Relationship Woes and Advice 22: In Which Two Problems Prevent Each Others' Solution

[DeadManSleeping]

Originally Posted by Qaera

On OKC, I've noticed about five times more messages when I'm female than when I'm male. It's weird.

Did the definition of "weird" change recently? Is this one of those slang things where it's like "bad" means "good"?

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Originally Posted by DeadManSleeping

Did the definition of "weird" change recently? Is this one of those slang things where it's like "bad" means "good"?

Like, where 'weird' means 'perfectly normal and completely anticipated'?

[Moonshadow]

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[Heliomance]

Originally Posted by Qaera

Ooh, Gwyn, can I have her number? :P *hugs*

This confused me greatly for a moment, as Gwyn is the name of the girl who I have a date with tomorrow :P
Thought you'd been stalking me on OKC!

[Reluctance]

Originally Posted by Heliomance

This confused me greatly for a moment, as Gwyn is the name of the girl who I have a date with tomorrow :P
Thought you'd been stalking me on OKC!

Remember the old trick for public speaking. If you ever get nervous, just picture her in her underwear.

(Non-snark, just go out and have a good time. Not euphemistic "good time". Look at this as a pleasant way to feel attractive, not a stepping stone to forever. The less seriously you take your dates, the more fun everybody has.)

Moonshadow: As one of the people who gets to sort through flagged material, you're overlooking how many of those messages are vitriol and fire for her not getting back to a previous message ASAP. Or occasionally pure penis. There's an ego boost to being wanted, sure, but unceasing attention can wear on you rather quickly.

(This does touch on why girls are often skittish about moving from pen pal to in person. Every girl has experiences where being within touching distance put a spin on a friendship that she was happy leaving as is. The vast majority aren't doing it to be attention whores. The proper solution to chronic foot-draggers is to move on. Simpler, and less stress for everybody.)

If you feel like a sock account, I'd like you to try an experiment. Pretend to be a woman who's old (50+), obese, black, trans, has kids, and/or has taken some other major hit on the desirability scale. I'd like to see more people see what the reality is like on the other side of the dating divide. It's a good challenge to your preconceptions.

[Drascin]

Originally Posted by Trekkin

There's this weird thing that's been happening to me of late: people keep getting scared of me. My friends, my coworkers, cashiers, even people I just introduce myself to all react oddly, in little ways. They get quiet and reserved and oddly twitchy. I've asked said friends about it, and apparently I just seem "intense" or "scary" or "intimidating", with all attempts at elaboration rapidly devolving into apologies for being unable to explain. It's apparently not communciable through texting, though.

Now, as much as I can put this to use corralling my players for Deadlands, it's a bit of a hamper on my social life, and I'm at a loss to explain it. As far as I know, I haven't changed anything about my appearance or bearing; I'm still the same relaxed hippy I've always been. Has this happened to anyone else? How do I tone it down?

I've been told much the same thing. I'm apparently somewhat intimidating and very hard to approach.

Some tips I've been given: to not keep eye contact too much (for some people it's an indicator of attention, but for others it's a warning sign that you want to punch them in the face, apparently); to keep talking lightly, even if it's banalities (people seem to find my silences scary, but a blabber is somehow more approachable); to keep your hands always visble and never curled up (hands curled into punches is all sorts of aggressive body language even if you don't really mean anything by it except "my fingers itch"); to try to smile a lot and let yourself flop a bit so as to not be stiff, and such.

I won't lie, most of the time this is all pretty tiring stuff so I don't do it very frequently .. But it's the advice I was given. You could try and see if it works for you.

[Astrella]

Originally Posted by Moonshadow

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[Moonshadow]

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[Serpentine]

Originally Posted by Moonshadow

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[Dogmantra]

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[SMEE]

The Rainbow Mod: Thread closed for review.
Edit: Review completed.

[Erloas]

As for OKC, I think a lot will also depend on where you are. So far I've sent messages to 4 people (that I can remember) and I've received responses from 3 of them (the other one I just sent out last night, since I hadn't checked the site in a while before being prompted by the thread). Though only 1 of them ended up in a meeting and another was someone I sort of already knew. But of course there are only a hand full of people on the site where I am (at least women, I don't check out the competition). I'm also not sending out messages to someone that doesn't seem like at least a reasonable match.

At the same time I've never received an unsolicited message either.

I'm sure my success rate will probably drop if/when I start messaging people farther away, because the distance is going to be a problem (only city of any real size is about 150 miles away) and there is going to be a lot more potential matches for them closer. Which is why I haven't sent any yet.

OKC had one of their blog posts about messages sent and received and message composition. It was a while ago so I don't remember exactly, but there was a very low correlation between message length and response rate. There were a few phrases or words that had a strong correlation to not getting a response back. And women had a higher response rate then men but sent out much fewer messages to begin with.

And from something else I read it seems that women are much more selective at the beginning of relationships but it seems like men are more selective when it comes to making them long term.

I've always found the first steps, the unsolicited messaging/starting conversation as being the hardest part, and that is where women seem to have it easier. To me though it seems like the hard part for women is that many of the men that are good at that part are bad at the rest, so many of the guys that are "charming" at first tend to make men look like *donkeys* in general.


As for something else, after my last whateveryouwanttocallit, I think I'm going to be much more inclined to message/talk to/ask out women with kids. I seem to like them more, and on the plus side I'm much better with kids then I tend to be with adults, so I think I come off a lot better around kids and kids make it a lot harder to have situations where nothing is happening and things get a little awkward.

[Heliomance]

:smallbi ggrin:

That is all.

[Dallas-Dakota]

And we've set up multiple times we're gonna see eachother. On one occasion sleeping at my place so she can attend two days of a festival...

And I know from experience long distance doesn't work for me. Or maybe it were just those particular girls...Either way, my resistance is pretty much gone. There goes my rule of ''No LDR'' ><

[DeadManSleeping]

{Scrubbed}

[Serpentine]

Eh. In a thread that mostly consists of complaining and bad luck, it's nice to hear a positive update every now and then.

[Castaras]

Originally Posted by Serpentine

Eh. In a thread that mostly consists of complaining and bad luck, it's nice to hear a positive update every now and then.

Agreed.

Although details are always nice.

[wadledo]

Hey, I'm pretty happy with my self hatred.

[Qaera]

Originally Posted by Heliomance

This confused me greatly for a moment, as Gwyn is the name of the girl who I have a date with tomorrow :P
Thought you'd been stalking me on OKC!

You should give me her number, and yours, then. Glad to hear it went well~

~ ♅

[Serpentine]

WADLEDO! \o/
...
Aw.

[dehro]

Originally Posted by Reluctance

Remember the old trick for public speaking. If you ever get nervous, just picture her in her underwear.

because a boner is going to make things so much easier on a shy guy

[Frozen_Feet]

Dilemma time:

Romance with Miss A, a neighbour's girl, turned out to be impossible because she likes girls more. Oh well, it's start of a beautiful friendship nonentheless.

Really don't know what to do with Miss B, bar-hopping single mother. (Had coffee with her today.) My irrational attraction to her has largely vanished after a really awful cruise we were on. I don't want to cut ties with her, but I'm not sure if pursuing her will lead to anything but heartbreak for both parties. I want to see her happy and in good health, but I have no idea what that should actually mean for us.

On another hand, I have a mountain-sized crush on Miss C, my best friend. (Which I've confessed to her, note.) But she doesn't know if she likes me that way. She's walled herself in and is waiting for that unreal love-movie-crush to come along. She's also dating another man, but doesn't know if she likes him, either. (Curse her hemming and hawing.) I promised I wouldn't get jealous, but can't help it. I've pretty much concluded I'll just kiss her the next we happen to meet, with the problem being actually meeting her, since she's habitually annoyingly hard to reach.

Lastly, there's Miss D, a cool new girl I was in a concert with two weeks ago. (Met her on OKC, by the way.) Don't really have a crush towards her (yet), but she's nice enough I'd like to spend more time with her, as a friend or otherwise. She lives pretty far, though, so I'm not quite sure if logistics of a relationship would work out.

Part of me would just want to find Mystery Girl E and get over it, but it's somehow really hard to muster energy to socialize with strangers when my thoughts perpetually revolve around C.

[Dvil]

I actually really enjoy seeing the stories of success. It always brightens my mood, and it just goes to show that success can happen. Helps to stave off the self-defeating despair for at least a little while.

[rogueboy]

It's more than slightly unnerving to come across someone who you're friends with on OKC. Especially when, last I heard anything, she was dating someone. Especially since I honestly did not recognize her from her profile picture. It wasn't until her profile mentioned her being in the same program I'm in, and I looked at other photos that I recognized her.

edit: what, if anything, is the difference between "hide this profile" and blocking a profile? I haven't seen any option for the latter, but could see that requiring a more deliberate method. Can also see the argument for not having them distinct (simplicity). Found the answer. They're one and the same for appearing in searches. Separate from messages, however.

[AtlanteanTroll]

You know what sucks? I thought that the worse that could happen if I asked my crush out is that she would say "No" and would get friend zoned. Nope. She's been ignoring me ever since I asked her out ... Which really doesn't work well as she still sits at the same lunch table and is in a 6 person class with me. I'm going to end up saying something to her sometimes. Not to mention her ex is in our massive group. 25 people in our group and our school has less than 400 total. The only way she ever really says anything to me is if I'm talking to her BF (who is a decently close friend) and she decides to chime in.

It's not even that I'm even actively trying to talk to her. But boy is it annoying. I realize I've been turned down. No need to add whatever to whatever. I mean, woop. She said no. I'm not going to try and steal her away from him.

I think she thinks I'm still after her or something. Which is ridiculous. (OK, not really.) But her BF is my friend. I know some friends who happen to be girls have done similar. Such as when they didn't want to hurt peoples feelings or build up false hopes. And I think it's been establish that I read too much into things. Still, that doesn't mean I haven't realized I've been rejected. No need to put salt in the wounds.

I wish I had never even tried.

[arguskos]

So, ok, strange situation I find myself in, and could use some advice.

I have a dear friend, who shall be known as E. E is a wonderful girl who I met about 8 months ago now and who I fell for almost instantly. Now, there was a trouble. She was taken, quite happily so, and so when I informed her of my interest, she kindly told me that we could be great friends, but we wouldn't be together. I acknowledged that, and honestly, we've become great friends since then. I'm really quite happy about our friendship, it's one of those set-ups where we are open to one another about everything, simply because we know the other won't judge us and will probably have something useful to say about it. Basically, we are one another's advice columns!

That's not why I'm here tonight. Mostly, I'm here because I realized something a few weeks ago, namely that I'm kinda confused as to what our relationship status actually IS. We're more than friends, but less than lovers. There's no physical bond between E and I, but we're beyond mere friendship. It's almost as though we complete one another's minds when we're together. It's eerie. I don't know entirely how to explain it. I guess the best way is to call it "philia".

My question is this: is this a normal kinda thing? Do I do anything about this, or just let it roll and kinda go with it? Has anyone else had this sort of relationship, where it's more than friend but less than... something else? I'm just confused as to the nomenclature and if I should change my ways or anything.

[Grinner]

@arguskos: Most people just use the term "BFF" to describe that.

If you're happy where you are, don't sweat it too much.

[Dallas-Dakota]

I know that feeling, have almost the same situation as you, even going as far as platonic kisses on the mouth(if such thing exists), which we don't do anymore since she got a boyfriend. But yeah, just roll with it, or atleast that's what I do. For me the part that makes it workable is that she lives far away, so I only see her every 1/2 months(we do call eachother a couple of times a week though)

But yeah, tough it out and eventually some other woman is bound to jump into your life.

The other situation being, is that you're BFF's.

[dehro]

Originally Posted by arguskos

...

been there.. a few times. mostly with childhood friends and girls I've been intimate with and care about even though we don't/didn't love each other and have moved on.
it's the kind of situation where, on her wedding day, you take her husband to be aside for a minute and tell him with a smile on your face that if he hurts her you'll tie him up, coat his balls in honey and leave him naked on an anthill.
not to worry.. it's not so unusual, and honey is easy to come by.

[arguskos]

Originally Posted by Scotchland

@arguskos: Most people just use the term "BFF" to describe that.

If you're happy where you are, don't sweat it too much.

Eh, BFF both bothers me as a term (it brings to mind images of squee'ing 14 yr. old girls, which I'm not a fan of) and because it carries a connotation of permanency to it.

I am happy though, but I always wonder about nomenclature, because I'm herpderp like that sometimes.

Originally Posted by Dallas-Dakota

I know that feeling, have almost the same situation as you, even going as far as platonic kisses on the mouth(if such thing exists), which we don't do anymore since she got a boyfriend. But yeah, just roll with it, or atleast that's what I do. For me the part that makes it workable is that she lives far away, so I only see her every 1/2 months(we do call eachother a couple of times a week though)

But yeah, tough it out and eventually some other woman is bound to jump into your life.

Seems to pretty much be the way it rolls. I dunno, just felt the need to say something and ask if this was normal. Glad that it seems to be fairly known as a phenomenon, which makes me happy to hear (it reduces the likelihood that I'm just irreparably crazy).