Everyone says I'm not supposed to get too attracted to one girl, and I should have a group of girls I'm "deciding" between at all times. How does someone find enough girls to even want to give the time of day? How do you commit that kind of time to it?
Keep in mind I have a full-time career, friends, family, etc. I understand this if I was in high school or college and there were a million different eligible girls around.
Who the fuck says that?
You might hear people say that you should give off the impression that you have other options, but I've never heard anyone say you should just build a harem and the hem and haw about it.
The other day I was posting about a girl I'm interested in. I got plenty of advice that you should never pay too much attention to one girl, and you need to just go get as many girls as you can so you're never let down.
It seems like shit advice to me, like only the kind of thing someone would say if all you're interested in is getting your cock wet.
you should have a few girls you are looking into. don't spend your time and energy into anything that wont bloom.
How would I find these girls? I can't even find one girl I want to "look into" besides every few months, and even then, they're probably a coworker or taken. I just don't understand where people are getting all of these girls they can consider from.
And I think I have a very active social life.
I wouldn't say that it takes a lot of time. In fact maybe the issue here is that you're reading too deeply into it. The group can be random women you just happen to see semi-regularly as no more than loose acquaintances. You've not dated them so don't assume anything about how much time of your day they deserve. Cute? Potential date. That's about it. Dip into the pool now and again as opportunities become available.
If you really did had a “very active social life,” you could find girls to be interested in. How many have you asked out this year?
Most of the women I see semi-regularly are coworkers or old friends. And if I'm seeing them semi-regularly anyways, the juice has to be worth the squeeze. If I'm suddenly asking out every girl my friends bring around, or hurting the feelings of friends of friends by no longer being interested, I'll quickly lose friends.
Not a single one. The year isn't even two months old. I'm out of the house doing something 3-6 nights a week... which is what I'd consider active. There have only been two girls I've been slightly interested in in the past six months, and one if I asked her out, I'd pretty much be dating all of our friends, including her friends that like me. I did get stuck on an unplanned date back in October, but it doesn't count.
Pretty much every girl I meet is: not attractive to me, boring as sin, or unavailable. That's why I don't understand this whole thing.
So you go out most nights yet still never meet women? Do you even try to talk to any of them? Why didn’t you ask out the girls you were interested in? And there’s nothing to understand, you’ve just constructed this world for yourself where no one is ever perfect enough for you and so you don’t have to try
>the juice has to be worth the squeeze
Nope.
>I'll quickly lose friends
I actually have friends introduce me to women that are new to the area, recently single, etc. all the time. Why would people ostracize you for showing their friends a good time, testing the waters for companionship and parting amicably if it doesn't pan out? You say you have a job so I assume you aren't 14.
I mean, it's stuff with friends/coworkers/family, so I guess I can admit to it being a little bit insular, but like, let's look at my last week...
>Friday, friend from LA came in, went bowling and to the casino bar with the guys, no girls in sight over 18 or under 40
>Saturday, preseason soccer game with the guys, nothing to speak of in terms of girls, movie, no visible girls in sight, bar, no visible girls in sight
>Sunday, brunch at my usual bar, no girls besides the hot manager who is a single mom with three kids, the bartender with a finance and one kid, and the super hot waitress who is more than 10 years younger than me and seeing someone
>Monday, in
>Tuesday, in
>Wednesday, NHL game with coworkers, really the only place there were cute girls, but not in our suite
>Tonight, in
>Tomorrow, another NHL game, maybe an opportunity, but not really
I'm asking out one of the two girls I'm talking about when I see her next week, but that was what sparked the thread about me being too interested in one specific girl. The second girl just isn't as cute as I want her to be, and if I asked her out, it would be a HUGE deal to a bunch of friends we share, and I couldn't just casually walk out of it like "oh that was a nice date but I'm not interested."
I'm not sure what I'm missing. Where would YOU meet a bunch of girls in a given week or couple of months, assuming you have a job and aren't in school?
I have a bunch of girls around me who wonder why I'm single, and I've gotten a few people that have tried to set me up in the past few months, but it's all been with girls I have absolutely zero attraction to. Chubby girls, disshoveled girls, etc. I can't fake attraction.
I think a lot of people think that because I like comics and post on Jow Forums or whatever, they can just shove "nerdy gamer girl X" in my face and I'll be smitten, y'know? I'm not going to put my coworker's new-to-town girl on ignore after sleeping with her either, because that shit will come back to haunt me in the office when Alexis from brand marketing wonders why I pumped and dumped her friend, and tells all of her coworkers I'm that kind of guy.
These things never part amicably, because girls seem to always have a good time with me and I'm not interested in continuing. Which goes back to the "wasting my time" point in the OP. I can tell with a glance at a photo if it's a yes or a no when it comes to attraction.
The attraction piece is totally understandable.
The stuff about pump and dump, or "committing that kind of time," have nothing to do with that though. Those are separate issues which are entirely personal choices on your end. I'm gonna have to agree with the other user that you're creating your own complexities here. If it's not one problem it's always another in this situation and you're the common thread.
The pump and dump stuff essentially comes from the tone of the other threads, my bad. But yeah, committing to a date, or keeping up conversation long enough to string multiple people along, seems like a lot of work for someone you were never particularly interested in to start.
Like, I see no major complexities with the girl I'm going to ask out. I find her pretty, I like her hobbies, I would gladly sacrifice other activities in my life to spend time with her, because I find her enjoyable and cute. Now, admittedly, it's going to hurt when it doesn't work out, and I honestly don't think it's going to work out, so that sucks.
But I don't know how I'd get other girls around me to soften the blow when they just can't compare.
>committing to a date, or keeping up conversation long enough to string multiple people along, seems like a lot of work
To you, but not in universal terms. I think this is a combination of you not knowing how to date in a casual way, and intentionally utilize that knowledge gap to self-sabotage.
>not knowing how to date in a casual way
I'll cop to that. I've never had a casual date work out on my end, at least not since college, which again, I think is a different ballgame. Isn't the point of a date to follow up on romantic interest? Otherwise isn't it just two pals hanging out?
I have a lot of female friends (a lot of whom have had crushes on me in the past or still do), so maybe I just don't get it.
>Isn't the point of a date to follow up on romantic interest?
It's the romantic equivalent of picking two flasks at random from a chemical storeroom and mixing them just to see what happens. There's more intent there than pals hanging out but the intent is the only practical difference. The rest is reckless chemistry. In fact that's probably why they call it "chemistry" when you get along well on the date.
One followup to this too, the one time I ever compromised and started dating a girl I thought I'd learn to like more later, she ended up becoming my girlfriend, and I had to dump her when she said she loved me. Broke her heart.
Your advice is definitely appreciated, I just don't feel like we've gotten to the core of how you meet a group of girls and feel them all out.
>how you meet a group of girls
Just progressively interact with any girls who are even remotely attractive. I think your views on dating may have blocked you out of experiencing the typical sort of matchmaking, network-building and random chance which typically fuels that process for most people. And you only ever feel people out on dates. Just ask them out.
>Two flasks at random
So, for the sake of argument, would I just pick a girl I know I'm not attracted to and take her out anyways, just because I know she's interested? Just to "hope" for a spark?
I can understand if that's what we're getting at here, just dating anyone and everyone who you think might say yes... but that sounds expensive and time consuming, and not necessarily a good way for me to forget about actually liking someone.
>Just progressively interact with any girls who are even remotely attractive.
I interact with all shapes and sizes of girls, but generally they just become friends.
Progressively as in romantic progression. Date them. (The remotely attractive ones.)
No you only ask out the attractive ones, but that's the only relevant criterion.
>that sounds expensive
It's really not. You can also keep it as light as you want.
>time consuming
Here we go again with this insistence on time as a barrier. How many times do I need to say that you're creating your own obstacles before you believe me?
>not necessarily a good way for me to forget
Nothing necessarily does anything. It's a series of experiments. But if the dates go well then it most certainly will be effective.
>only ask out the attractive ones
You've been missing the part where I'm not meeting attractive ones. The only option here would be to lower my standards in order to ask out eligible girls.
I already acknowledged earlier that your situation is understandable for any periods of time where there aren't attractive ones around. But when I read your description of how that situation comes about, I'm picking up on the subtext of you judging attraction wayyyyyy too deeply over women you've not yet even dated.
So for clarity, there's no magic spell to make physically attractive women appear. You could get GPS coordinates as advice here and still get unlucky about the selection when you arrive. However, all bets are off once you find someone physically appealing. No further judgments should be made until you go out at least once. Go in with that open-mindedness, canvas coworkers and friends, and you should be able to have at least a couple options open to you.
Thanks, I guess. I still don't really WANT to date a bunch of people for whatever reason, but meh... I think a lot of it is just that other people are way more sex focused than I am. I'd rather fap than get off with someone unless we're either trying to be semi-serious, or there's literally 0 strings attached and I'm just getting a blowjob where I don't have to do any work.
Read the first part of what you just wrote and then go back to read the problem as it was conveyed at the start of the thread. Then tell me in earnest that this is really an external, situational difficulty of yours. Come on now.
Good luck OP. Stop worrying so much about this stuff.
Yeah, simple question with a deeper issue at heart. I appreciate the help, but one last question - do you think it's actually important for me to have a bunch of girls I'm trying to balance at once, or should I keep the process of only pursuing girls I really like? You seem like a rational person, so getting your thoughts.
It is not important to have a bunch of girls. It's important to remember that you could if the opportunity was there. In other words, it's important to remember that you know nothing definitive ahead of dating so you might as well explore any and all attractive options with an open mind. What goes hand in hand with that is that you don't know for certain that you "really life" a girl until you're past the point where you'd consider still dating others simultaneously anyway.
It's all about the mindset of recognizing how little you know before dating someone and how much it should realistically take before you know enough to close all other doors behind you. Since lots of people fall victim to assumptions and delusion, they get the advice to literally pursue multiple women as a protective mechanism.