intelligence, humor, mannerisms, there’s so many aspects of people to hate and appreciate.
Look at it this way, it’s hard to meet people these days. You go to parties, and find people that go to parties. You get on any dating sites? Chat rooms?
“celibate by virtue of my own standards” … I was not aware I belonged to a club which viral acronym does not exist yet
“Choosy beggars”.
I think that might be volcel? as in voluntary celibate?
Well, is not like I can really chose what I “like” (my standards) beyond a certain point, most of mine at least are not a rational decision, I do not feel like I can really force me into tastes…
How about Stancels? We are celibate due to our standards?
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Most people’s body will change as they age. I haven’t met many who don’t age or never get injured or both. Selecting a partner primarily based on their current appearance means you are using criteria suitable only for short term relationships.
