Cousin and others tell me they don't want me to have a gf

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My cousin recently told me she doesn't want me to have a girlfriend. It's ok for her to get married and have a family but she's ready to kill me when I mention wanting romantic love in my life. She's become one of the many who tell me to give up and just become a robot who fakes being okay with his singlehood.

Did she say why she doesn't want you to have a girlfriend?

Is it because she does not believe that you are capable of handling a romantic relationship, or (God forbid) is it common in your part of Texas for cousins to marry?

Why do you care what she says? I personally wouldn't waste my time talking to someone like that if I knew that's how they would respond to me. However, it also might be that she's tired of hearing you complain about the same thing over and over again whenever you see her, and don't talk about anything else with her.

I don't do that with her. She just saw something I wrote and said what she said to me.

I don't just talk about my struggles with other people in my daily life. I've just had a really particularly rough year.

No x 3.

You should ask her why she thinks that. If it's not a valid reason, then screw her. In the end, you don't have to be satisfied with being single just becuase she or anyone else wants you to be.

Then there is no reason to be concerned about what she said. This is YOUR life, not hers.

Okay, level with me here. Did your cousin say "I don't want you to have a girlfriend" - really in those words?

Or did you interpret something she said as meaning she didn't want you to? I'm thinking it's the latter.

She said "Mark, you don't need a girlfriend." but yet she's married and has two kids. The same type of people tell me this all the time.

Oddly, though, there are people who also tell me things like "You look so handsome. I'll bet the girls chase after you!" and it rips me apart inside because that isn't true at all. I remember a person at the hospital saying something about me will get me a girlfriend and I thought "If only that was true." because girls weren't showing interest in me.

There is a BIG difference between thinking you don't need a girlfriend & not wanting you to have one.

Ah-HAH!! There it is!

"You don't need a girlfriend" does NOT mean "I don't want you to have a girlfriend"!

You WANT a girlfriend, which is normal and perfectly alright.

You do not NEED a girlfriend, no matter how strongly you want one.

In fact, NOBODY needs a girlfriend! Or a boyfriend. Or any kind of 'friend' (i.e., canary, cat, dog, et cetera).

Unless someone literally tells you that he or she does not want you to have a girlfriend, you have absolutely no reason to believe that they don't want you to have a girlfriend!

"I don't care if you have a girlfriend" also does not mean "I don't want you to have a girlfriend."

Do you understand now?

I have been told by others things like "You're never getting laid!" or "You're really a fa***t and don't realize it!" so I don't take well to being told that I don't need a relationship.

Those people are idiots. Why do you listen to them?

So anyway, translating "You don't need a girlfriend" as "I don't want you to have a girlfriend" is unnecessarily increasing the perceived hostility of the world towards you.

And feeling more hostility coming at you is making/keeping you depressed and unwilling to try.

So one kind of coping you could do better at is learning to challenge your inaccurate judgments about events and people. You exaggerate them in the negative direction. You do this fairly habitually, I've observed.

I advised you to go to a restaurant and/or read a book you have been interested in, things that you thought would be fun. Did either of these happen after work today?

You should be a journalist, because that was one misleading headline.

Or maybe a politician cuz lots of the 1s here in the US at least put things together all wrong like that.

I want you to find a nice girl, Marknis.