- Joined
- May 23, 2023
- Messages
- 1
Hello all, glad to be here!
Thanks for reading, and I welcome any constructive feedback or encouragement.
Background
A decade ago a friend gave me the book The Game when I was finishing university. At the time I'd had a few very drunken hookups, but never any relationship of any kind. I was (and still am) quite social and chatty, but was extremely anxious about making moves on women. Probably bottom 10% of men in terms of romantic/sexual confidence.
The Game was a big deal for me to read because it shifted me from a Fixed Mentality to a Growth Mentality when it came to women. A lightbulb went off in my head: "Oh, this is a *skill*, I can *practice* and *get better at*."
I found a couple of forums I liked posting on, and started consuming a decent amount of seduction-related content and writing up my experiences.
I moved abroad and spent about 5 years rather obsessed with chasing women. There were pros and cons. I had sex with about 30 women while there, racked up some very fun experiences, and stopped making some of the more obvious mistakes. But a lot of that was just from me going out 3 nights a week and getting drunk. I wouldn't say that my confidence or skills increased very much, and I never really got good at approaching or dealing with my anxiety. I think "being a tall white dude in Asia" did a lot of the heavy lifting.
I also was getting more and more depressed because the rest of my life was going very poorly and I was neglecting it. My "successes" with women did not make me happier. 19 out of every 20 nights, I'd still walk home alone, angry at myself for being a failure. Looking back, my happiest periods then were the few times I got into a deep relationship with various women, including a couple of mono stints, both of which lasted less than a year.
About 7 years ago I started going to therapy, which was probably the best decision I ever made, and my overall life has been on a steady upward trajectory since (family/friend relationships, physical/mental health, career, etc). Almost all aspects of my life improved…with the exception of my dating life.
I have always wanted to eventually settle down and have a family so I stopped thinking in terms of “game” and figured I'd just approach dating "normally" and aim straight for getting into a long term relationship.
Because I'd stopped partying and my hobbies are all very male-coded, I stopped meeting many women in everyday life. I turned to dating apps. I've gotten laid now and then randomly, and I've had a few relationships over the past half-decade, but most were rather unhealthy. The latest girlfriend was a very sweet girl, but it turns out was not mentally in a place where she could be in a relationship, and that lasted a year before it ended amicably a few months ago. I was quite happy to be out, and I started using the apps again.
Turning point in the last month
At this point, it's rather easy for me to set up 3 dates or so a week from Hinge without much effort. But they almost never go anywhere. 90% are just friendly chit-chat for an hour or two before we call it quits. Often I'm not even that attracted to the girl. In most (~70% of cases?) I don't find her physically attracted from the get-go, and sometimes she's physically attractive enough but I'm just not feeling her vibe. On occasion there's a spark, and even though I'd have reservations about the girl, I'd push through, and sometimes we'd hook up and date for a bit. But it didn't feel great.
This was leading me to feel rather frustrated and jaded about dating in general.
And then…
***
[This was cathartic for me to write, but everything between now and the next set of asterisks can basically be summed up as “fell way way too hard for a girl way too soon, behaved needily, got rejected and heartbroken”, very skippable.]
About a month ago, I went on 3 dates with an absolute goddess.
She'd messaged me first on the app, and I wasn't that invested because her photos looked cute but she was a tad political on her profile, which put me off. But she had great banter and charm over text, so we met up for coffee.
I was absolutely smitten within 5 minutes. She was drop-dead gorgeous. I think I held extremely good eye contact because I could barely take my eyes off her face. And she was super smart and charming. High status job, super funny, and kept switching between teasing me and dropping deep indirect compliments. She initiated physical contact a few times. Internally I felt like a puppy dog. Externally (she would later tell me), I seemed rather enigmatic and she couldn’t tell if I was into her or not.
After the date I shot her a text right away saying I had a great time and would love to see her again. She reciprocated. The next few days we bantered some more and set up another date, this time at a bar.
By the end of the first date I wanted to marry her. (Which I then proceeded to tell all my friends.)
2nd date was even better. I remember walking there, and saying to myself “Calm down dude, you’re projecting all this stuff onto someone you barely know, she’s just a person”. Then we get on the date, and she’s better than I expected. We have a drink, bounce to another pub, and conversation flows effortlessly. We share past relationship experiences, laugh about our worst ever first dates, etc. Our legs start to touch under the table and it feels really mutual and natural.
When I come back from the bathroom she gestures for me to sit next to her in the booth because I’m “so far away over there”. I make the successful translation in my head into “I would like to be kissed” and within a minute we’re making out, and it’s probably the most I have ever enjoyed making out with someone. There are a few particular ways that I like to be kissed and often have to teach my partner over time how to do it. None of that here, just right from the get-go it’s incredible.
We stop after a bit, and she keeps shy-ly looking down, says she can’t hold eye contact with me and she’s annoyed because “this never happens with anyone”.
She mentions that she couldn’t even tell whether or not I was into her on the first date (and first part of second date). I’m a little dismayed by this. I decide I need to be more expressive about being into her (in hindsight, this was a negative turning point as, even if a little bit of extra expressed interest might have been good, I *way* over compensated in this regard).
I tell her I like her way more than I should for someone I’ve been on two dates with.
Suddenly she realizes how late it is (~4 hours just flew by), and says she needs to get home to go to sleep. I pay the bill and walk her back to her place. We hold hands. She’s shivering cold, so I take off my flannel shirt for her to wear. She beams, is all excited about how cozy it is. Adorable stuff.
We get near her building and I know I’m not going to be coming up (vibe wasn’t quite there), but I don’t care. I’m just ecstatic because I am so sure I’ve met the girl of my dreams and we’re gonna get into a relationship and then I’ll be happy (yes, yes, let the cringe flow through you).
We make out a bit more outside her place and then I say good night and turn to walk away. She says I forgot my shirt. I smile and say she can hang onto it for now. I stroll home, on cloud nine.
I get home, and send her a very lovey-dovey text.
Next morning, she reciprocates. We spend the next day exchanging a lot of really flirty cute texts, including her sending me a photo of her wearing my shirt.
Then suddenly, the vibe shifts. She makes a polite comment about how she thinks we’re getting too cute too fast. I acknowledge it, and we tone it down.
From then on, she would send 1 text every 2 or 3 days. Now, I had to leave town for a week for a work trip and we’d still make plans to hang out the weekend I was back. I also started reciprocating the longer reply times, but I started to feel really down because I was like “yeah, this girl doesn’t seem to like me back as much any more”.
Once I got back, we met up for a third date, which was just an hour, between some other activities she’d precommitted to. It was fun, but the spark didn’t feel like it was there. I still *really* liked her though, and even though she said she wanted to see me again but was busy that week, she gradually took longer and longer to reply. Then the following week when we had a vague plan to meet up she sent a very sweet message saying that she wasn’t in a date-y mood any more due to a lot of stuff going on in her life, but that she hoped our paths would cross again.
Now, I had already sensed a week earlier that it was going nowhere, so getting that text was actually a little bit of relief. But during that week I had descended into really silly misery over this. I was devastated.
Only a few times in my life have I had such chemistry with someone earlier on, and on paper she was incredible as well. I really felt like this might have been my last chance at the type of relationship I wanted, and was down hard about it.
(I’m skipping over a lot of details here and would have written this very differently if it were meant as a field report to analyze what actions I took that had certain effects, that kind of thing. Instead, my main purpose here is to document the emotional effect it had on me and my reaction to it.)
***
So, I was a mess, wishing desperately things had gone differently.
Now, part of me realized that this was silly. I’d been on only 3 dates with this woman, didn’t know her that well. I am also 33, I’m not exactly ancient yet, why am I worried I’ll never meet someone like that again? There are plenty of women out there.
I remember at one point lying on my couch after scrolling social media for an hour on my phone while moping about this girl, and thinking “what am I doing with myself here?”
The woman I want to end up with would not find this behavior attractive. Incredible women do not want a man who lies around pining for them.
This prompted me to take a very hard look at my life and reanalyze some of the habits and behaviors and thought patterns I’d been engaging in.
I decided that every time I caught myself thinking about this girl, I would direct that energy toward building new habits that I want to build. Instead of distressing over the lost opportunity, I would actively work into turning myself into the kind of man that is desired by the type of woman I want to be with.
Now, my life is very good on a lot of metrics. I have a great relationship with my family. Many very close friendships. I have my dream job. I am healthy, physically and mentally. I could go on.
But there are a lot of things that have room for improvement. My sleep hygiene isn’t great. I spend a lot of time doomscrolling on my phone.
There are positive habits I’d wanted to build again but hadn’t: meditating longer and more regularly. Reading novels again. Lifting weights. Having more social hobbies unrelated to my field of work.
And I’ve done a great job at directing my emotional turbulence in that direction.
I have been sleeping and waking earlier, been doing 5x5 lifting for several weeks now, joined a bouldering gym next to my office, been sleeping and waking early, meditating every morning and night, and often during the day. I read a novel going to sleep instead of scrolling on my phone (which helps me sleep earlier), and I’ve massively cut back on my social media usage.
For the past few weeks, even though I still feel distressed about this girl from time to time, my baseline mood is better, and I’ve got far more energy and have been more focused at work.
I’m now almost (but not quite) at the point where I’m happy I got rejected by her, considering how many life habits have improved as a result.
My Current Aims
Aside from my career ambitions, I have two overarching objectives:
1. Do things that give me more energy.
2. Do things that make me happier.
#2 is what has brought me to this forum. A subset of my happiness goal is to cultivate healthy relationships, which includes romantic ones.
In the long run, I still do want to find a life-partner to settle down with, but looking back, the most fulfilling relationships with women I ever had started out while I was not actively seeking a LTR, and where I had near-total abundance mentality so the connection could build at a pace where I wasn’t forcing it. Trying to aim directly at it has not worked out well for the past few years.
I am here to become the type of man that attractive, healthy women fall head over heels for. A man that recognizes and escalates when this happens, and allows those relationships to deepen at their natural pace.
I am here to adopt the set of beliefs, character traits, and behaviors that will result in me being this kind of man.
In my second post here later this week, I’ll use the WOOP method to break those objectives down into some more concrete short- and medium-term goals and describe how I plan to approach them.
Thanks for reading, and I welcome any constructive feedback or encouragement.
Background
A decade ago a friend gave me the book The Game when I was finishing university. At the time I'd had a few very drunken hookups, but never any relationship of any kind. I was (and still am) quite social and chatty, but was extremely anxious about making moves on women. Probably bottom 10% of men in terms of romantic/sexual confidence.
The Game was a big deal for me to read because it shifted me from a Fixed Mentality to a Growth Mentality when it came to women. A lightbulb went off in my head: "Oh, this is a *skill*, I can *practice* and *get better at*."
I found a couple of forums I liked posting on, and started consuming a decent amount of seduction-related content and writing up my experiences.
I moved abroad and spent about 5 years rather obsessed with chasing women. There were pros and cons. I had sex with about 30 women while there, racked up some very fun experiences, and stopped making some of the more obvious mistakes. But a lot of that was just from me going out 3 nights a week and getting drunk. I wouldn't say that my confidence or skills increased very much, and I never really got good at approaching or dealing with my anxiety. I think "being a tall white dude in Asia" did a lot of the heavy lifting.
I also was getting more and more depressed because the rest of my life was going very poorly and I was neglecting it. My "successes" with women did not make me happier. 19 out of every 20 nights, I'd still walk home alone, angry at myself for being a failure. Looking back, my happiest periods then were the few times I got into a deep relationship with various women, including a couple of mono stints, both of which lasted less than a year.
About 7 years ago I started going to therapy, which was probably the best decision I ever made, and my overall life has been on a steady upward trajectory since (family/friend relationships, physical/mental health, career, etc). Almost all aspects of my life improved…with the exception of my dating life.
I have always wanted to eventually settle down and have a family so I stopped thinking in terms of “game” and figured I'd just approach dating "normally" and aim straight for getting into a long term relationship.
Because I'd stopped partying and my hobbies are all very male-coded, I stopped meeting many women in everyday life. I turned to dating apps. I've gotten laid now and then randomly, and I've had a few relationships over the past half-decade, but most were rather unhealthy. The latest girlfriend was a very sweet girl, but it turns out was not mentally in a place where she could be in a relationship, and that lasted a year before it ended amicably a few months ago. I was quite happy to be out, and I started using the apps again.
Turning point in the last month
At this point, it's rather easy for me to set up 3 dates or so a week from Hinge without much effort. But they almost never go anywhere. 90% are just friendly chit-chat for an hour or two before we call it quits. Often I'm not even that attracted to the girl. In most (~70% of cases?) I don't find her physically attracted from the get-go, and sometimes she's physically attractive enough but I'm just not feeling her vibe. On occasion there's a spark, and even though I'd have reservations about the girl, I'd push through, and sometimes we'd hook up and date for a bit. But it didn't feel great.
This was leading me to feel rather frustrated and jaded about dating in general.
And then…
***
[This was cathartic for me to write, but everything between now and the next set of asterisks can basically be summed up as “fell way way too hard for a girl way too soon, behaved needily, got rejected and heartbroken”, very skippable.]
About a month ago, I went on 3 dates with an absolute goddess.
She'd messaged me first on the app, and I wasn't that invested because her photos looked cute but she was a tad political on her profile, which put me off. But she had great banter and charm over text, so we met up for coffee.
I was absolutely smitten within 5 minutes. She was drop-dead gorgeous. I think I held extremely good eye contact because I could barely take my eyes off her face. And she was super smart and charming. High status job, super funny, and kept switching between teasing me and dropping deep indirect compliments. She initiated physical contact a few times. Internally I felt like a puppy dog. Externally (she would later tell me), I seemed rather enigmatic and she couldn’t tell if I was into her or not.
After the date I shot her a text right away saying I had a great time and would love to see her again. She reciprocated. The next few days we bantered some more and set up another date, this time at a bar.
By the end of the first date I wanted to marry her. (Which I then proceeded to tell all my friends.)
2nd date was even better. I remember walking there, and saying to myself “Calm down dude, you’re projecting all this stuff onto someone you barely know, she’s just a person”. Then we get on the date, and she’s better than I expected. We have a drink, bounce to another pub, and conversation flows effortlessly. We share past relationship experiences, laugh about our worst ever first dates, etc. Our legs start to touch under the table and it feels really mutual and natural.
When I come back from the bathroom she gestures for me to sit next to her in the booth because I’m “so far away over there”. I make the successful translation in my head into “I would like to be kissed” and within a minute we’re making out, and it’s probably the most I have ever enjoyed making out with someone. There are a few particular ways that I like to be kissed and often have to teach my partner over time how to do it. None of that here, just right from the get-go it’s incredible.
We stop after a bit, and she keeps shy-ly looking down, says she can’t hold eye contact with me and she’s annoyed because “this never happens with anyone”.
She mentions that she couldn’t even tell whether or not I was into her on the first date (and first part of second date). I’m a little dismayed by this. I decide I need to be more expressive about being into her (in hindsight, this was a negative turning point as, even if a little bit of extra expressed interest might have been good, I *way* over compensated in this regard).
I tell her I like her way more than I should for someone I’ve been on two dates with.
Suddenly she realizes how late it is (~4 hours just flew by), and says she needs to get home to go to sleep. I pay the bill and walk her back to her place. We hold hands. She’s shivering cold, so I take off my flannel shirt for her to wear. She beams, is all excited about how cozy it is. Adorable stuff.
We get near her building and I know I’m not going to be coming up (vibe wasn’t quite there), but I don’t care. I’m just ecstatic because I am so sure I’ve met the girl of my dreams and we’re gonna get into a relationship and then I’ll be happy (yes, yes, let the cringe flow through you).
We make out a bit more outside her place and then I say good night and turn to walk away. She says I forgot my shirt. I smile and say she can hang onto it for now. I stroll home, on cloud nine.
I get home, and send her a very lovey-dovey text.
Next morning, she reciprocates. We spend the next day exchanging a lot of really flirty cute texts, including her sending me a photo of her wearing my shirt.
Then suddenly, the vibe shifts. She makes a polite comment about how she thinks we’re getting too cute too fast. I acknowledge it, and we tone it down.
From then on, she would send 1 text every 2 or 3 days. Now, I had to leave town for a week for a work trip and we’d still make plans to hang out the weekend I was back. I also started reciprocating the longer reply times, but I started to feel really down because I was like “yeah, this girl doesn’t seem to like me back as much any more”.
Once I got back, we met up for a third date, which was just an hour, between some other activities she’d precommitted to. It was fun, but the spark didn’t feel like it was there. I still *really* liked her though, and even though she said she wanted to see me again but was busy that week, she gradually took longer and longer to reply. Then the following week when we had a vague plan to meet up she sent a very sweet message saying that she wasn’t in a date-y mood any more due to a lot of stuff going on in her life, but that she hoped our paths would cross again.
Now, I had already sensed a week earlier that it was going nowhere, so getting that text was actually a little bit of relief. But during that week I had descended into really silly misery over this. I was devastated.
Only a few times in my life have I had such chemistry with someone earlier on, and on paper she was incredible as well. I really felt like this might have been my last chance at the type of relationship I wanted, and was down hard about it.
(I’m skipping over a lot of details here and would have written this very differently if it were meant as a field report to analyze what actions I took that had certain effects, that kind of thing. Instead, my main purpose here is to document the emotional effect it had on me and my reaction to it.)
***
So, I was a mess, wishing desperately things had gone differently.
Now, part of me realized that this was silly. I’d been on only 3 dates with this woman, didn’t know her that well. I am also 33, I’m not exactly ancient yet, why am I worried I’ll never meet someone like that again? There are plenty of women out there.
I remember at one point lying on my couch after scrolling social media for an hour on my phone while moping about this girl, and thinking “what am I doing with myself here?”
The woman I want to end up with would not find this behavior attractive. Incredible women do not want a man who lies around pining for them.
This prompted me to take a very hard look at my life and reanalyze some of the habits and behaviors and thought patterns I’d been engaging in.
I decided that every time I caught myself thinking about this girl, I would direct that energy toward building new habits that I want to build. Instead of distressing over the lost opportunity, I would actively work into turning myself into the kind of man that is desired by the type of woman I want to be with.
Now, my life is very good on a lot of metrics. I have a great relationship with my family. Many very close friendships. I have my dream job. I am healthy, physically and mentally. I could go on.
But there are a lot of things that have room for improvement. My sleep hygiene isn’t great. I spend a lot of time doomscrolling on my phone.
There are positive habits I’d wanted to build again but hadn’t: meditating longer and more regularly. Reading novels again. Lifting weights. Having more social hobbies unrelated to my field of work.
And I’ve done a great job at directing my emotional turbulence in that direction.
I have been sleeping and waking earlier, been doing 5x5 lifting for several weeks now, joined a bouldering gym next to my office, been sleeping and waking early, meditating every morning and night, and often during the day. I read a novel going to sleep instead of scrolling on my phone (which helps me sleep earlier), and I’ve massively cut back on my social media usage.
For the past few weeks, even though I still feel distressed about this girl from time to time, my baseline mood is better, and I’ve got far more energy and have been more focused at work.
I’m now almost (but not quite) at the point where I’m happy I got rejected by her, considering how many life habits have improved as a result.
My Current Aims
Aside from my career ambitions, I have two overarching objectives:
1. Do things that give me more energy.
2. Do things that make me happier.
#2 is what has brought me to this forum. A subset of my happiness goal is to cultivate healthy relationships, which includes romantic ones.
In the long run, I still do want to find a life-partner to settle down with, but looking back, the most fulfilling relationships with women I ever had started out while I was not actively seeking a LTR, and where I had near-total abundance mentality so the connection could build at a pace where I wasn’t forcing it. Trying to aim directly at it has not worked out well for the past few years.
I am here to become the type of man that attractive, healthy women fall head over heels for. A man that recognizes and escalates when this happens, and allows those relationships to deepen at their natural pace.
I am here to adopt the set of beliefs, character traits, and behaviors that will result in me being this kind of man.
In my second post here later this week, I’ll use the WOOP method to break those objectives down into some more concrete short- and medium-term goals and describe how I plan to approach them.
