Establishing A Social Network To Meet A Partner

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06 Aug 2019, 8:33 am

red_doghubb wrote:

I'm always amused by the "volunteer" suggestion. I've volunteered consistently for 30 yrs with the city animal shelter, animal welfare groups, political organizations, the Red Cross etc. Volunteers are either retired seniors, married couples, teens, or generally socially awkward ppl. Who probably heard they'd meet someone if they volunteer. You meet lots of ppl, but in my experience, and as an observer, almost never a "significant other"

Yeah, I think volunteering should be left for people who are actually there because they want to volunteer. Not people who merely want to expand their social circle.

Those who are there volunteering for the sake of volunteering probably take it more seriously and do a better job.

magz
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06 Aug 2019, 8:37 am

The Grand Inquisitor wrote:

magz wrote:

The only way I could ever establlish a social network was doing things with other people.

So you see the dilemma.

I'm open to trying some new things or things I don't normally do, but if I did that I'd want to be confident that I'd actually be able to connect with people. Making friends, and especially female friends, has never been my strong suit, and I certainly don't want to participate in an activity in order to make friends, only to come away with no friends.

It's even worse: if you do some activity just to make friends and fail, you regret. But if you succeed and then go back to the life you like, you will most likely lose the friends who connected to you via the activity. The same for a possible girlfriend.
The only way I see is to do things you really like even for yourself, with intention to continue unlimitedly.

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The Grand Inquisitor
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06 Aug 2019, 8:44 am

magz wrote:

The Grand Inquisitor wrote:

magz wrote:

The only way I could ever establlish a social network was doing things with other people.

The problem there is that if I had a girlfriend, I probably wouldn't be incentivised to do anything different than I'm doing now. That is unless having a girlfriend freed me to focus on other pursuits or I was appeasing her by participating in th ings she wanted me to come along to.

The way I see it most of my bandwidth that isn't occupied with daily life things is occupied with the pursuit of a girlfriend, and trying to cope with the inability to have done so throughout the last decade. Maybe if I get a girlfriend, that bandwidth will free up.

magz
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06 Aug 2019, 8:55 am

The Grand Inquisitor wrote:

The way I see it most of my bandwidth that isn't occupied with daily life things is occupied with the pursuit of a girlfriend, and trying to cope with the inability to have done so throughout the last decade. Maybe if I get a girlfriend, that bandwidth will free up.[/color]

Yes, maybe even an abusive, most unhealthy relationship would free you from the obsession and teach you to value other aspects of life

Until then, I would listen to Aspies who did create stable, healthy relationships and learn from them. Kraftie was quite successful in that area despite being rather distant from the "alpha male" stereotype

Many WP members married women from different cultures but I don't remember any of them mentioning where they met their spouses.

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rdos
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06 Aug 2019, 9:01 am

Nah, I don't think having a gf would free up much time. It will mostly focus time on a particular person instead. Which could be both good & bad.

that1weirdgrrrl
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06 Aug 2019, 10:51 am

I think expanding social circles is a great idea.

This is what I personally do. Adjust as needed for yourself:

Try out some new hobby or activity that you think you might like. Go once. If you don't make a friend and you don't enjoy the activity, then you've learned something new about yourself. Don't go back if you don't want to.

Pick a different activity next time.

Rinse and repeat.

Take breaks as needed.

Best of luck :heart:

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AprilR
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06 Aug 2019, 12:03 pm

I also have this problem. It's hard to meet New people after you finish school even for normal people. Most people i know married with people they met at college and my college years were.. Not really nice. I wish there was some sort of community i could join..

nick007
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06 Aug 2019, 12:09 pm

There was a time when I had a social network like when I was working & a member of a support group. I had some friends that I sometimes did stuff with outside of those things. However I never gotten so much as a single date. I tried meeting women at those places & asked friends & cousins to hook me up but noone ever did. My main interests have always been things that I mostly done by myself like watching TV, spending time on computer, listening to music(but NOT going to concerts & festivals), & playing video-games but they were older games before game systems had online gaming & I kinda got out of the habit of gaming 1ce I got the computer & net. There also wasn't really much for me to do offline around where I lived other than hunting, fishing, sports, bars & clubs, & church. I never been into those kinds of activities. I do think it can be good to try expanding your offline social circle but not if the only reason you want to is for the chance of getting a girlfriend.

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Roboto
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06 Aug 2019, 12:15 pm

I like having games available to me in social situations so I had joined a pool league and that helped meet lots of people and make friends. The APA is an amateur pool league that caters to beginners up to pretty skilled players.

The_Face_of_Boo
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07 Aug 2019, 12:13 am

My record in that isn't very encouraging, I was on this quest before for having some social life tho not for finding a girlfriend, and here's in brief what happened , and the years I remember:

- Group 1 (2011): formed with a fellow hiking girl and her friends.
What happened: 2 girls in the group bickered and the group collapsed after a year or so.

- Group 2 (2012-2013): with fellow gyms members.
What happened: 2 girls in the group bickered and the group collapsed after a year or so.

- Group 3 (2013-2015): with fellow gyms members.
What happened: 2 girls and 1 guy in the group bickered and the group collapsed after 2 years or so.

- Group 4 (2017-2018): with fellow night classmates.
What happened: they all stopped communicating within the online group just after the end of courses.

The funny thing for the first 3 group that each wanted me to take sides while I remained neutral.

The Grand Inquisitor
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07 Aug 2019, 6:40 am

Roboto wrote:

Yeah, I feel the same way.

I do like pool, but I don't really play it very much. I also like card games, and have been playing games like 500 since I was very young. I don't know that there'd be much of a female demographic in either of these pursuits though.

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:

Well apparently the most common ways of meeting a partner are through friends and online. Furthermore, those with a mixed-gender group of friends have a better chance. I don't have any success with women online, and I've had enough of the headache that is online dating, and I don't have many friends, and of the few I do have, they're almost all male. I can probably count the amount of new women I meet in a year on one hand, so I need an avenue through which to meet women or else I have essentially no chance of getting a relationship, and my odds are already not good to begin with.

AprilR wrote:

Yeah, I feel you there.

Being non-religious further complicates things, as I understand that religious people get the opportunity to meet people through their places of worship.

rdos wrote:

Nah, I don't think having a gf would free up much time. It will mostly focus time on a particular person instead. Which could be both good & bad.

I'm not talking about time so much. I'm talking about mental energy. If I wasn't in despair about my depressing empty romantic history, I feel I might be more unblocked to want to pursue other things. The fear that I will never have a relationship, and the depression from never being able to get one in the past puts me in a nihilistic mindset where I don't feel most things are worth doing because a basic need jas never been met, and ultimately I see no point in living if my trajectory is to always want a girlfriend but never get one. No thanks.

magz wrote:

Yes, maybe even an abusive, most unhealthy relationship would free you from the obsession and teach you to value other aspects of life

Many WP members married women from different cultures but I don't remember any of them mentioning where they met their spouses.

I think if I had to deal with not having a relationship for over 10 years despite wanting one and then on top of that, the relationship I do get being abusive, that would destroy me. Right now I have at least a flicker of hope, but if my only relationship ended up being abusive after wanting one for so long, I fear that might snuff it out and at that point I'd be in a very dark place.

Roboto
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07 Aug 2019, 10:45 am

At a couple points of my life I decided the pursuit of a partner wasn't nearly as interesting, or in my control as other aspects of my life. When I would dive deep into my other interests it was usually then that someone would appear and become a distraction that eventually turned into a relationship.

The idea of "establishing a social network" sounds like a good idea but when you tack on "to meet a partner" this built in ulterior motive makes it not a pure effort and I find that when I'm engaged in indirect activities that they don't resonate with myself or the people around me I'm essentially guaranteeing disappointment.

Back to my pool league comment above, while the ratios are skewed to having many more males in pool leagues I have seen many relationships form out of these leagues. There is a BCAPL league in Sydney but I don't know how far you are from there. Here's a website with more info: diamondleague.com.au

Cycling is also a great activity that could lead to meeting people.

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07 Aug 2019, 5:53 pm

I dont know . I have few friends now. I always made friends of friends. Now with few friends I can’t make friends from their friends.

Work was suppose to help me find gf and friends but it didn’t. I’m seen as worthless, people at work don’t like me they don’t want to be my friend. Most of them are friends though and hang out outside of work together.

Perhaps we just doomed to always be alone and never know love?

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kraftiekortie
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07 Aug 2019, 5:55 pm

I don't think you're as "doomed" as you think, Sly.

The Grand Inquisitor
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07 Aug 2019, 6:30 pm

sly279 wrote:

What's the gender balance of your friends? Mostly men, mostly women, or a mixture?

Work isn't really 'supposed' to help find a girlfriend and friends, but sometimes it can depending on a lot of things. If I went to work hoping to find a girlfriend, I'd be sh*t outta luck. My workplace is all male, and mostly older men.

nick007
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07 Aug 2019, 7:06 pm

The Grand Inquisitor wrote:

Work isn't really 'supposed' to help find a girlfriend and friends, but sometimes it can depending on a lot of things. If I went to work hoping to find a girlfriend, I'd be sh*t outta luck. My workplace is all male, and mostly older men.[/color]

Your rite that a job can help some guys find girlfriends however they may not necessarily find a girlfriend at that job. If your job pays a lot &/or is prestigious, you could impress women that you meet outside of work weather offline in various ways or on dating sites or other places online like social media where you mention your job. My problem was the 3 jobs I had were minimum wage type stuff & women tended to consider guys working them losers even if the women themselves had that kinda job. It would of been OK for me to have those jobs in my teens but not when a guy is in his mid 20s & isn't going to skewl for something.

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