Why I can't do dating sites

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People have suggested I try dating sites due to my social struggles and anxiety. Even my therapist recommended the same for me. Unfortunately, the times I've tried them, they've only lead to frustration to the point I felt like I was hitting my head against a wall and discouragement of ever attracting a potential partner. I normally feel stressed but these sites increased my stress levels to the point my head felt hot and suffer from insomnia.

What did I do on these sites? Well, I would try making my profile as presentable as possible. I would smile for my photos, try not to be too chatty in my descriptions, be honest that I was shy but willing to break out, and I would send messages as much as I could. For the most part, those messages would only get me a "Hi..." in response.

My father actually used the same sites and he would get dates without breaking a sweat due to him being a doctor. An ex-friend got on POF and she instantly got a date. Myself? I couldn't get a single date at all. As I said before, the stress ruined me and I had to stop because I was feeling more and more hopeless about any good prospects coming out of those sites. I've sworn them off completely and the thought of ever going back to them fills me with dread.

As I approach my 30's, I feel as if I should go back on what a forum member told me to do a long time ago and that was to commit suicide.

So become a doctor and you too won't have to break a sweat.

My struggles with math strike me out of going into the medical field.

How many times did you try dating sites?

About three or four times. The first time was the year I turned 21 and I tried three sites for the whole summer of that year. It was extremely grueling and ultimately ended with me burned out and bitter. I even tried a "fling" site out of desperation but I only wasted money and even more time.

3-4 times really isn’t all that much.

I keep thinking about the kinds of things that frustrate me and how I can relate that to dating or dating sites. I’ve never had any luck with online dating, so I can’t really be helpful there. The important thing is to keep at it, practice, learn from mistakes.

My current obsession is a computer language called PureData and it has consumed my life since December. I’ve had it on diff computers I’ve had for more than a decade and could never make heads or tails of it. After finally getting sound out of it, I’m like a pit bull. Even looking towards using this algorithm I’m working on as a model for a mobile app and wondering if learning Objective-C or Swift is worth it to possibly make a little cash on this project.

I’m not a programmer. About all I got out of BASIC was a program that would draw random geometric shapes, and basically I just copied that out of a manual. Computer languages just tried my patience too much.

So after a couple of decades staring at a blank screen, it suddenly started making sense. And there’s still much I don’t understand. And I don’t understand dating websites, either. But if it mattered enough to me, it would certainly take more than 3-4 times to shake me from it.

Do more.

It's important not to compare yourself to anyone else. Your dad is in a different place than you and so is your friend.
Do you have other online activities where you can make a friend, like a game or something? Its much easier to start to talk to someone when you have a reason other than dating.

She's not my friend anymore. She started pushing me away and finally cut me off. She would downplay my struggles and claim that because she was an aspie, too, that if she could do something, so could I. But she kept overlooking the fact she got hired to be the manager at Planet Fitness within a week while I've grinded out at the public library for nearly 12 years but have never been offered a higher position and the fact that she can just go to a social place and get interactions without even trying while I have to risk rejection or expect nothing.



It felt like a lot to me. When things move slow, it feels like my life is wasting away because I have a millstone that demands me to keep looking or I will strike out.

12 years? That means you got hired at age 17.

And you kept your job all this time.

I believe this counts for something.

12 years of stress and tedium.

Not because I like it but I am trapped.

But what do I have to show for it?

Right. But that’s what it’s like for everyone. Some people with better social skills and instincts might move faster than we do, but nevertheless the skills are learnable and repeatable. I’ve tried explaining a routine that I know would work. But it all boils down to how often you repeat new behaviors, how much you practice the skills you need to get a date. People are not fundamentally on or offline, though the anonymity allows you to be whoever you want to be. If you don’t make those contacts regularly and often, you aren’t going to get any better and certainly won’t get dates out of it. It just take a lot of time. Be prepared for one dead-end after another, but keep trying anyway.

I read an ebook by someone who is in his late 50's who's never had a girlfriend despite his attempts and he's accepted he will most likely die alone. Back when I first learned I had Aspergers, I read similar stories and they molded my outlook. With every passing year, this fear becomes more and more apt.

Nobody on this site seems to understand how brutal it is to watch everyone around you effortlessly attract people while it's impossible for yourself to do so. And you'll just get conflicting advice; be yourself, change yourself, ask out a huge number of women to try and get a few dates here and there, only ask out special women, get out more, focus on your hobbies, abandon your hobbies and develop new ones, focus on yourself, give up, keep trying, etcetera.

Nobody can agree on the magic formula because there is none. People in our situation are fundamentally flawed to begin with, the standard advice doesn't apply to us because we're bad fits with society in the first place.

You might be right.

However, that’s about as helpful as “standard advice.” I’m more a proponent of meeting large numbers of women. I dislike targeting specific women because it sets you up to obsess over someone who is, based on pure chance, NOT going to reciprocate—or even if she does, the long-term outlook isn’t good, or at least not in your favor.

But even if you don’t take my advice, the main thing that gets you there is consistency, and that’s with anything you want to do in life. People who get dates all the time on websites are people who’ve been at it enough to learn the tricks. Some are quicker than others. And I think that creates the illusion that they possess something we do not. My wife and I are a very unlikely couple, but we got together. You owe it to yourself to at least try.

This reminds me of something my daughter did. She really wants to get into art, and I’m totally clueless. I can do some crude pencil sketches and that’a about it. So she’d Take pieces out of this art kit she got for her birthday and spend the next hour sobbing because she couldn’t figure out how to make it work. This went on for nearly a month. So I took a look. One part was a spiral art stencil. So I fit the two pieces together and ran a pencil through it. She’s like, whoa... Now I can’t keep my kids away from making spiral art.

You aren’t missing anything. You just haven’t stuck with it enough to understand it. You can’t just try one thing a few times and expect results. My daughter thought the art kit was something like the Trolls movie where the lead character cuts a few things with scissors, adds glue, opens up a scrapbook and it instantly spits glitter at you.

Real life doesn’t actually work that way. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of going up to one girl you like just to ask her out on one date and spending the rest of the year crying because she rejected you. I’m uncomfortable with most early emotional attachments, period, for that very reason. It sets up unrealistic expectations and messes you up inside. Save it for when the attraction is mutual.

Advice on any subjects that isn't very specific to the person it's being given to, and takes account of all their circumstances can do more harm than good. What's good advice for one person is terrible advice for someone else.

I know exactly how it feels to watch others achieve effortlessly things which takes lots of effort on my part.

Do you have a retirement plan at the library? Are you a civil servant?

If you are, you have a pension coming to you.