The Psychological Effects Of Being 'Forever Alone'

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I don't think some people understand the extent to which going through all or most of your life with limited or no success in dating despite your efforts impacts on your thought processes and attitude towards dating in general.

I've talked to enough people who seem to not understand the crux of the problem I and probably many other 'forever aloners' face. I explain to someone that I've never had a relationship, and they might say something along the lines of "Are you sure you want a relationship? They're a lot of work", "Think of the people in abusive/bad relationships", "You'll get one, you just have to be patient", etc. Now whilst some may just be offering meaningless platitudes under the guise of encouragement or advice, I'd imagine others are trying to help but failing to grasp the real problem.

Now maybe I'm preaching to the choir here but I've had recent interactions that have spurred me to create this post in order to zoom in on the actual issue of chronic singledom and the effects it can have on the way people process interactions and view themselves.

Nobody would view being single forever as a good thing for someone who wants a relationship, and I think it's pretty universally acknowledged that having never had a relationship and being single is worse than having had a few decent relationships and being single. Someone who hasn't had any relationships or other experience at all has not only lacked the opportunity to affirm their worth as a romantic/sexual being to themselves, but has tried to do so and failed, likely multiple times. After some time, this sets people up to believe they're going to fail before they even try. If you had tried to bake a cake on several occasions but you found that without exception you ended up with an inedible mess instead, you would come to expect that whenever you try to bake a cake, it's not going to turn out so well. Same principle here.

I would posit that the main problem with people who are 'forever alone' isn't that they don't have a relationship right now. It's not even that they've never had a relationship (though this doesn't help). The real problem for the 'forever aloners' is that their experience thus far on this planet has indicated to them that they are incapable of getting a relationship, despite their efforts and desires, and so they have no reason to be confident or secure in their ability to attract a partner, and no reason to believe their romantic/sexual drought will come to an end without something changing drastically that will boost their chances of being able to attract a partner.

I can only speak for myself, but if I was confident in my ability to get a relationship and that sort of thing, and I had reason to be, the effect that would have on my confidence would be immensely positive, even if I wasn't in a relationship at this exact moment As opposed to "well, I haven't been able to get female attention over the 10 years I've been trying to, so why should anything change?" Experiences breed expectations.

So to conclude, my belief is that the main problem for us who are forever alone and in similar positions is the lacking ability to generate confidence in our capacity to attract a romantic/sexual partner more so than the lack of relationship experience itself. If I woke up tomorrow with plausible reasons to believe that I had the ability to attract a suitable partner, it would alter my confidence a great deal in this arena and would have a flow-on effect to other areas of my life.

All of what you say sounds pretty spot-on.

What you have that others in your situation may not, though, is awareness of this fact. You can see that it is your interpretation of external factors that has impacted your beliefs about yourself. And that they are simply your beliefs and they may not be accurate. And that changing your beliefs might be to your benefit.

My view is this is a step closer to being able to do something about that. Unfortunately I don't have the wisdom to know how to best go about the next step, but the next step is to believe you are capable of having a relationship despite not having a reason to. I know that probably sounds really stupid, but plenty of implausible or seemingly impossible things do occur in life. Things can happen even when nobody expects them to happen, or sees evidence that they should happen. So just because you see no reason why you could have a relationship, doesn't mean you are right in your belief that you can't.

So you may as well believe that you can! Simple, no? Haha. Obviously it's not that simple when trying to put belief-changing into practice, but the concept really is that simple, IMO.

(You might not have proof that you can get a relationship, but you also don't have proof that you can't. Just one relationship is all it would take to shatter your belief. Surely you wouldn't hold on to your belief so strongly that if a relationship was presented to you, you would deny its existence?)

I'm quoting myself. How lame. But I wanted to add that this part is something that keeps me optimistic is other areas of my life where I might otherwise feel hopeless. L&D is not an area where I struggle a lot, but I do in other realms. The idea that if I do find that one bit of evidence that I am wrong about not being able to find [X], then my perception will change entirely, is what helps me prevent my current perceptions turning into solid core beliefs about myself.

We can't just make ourselves believe in something the evidence is overwhelmingly against. As OP said, the issue isn't currently being single, the issue is being universally unattractive. We can't ever get relationships, flings, sex, or anything. We're completely locked out from that part of life.

I would say the one thing worse than never having a relationship at all, is to have one after multiple failures, allow yourself to get your hopes up, and then get dumped immediately after. So just when you're starting to think you might have been wrong about yourself, and maybe you are good enough after all-- yeah, nope, no you're not. At least with the first option, you're never surprised because you know in advance what's going to happen.

That's your belief and it might not be true. Well, unless you are literally locked out from it, I don't know your situation. But the OP isn't talking about concrete, absolute barriers like that, from what I can tell.

Eh, it's kind of vague if the OP means belief or fact, but either way the result is the same; a total lack in confidence in being able to engage in the entire romantic/sexual side of life.

To me, it's a constant reminder that my genes are not good enough to pass along, and this means I'd be hard-pressed to find a compelling reason why I still have any business being alive, since the oxygen and food I'm hogging could be better used by someone tougher, more successful in life, who didn't need to be artificially kept alive at honest taxpayers' expense, and with a real chance to attract a mate and reproduce, preferably long before they get as old as I am already.

It's not really a matter of interpretation as much as it is an observation. It's not simply a matter of belief that I've been single for as long as I've wanted a relationship despite my efforts. It's not a firm belief that I can't get a relationship the same as I believe water is wet and the sky is blue, but I would need sufficient evidence to allow me to believe that I can get a relationship, which at the moment is lacking in favour of the opposite. Just because I can recognise how my thought processes came to be doesn't mean I can rectify them without a reason to believe anything different.


I'm open to changing beliefs and expectations that have accrued over the course of my life, but not without contradictory evidence of those beliefs and expectations. Sure, it's possible I'll be able to get a relationship, the same way it's possible I'll win the lottery, but setting myself up to believe either of those things will happen without supporting evidence would be setting myself up for disappointment. I've conducted myself before like I believed I could get a relationship but the result instead was rejection after rejection. Rejection is less bearable when it happens the vast majority of the time, and instead of it being a reflection of one particular person not being interested, due to the sheer number of times it happens it enforces the fact that you are undatable.


All available evidence currently points to the conclusion that I can't.

And honestly it would depend on the quality of the relationship, the duration and how closely my partner matched my ideals. Having a 2 week-long relationship with someone who's not very pleasant to be around might marginally improve my expectations as it relates to dating, but probably wouldn't make a huge difference, whereas if I were to have a relationship that lasted 3 months with someone I was very interested in, sure the breakup would probably suck but I'd have more reason to believe I can attract the kind of relationship I'm looking for.

The psychological effects to which I refer in this post aren't exclusive to those who are 'forever alone' either, though they may be more impactful. Your expectations relating to your ability to date someone you're interested in will be determined by what has happened in the past (and particularly the recent past) when you've tried to do so.

I'd imagine someone who has unwittingly been in a dating drought for a longer period of time than all their previous relationships combined may have similar mental processes if they're constantly rejected whenever they try to date.

You can’t make a fish who never left the water to understand how being dry feels.

I guess you could call it a belief influenced by facts. Nobody can know the future, and any one of us here could find ourselves in the relationship of our dreams one day, but without any evidence to suggest that that will be the outcome, it's almost impossible to invest faith in that being the case

Oh okay, I didn't realise you were talking about believing it WILL happen as the other possibility. I wouldn't advicate for that. But a middle ground of believing it MIGHT happen is what I meant. It also seems the most realistic. 'It can't possibly happen' and 'It definitely will happen' are both inaccurate. 'It might happen' is the reality, and the belief I'd recommend working towards adopting.

And I think it's fine to also believe that it probably won't happen, if that's the way it looks. I feel that way about things in my life. But the 'it might, though!' part is what keeps me trying (keeps me buying the lottery tickets so to speak, so I still have a chance, however small).

Yeah like I said, I'm not firm in the belief that it won't or can't happen, but at this stage it seems rather unlikely. Even 'it might happen' sounds stronger than what I'd be willing to believe right now. My belief is more along the lines of 'it's quite unlikely but not quite impossible'.

I had my first relationship when I was 25 and only when I gave up hope t find a man. I kinda surrendered to the idea that I will die alone and probably that made me more relaxed.
8 years later I left him, after 5 years of struggling to be with somebody I didn't love, it was just good t be with somebody and not alone. I struggled for 5 years as I DIDNT want to be alone.
After my divorce I lived alone, totally alone, not with parents, in a foreign country, for 4 years longing to be with somebody. Yeah I met a narc. Go me! I had to get out of that relationship too as he was a master tormenter, I was losing myself, I was miserable. Now again 4 years of aloneness.
I'm just sharing this.
I know it's different when you never had a relationship but not that much as it's equally devastating never being in a loving relationship when the man is in love with you and not just being comfortable.
By now I'm just scared what kind of sick men I'm gonna meet and end up because I feel so alone sometimes and the smallest crumbs make me feel loved as I'm effed up in the emotions department.
That's the effect on me.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with this. A part of me still believes that I'll find someone to call "the love of my life" sooner or later, but my almost complete lack of prior experience admittedly has me more suspicious than hopeful.

What is it that makes you think you'll find the love of your life despite your lack of experience? Have you been rejected much?