Should I be with an older woman?

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I mean that before, I didn't really like her much but I wasn't yet ready to let go. Now I've let go. I think I'm doing the right thing by not stringing her on.

There is nothing wrong with dating older women. However, there are two issues here: you just met this woman and you are willing to let her move in with you and also you seem really immature to be in a relationship.

There is nothing wrong with being too immature for a relationship. It just means you need to wait until you are ready for one as well as have the proper mindset. Instead of rushing into a relationship you should try focusing on yourself. Also, the way you spoke of a woman with a child was mean.

Last edited by dobyfm on 30 Nov 2015, 9:49 am, edited 2 times in total.

I've had the "Summer of '42" syndrome since I was 15.

When I was 19, I was with a 38 year old woman---it didn't turn out well--but the sense of learning and discovery spurred me on.

You are hopelessly naive, dawg.

That's not how love works. You love someone first and foremost because you actually like them as a person plus you're sexually attracted to them(romantic love = friendship + lust). Rescuing them from poverty might make her feel gratitude towards you for a while but that's not going to be enough to satisfy a woman.

Sounds like you're doing the mail-order bride thing online and getting yourself in bad relationships. Why don't you try to date local chicks who already live in your country and your actual town?

This is hands down the best reply on this whole thread.

What should I do to myself to make myself "mature enough"?

Why at 28 am I not mature enough to something most guys do when they're teenagers? Am I less mature than a teenager? Should I wait 'till I'm 35 to something other guys do at 17? When I'm 44 will you still be saying I'm not yet mature enough and I should wait a few more years?

Life is finite and I'd rather spend more than the last third of it in a relationship. My friends already say I'm too old to be in my current position so waiting another ten years will just compound the problem.You know that's a really interesting idea, in all my life it never even occurred to me to try dating a girl that lives on the same continent as me /sarcasm

Tried and failed, maybe you can get a date with a local within five minutes but for me they're not forthcoming.

It takes long enough for me to get a date and when I finally do I wish I hadn't. The last local girl I tried to date was this arrogant, obese 28 year old grade school teacher who tried to boss me around like I was one of her students. After she stood me up multiple times she still acted like she was better than me.

She's said I was being "argumentative" when I expressed my dissatisfaction at being stood up for the fourth time, the previous three times I didn't criticize her at all. She got mad just because I called her "unreliable" because she kept on "forgetting" to turn up. It was like she expected me to overlook her many flaws but when I had even the smallest flaw she dumped me.

The local girls I've dated? I didn't spend the last two years dieting so I could be girls who weigh 300 lbs but that's what I that's what I got with every local girl. Last year I thought if I got a good job it would make me more eligible so I tried it, it failed. Before the girls said they wouldn't date an unemployed guy, they lied, they won't date me employed either.

I tried to improve myself through career and by losing 120 lbs but all I got afterwards was being patronized and talked down to by several obese girls when I'm out of their league. It's like they want to be perfect but if I was they'd still find fault. If they're going to arrogantly focus on my faults and not theirs, if they're going to expect me to be perfect, then they can stay single, I'll look for a partner elsewhere.

Because to me the way you described this entire online woman situation was immature. I am not trying to attack you. I am just giving you advice.

Perhaps you are mature enough. I don't really know you. But I think you should stop online dating and go out to meet a girl. And why do you care what your friends think? A good friend would not put you down and make you feel that way.

That's a whole lot of words to say that despite losing 120 lbs (congrats! That's hard!) and getting a good job, your heart/attitude are still so repulsive that the only women that will consider you are foreign women desperate to escape poverty or willing to have sex with you in exchange for medical care.

You're immature because you believe that simply being a healthy weight + gainfully employed entitled you to a relationship. Because you're tantrumming that those two things, alone, aren't getting you a girlfriend. Waaaah, you did as you were told and the damn women can still see right through you.

Ugh. You are such easy prey for a crazy woman and you don't even realize it. I sure hope you can take a good long look in the mirror before you get taken to the cleaners. I should know: it happened to me and a number of others at your age. Healthy women do not, under any circumstance, want to be fixed or rescued. Glad I learned that before my life was completely ruined.

Yeah I did as I was told and maybe that wasn't the right thing to do. Maybe getting down to a healthy weight and getting employed has nothing to do with whether or not girls like me. Maybe that's not what girls want. But if that's not what girls want why do they say that's what they want? I guess I was talking to some immature girls, right?

Maybe the first step towards maturity is to stop doing what people tell me to. Some people tell me I'm not old enough to have a girlfriend and some people tell me I'm too old to not have a girlfriend. Trying to placate that second group was one of my motives for getting one in the first place.

And you're right, I shouldn't be upset about being single. Most guys probably prefer being single. I should stop being so entitled. No one has a right to be in a relationship. But then why do 99% of people do it? There is no guarantee that I'll be in a relationship but if that's true, why do people call me subnormal for not being in one?

If it's not always practical to be in one, why do people tell me I have to be in one? It's like how nowadays you have to be a college graduate, it's a necessity for all yet it's priced as a luxury. I have no right to a relationship but if men and women exist in equal numbers it seems improbable that I wouldn't be in one.

I think I should just stop following orders. If half the world tells me that I must be in a relationship and half the world tells me that I must be single, maybe I should just stop trying to please the world, they want mutually exclusive things from me. Maybe I should just want love and companionship, rather than want to fulfill people's expectations of me. My mistake was in wanting to please people when I owe people nothing.

And I wasn't tantrumming about being single, I was tantrumming about being treated like dirt by a certain grade school teacher when I'm way out of her league. Maybe I'm a hypocrite for saying this but I didn't appreciate her arrogance.I probably should stop online dating and go out and meet a girl. Honestly I'm not quite sure how to go about meeting a girl without the aid of a website. When I see girls in IRL, I don't know how to tell if they're single and I have a hard time gauging their interest in me.

On dating sites, I know they're single or they wouldn't be there. IRL girls try to communicate chiefly though body language which I can't read, on dating sites girls communicate solely through text chat, which I can read. In real life 98% of communication is nonverbal, that's why I don't like real life.

But I would certainly like to go out and meet a girl in meatspace, if I knew how.

You've nailed it. Hold those thoughts, and you'll be fine eventually. Comparing yourself to others isn't helping you much either. You are under no obligation to be on someone else's 'normal' schedule for doing X thing in your life, no matter what people tell you.

It really is ok for you just to be you.

Getting healthy and getting a job you like that allows you to live in manner you enjoy are empirically Good Things. (Hard things too! For which congrats are in order!).

You see the world in black and white -- and dating isn't like that. There's ambiguity. There's no single right way to get a girlfriend. Nothing's automatic or guaranteed and you're struggling against that .

This is an interesting take on entitlement:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... nerds.html

One teacher not wanting you despite you having lost weight is just that - one not interested girl. Nothing to lose sleep over.

You don't have to give up online dating altogether, but you might have better luck if you invited local girls out for a quick coffee after exchanging just a few messages instead of proposing to strangers overseas. Meet people IRL - ask friends to set you up, join clubs, tag along with your colleagues for post-work drinks.

You really, really can't expect a relationship that's typed 98% of the time.

Yes that's true. I know I should stop comparing myself but it's hard to stop, it's like mental self-harm. I keep on seeing these young couples and comparing myself to them, feeling subnormal, than I think of the girls who liked me when I was a teeanager and how if I'd responded differently I could have dated them. I think of the girl from community college who liked me when I was 20 and how I could have dated her.

8 years later and I'm back in community college. I see all these 18 or 19 year old university students. I look over their shoulder and read their notes, I see calculus and premed jargon but I'm not smart enough to understand it. They're younger than me yet they're smarter than me, if only I'd tried harder in school and not been lazy I'd understand calculus, I would have gone to university in my late teens like normal and enjoyed a healthy campus social life and seen interesting subcultures and been exposed to novel ideas and ways of thinking that I will never know about.

This is my thought process everyday. I know it's wrong, I know I should stop but I just can't. The counselor at work thinks I need to see a psychologist, she's probably right. The last psychologist I saw didn't help much, she just said I can't possibly be depressed because I have a great life. I don't know if I have a great life because I can't look at my life with impartiality but if I did and I still felt said wouldn't that be the definition of depression?I really want to believe it's ok, it would make my life so much easier but it's hard for me to think like that.

Especially when I do things to please other people and afterwards they actually seem happier with me. I lost weight through an unhealthy combination of semi-starvation and amphetamines. For a long time I actually felt guilty every time I ate. It was unhealthy and yet people reacted very positively, they said I looked great, they said I looked healthier.

When I was younger I wanted to stay home and play games not work. Then I got depressed and felt inadequate because everyone else has a job. My family wanted me to get a job, they accused me of being a burden on the tax payer, maybe they were right.

After I got a job, my family and everyone else reacted very positively, they congratulated me. That's why I started wanting to live my life to "please people". Because when I do some people act impressed and stop complaining about me. Everyone except for eligible girls that is.

There were circumstances in my life that prevented me from doing certain things but when I tell people about them they say I'm "making excuses". Statistics say people with uneducated parents don't do well academically but when I tell people that they just say I should try extra hard and they expect me to do just as well as everyone else. They expect me to get the same grades working my way through college as some trust fund kid who has a lot more time and energy than me because he doesn't have to work. I had no academic guidance from my parents, my cousins got all the guidance they could want. But I can't say that because it's "making excuses". Our culture is all about underdog stories but that doesn't work so well in real life.

I know it is hard, but your well-being and happiness are important and you are worth every effort. It's hard to make the strides forward and not see the results you've worked hard to achieve. It's hard to see others seemingly leap forward while you feel like your feet are stuck in cement. Self-compassion is hard. It's hard to hear others tell you how much 'improved' you are when you feel lost, alone, and unwell.

But, you're worth it. The universe isn't a fair place. It sometimes puts you back even when you do everything you can to move forward. But sometimes, it also pushes you unexpectedly into a good place.

If you look back even at this thread, you can see that you've made a tough decision, and have been honest about what you want and what you're frustrated about. You can acknowledge when you've made the right choice, even when the outcome means someone's feelings are hurt. You know when someone isn't treating you with respect. Now, try treating yourself with more compassion, trust, and respect, and don't give up. Sure, you'll slip. That's not proof that you're a loser, it's proof that this s**t is hard.

Also, when people go to any other kind of doctor, they are encouraged to get a second opinion or switch doctors if they aren't getting the help they need. A mental health care professional is no different. The psychologist not helping you isn't proof that another one can't, or won't. Sounds like the one you saw didn't help you. There's nothing wrong with looking for another one, perhaps one more familiar with people on the spectrum.

It says you live in Adelaide(AUS) which as a population over 1 million. Now Australia is not *too* small of a country and haven't you tried looking to meet women who at least live in Australia rather than from foreign countries? This mail-order bride thing clearly isn't working for you that well. Now if you're a gamer, get on gaming forums and try to make friends and meet female gamers there(in your own country).

*sigh* It's pretty astonishing how similar Australian culture is to America...... So many underdog-to-topdog/rags-to-riches tales but real life just ain't like that for most people.

You really need to find a mental health professional who is actually familiar with autism spectrum disorders. Sounds like the psychologists and counselors you're seeing really don't get it. If gaming is your hobby, you should not only do it in your spare time as much as you'd like, but try to meet OTHER people with the same hobby. Because in fact, there are a lot of people out there who love it and not all of them are male.