In a relationship right now where my BF is ~2 or 2.5 hours away and we are both very serious about our grades and all that so visiting will be slim…maybe like…every other weekend to be realistic. So ya…lots of video chat/phone calls…but that’s not really enough I assume. Any tips on making this work? We love each other a lot so I know it won’t crumble or anything…I just want it to be more fun and less "work" for both of us.

Cheating is a non-issue too. I’m in the closet at school so no dudes for me and as for him, I can trust him.
Out of curiosity, how long have you two been together and how old are you?

I did long distance for one year at school. We were 3.5 hours apart. We saw each other only once a month or less. We talked on the phone at least 3 hours every night as well as on instant messenger randomly during the day. It’s really hard, but it can work. Whenever I was home we’d spend as much time together as possible which helped, but then leaving was really hard. Something we did to make it more fun was randomly write letters, poems or take pictures and mail them to each other. I never got any mail at school so it made me look forward to looking in my mail box.

Actually we are about to be doing sort of long distance again. He’s going away for training for work and he will live at the training facility during the week. We probably will not get to communicate at all during this time. But he will be living with me on the weekends. I am not looking forward to this, that phone call every night really made the difference.
how long will you guys be long distance?

if there is an end in sight, its helpful. my SO and i did long distance for about 8 months before we decided it wasnt working, so i spent the next 4 months figuring out how to move closer to him (i know being in school makes that part impossible) and the last 4 months of the long distance were easier knowing there was a plan to be closer and an end in sight.

we chatted during the day online, saw each other as much as possible, and played an online video game together during the week when we couldnt see each other so that we could still semi interact (it sounds so nerdy, but it was extremely helpful to feel closer to him)

best of luck, its hard even in the best circumstances
Long distance relationships are fine if they are temporary. And by "temporary" I mean anything UNDER 1 year, but preferrably less than 6 months.

Anything more than that just isn’t worth it and takes too much of a toll ont he relationship. The longer you drag out a LDR, the more likely it will be that when you DO get to be together, you’ll discover that it simply isn’t the same or what you thought it would be.

thats a really good point. have you guys ever been in the same place for an extended amount of time while dating? or did your dating start off long distance?
Heya, I totally forgot about this thread. Sorry. Anyway…we’re both 19 and have been dating this whole summer…I know that is not very long but I really cant put it in words how much we like each other. We are perfect together essentially. As for how long it will be long distance…at least until Christmas (early December). Then we’ll be on Christmas break which is a month long and he is transferring to my school. He’s not ONLY transferring to this school because of me, so dont be alarmed by that…he also just doesnt like his current school. When we first started dating we would be with each other at least 5 days a week…so ya going from that to 0 days a week is pretty hard but we talk on the phone a lot so that is helpful. That and I got him started on video chat. That’s been fun… (Yes it got naughty) He is actually visiting today and should be here really soon. Sadly though I can’t tell anyone he’s my BF I am just saying he’s a friend because I"m still in the closet at school. I just came out at home this summer.
Don’t listen to the Debbie Downers in here (Viper *cough *cough)

It’s totally doable as long as you both are willing to put in the time and effort. Sure, it’s not fun- but it has it’s perks. I don’t think its a matter of distance as much it is a matter of compatibility. If you don’t want the same things, don’t have the same end goal or aren’t willing to see your time apart as an opportunity instead of a challenge, it’s not going to work. Just like any relationship.

It’s hard, I won’t deny that. But here’s what you do:

- Have your own life. Both of you need to do this. I cannot stress this enough. If you waste away every extra moment thinking about them, calling them or wishing you were there with them, you won’t make it very far. The stress is too much. Have your own activities (besides school and work) and incorporate your SO into your life. Don’t let them BECOME your life. (this is SOP for all relationships in my opinion)

- Find something you can do together, even though you’re far apart. Like Vodka said, play a video game, designate a specific time to talk each day, write letters, video chat- whatev. Keep in contact, just don’t smother.

- Share the responsibility of seeing each other. You should both be putting in the effort to see each other. Don’t let this become one sided.

- Be aware of how the stress of being apart affects you- then, do something about it. For example, when I first started dating my SO (we were long distance at the time) everything was great a first, but then we started getting into the WORST fights. I couldn’t understand it. It happened a few times a week. It was horrible. Then, I started to recognize that I would fight with him only when I was really busy with school… after a few days of some serious reflection, I realized that I would pick fights with him when I felt like I didn’t have enoguh time with him. Many nights during that time, we wouldn’t get the chance to have a real, more-than-5-minute-conversation until like 11 at night. And I had to leave for class at 7:30 am. That’s not much time to sleep, let alone nurture a new relationship. I felt HORRIBLE that I wasn’t able to spend more time talking to him- so I’d pick fights with him because then I felt justified in staying up till all hours of the night to talk with him and resolve our fight. I fought with him to spend more time with him and not feel guilty about it. If I hadn’t realized that and corrected it immediately, we wouldn’t be sitting together in the same room right now.

You don’t have to have an exact plan of when, where and how you’re going to be together right away, but you will need one eventually. Be aware though, that making that plan can be very stressful and living with the knowledge of that plan coming to fruition some day soon can be even more stressful. The plan will take over you life if you let it and you’ll find yourself whining about not being able to be together sooner. It’s a blessing and a curse.
K, part II.

(Sorry, my computer is being super wonky lately and it’ll blue screen outta nowhere and I’ll lose my entire message. didn’t want to lose all that.)

So, this situation gives you numerous opportunities. I suggest you take them.
Here’s a small sampling of what I’ve learned:

- Communication. Few things suck more than fighting over the phone. I’m not saying don’t fight, every couple needs a good scrap every once in a while. I mean, if you’re going to fight, fight fair.
Don’t bring up shit from the past.
Don’t let shit build up until you explode.
Absolutely, under NO curmstance are you to ever call names.
Be calm and assertive and know when to take a breather so you can come back to the situation and resolve it.
Learn what is worth fighting for and what’s not.
Learn what signs your SO gives out before he gets to the point where he’s so aggitated that he’s fighting just to fight. I’ve found that problems are much easier to resolve when neither of you get into that "red zone."

For example, no one in this world can disarm me as fast as my SO. I’ll be ready to blow my top and he’ll come back with, "yeah, well, your mom.. (something something something).." It completely stops me in my tracks, never fails to make me laugh and gives me a minute to cool the hell down. Then we work it out. I’ve learned to do the same for him.

- Friendship. When we started dating, I was 20 and he was 22. We were long distance for our first 2 1/2 years. Like, 411 miles apart kind of distance. At first we saw each other about every 7 weeks, but then I was trying to finish my degree and for a year we saw each other once every 3 months at best.

I’ll tell you what though, I wouldn’t trade that for the world. The long distance was the best thing that ever happened to us. We didn’t know each other very well when we first started dating, so building our friendship while building our relationship had to come first. We had to build a solid foundation for this relationship to work. In the 5 years we’ve been together we have been through some SERIOUS bullshit. (His mom died, mine got cancer again, my dad broke his neck- I could go on and on… ) I promise you that if we had not had the chance to build such a solid friendship, our relationship never would have worked.

-Patience. Not everything is going to work out the way you want it when you want it to. Figure out how to deal with it, or you’ll drive yourself crazy.

-Acceptance. People are going to let you down. There’s no two ways around it. Your SO isn’t always going to act the way you want or expect. Your friends aren’t going to be as supportive and you wish they would be. You aren’t always going to be able to keep your shit together while trying to go to school, work and build a new relationship. Deal with it. It’s not the end of the world. and it’s never as bad after you’ve had time to step back and look at the situation again. Don’t let it hang you up.

-Trust. Without this, your relationship will fail so fast it’ll make your head spin. Even if you’ve been hurt in relationships before, that’s no reason not to trust your current SO (so long as they haven’t given you a reason not to). This part is super hard for a lot of people in LDRs. If you can’t trust them, either because of your own hang ups or theirs, then this is going to be really hard.

-Becoming yourself while being with someone else. I had a hard time at 20 years old learning that I could be myself, do my own things, go where I wanted to go, have my own friends and still have a loving relationship with my SO. Before then, I didn’t know that my world didn’t have to revolve around him. Learning that one of the best ways to have a healthy relationship was to have a life outside your relationship, took me a minute to figure out. Being long distance helped me realize it was possible.

You have a fantastic opprotunity to build a solid foundation here. You have endless chances learn about each other, what makes the other one tick, what makes them happy or sad, their dreams, their goals, their favorite breakfast cereal, the brand of peanut butter they prefer… you can’t have a physical relationship when all you can do is talk, and while it’s frustrating, it’s a blessing in disguise. I highly suggest you take full advantage of it.

Good luck out there
Oh my God….thank you thank you thank you. I will reply tomorrow with more as I don’t want to look like I’m typing an essay right now because we’re watching a movie on the bed and I popped open the lappy real quick. As for the fighting aspect…I hope that’s not a problem, we never have even been remotely close to fighting before. Thanks again. It’s nice to hear a girl’s side of things as they usually understand stuff like this more in my opinion. Two guys in a relationship is like two blind ducks running in circles. Ahh I like him so much. Time to go convince a back rub.

That’s the BEST line I’ve heard in a while! I really Lol’ed for real and my SO is looking at me funny

Don’t worry about fighting. Everyone does it. It’s perfectly natural and HEALTHY. It sucks and its nervewracking at first, but if you’re smart about it, it’ll be fine and you’ll learn a lot from it.

Enjoy your back rub!
Girls are so cool. I will enjoy it. Time to put away this stupid laptop and enjoy our time together now. It’s going to be a long night.
Wow I just read it again and all I can say is thanks. You bring up lots of good points that I will be sure to keep in mind.

for sure. Last night was fun let’s put it that way. I got my back rub too. My stupid boyfriend was being waaaayyyy tooo loud though at like 4 AM just like drunk as fuck running down the halls, yelling while talking to the drunkars who were still awake. I think everyone on my floor now hates me. All good times though…it was a fuckin Friday they can’t complain. Going mountain biking today hopefully…might have to take 2 cars…neither of us has a big enough car to throw two bikes in, sadly.
Have a great time today! Feel free to pm me if you ever wanna chat
Will do. Any others want to chime in? Always nice to hear others point of view.
I didn’t read every reply, but I will throw in my LDR experience.

My husband and I were in one for 6 months, I was 18, he was 20. I was still in high school for the first few months of our relationship. We lived 200 miles apart (~3 hours of driving). In the beginning we saw one another every 2-3 weeks for Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday for half a day before parting again. It’s very possible to make it work, as long as you both want to equally invest in the relationship to keep it working. We knew we had to trust one another completely (his ex lived a few miles away and wanted him back big time, though she was pregnant with another guy’s kid and that was a big "never gonna be together again" thing for my SO anyway – kinda made it easier to have trust in that situation). We also took the time to communicate with one another. Call on the phone, email, text, IM, when we had a chance to talk and just to see how each other’s day went.

I never enjoy reading the "It’ll never work" responses. Many people told me that we’d never work out. We’re closing in on our 1st wedding anniversary / 4 years of being together in the next few months.
Time to see how everything will go. He just left after visiting this weekend and I won’t see him for 2 weeks. I already feel sad but that’s life…he will be transferring here after the new year though. Then we can be together as much as we want. It was hard to let him go though earlier…our hug goodbye was like a minute.
That’s the one thing- the goodbyes never get any easier.

I agree I think they got harder each time for awhile.
I can already see that. When he left for school it was hard and now when he left to go back to school after visiting it was even harder. I’m feeling in the shitter about hella shit right now though so this is just stacking.
You can make it work if you really want to. As long as one of you drives or there is a train or some reasonable transportation back and forth, a bi-weekly visit is more than enough to keep a relationship alive in my experience.

I’m curious though, why are you in the closet? I bet it’s really hard to be openly gay a lot of places in the country (I’m born and raised in San Francisco so I haven’t seen that personally) but if there’s people you could come out to you should. Leading a double life will take its toll eventually.
I am actually from San Jose and I’m out there as of this summer. Everyone took it well except for the last people I told, my parents. They essentially cut me off and kicked me out of the house a day after I told them. Now I’m at school a few hours away and AFAIK, no one here knows that I’m gay. And it is kind of hard to tell people now after seeing my parents react. Plus I’m very depressed right now so that doesn’t really help anything.
I’m thinking of going to the Gay/Lesbian Center on campus or at least talking to them…I hope someone there can help me. I feel unexplicably horrible every morning I wake up now and then more throughout the day here at school. I know that is not a good thing and I need to fix something in my life but I can’t find what it is. I feel sick, headache, stuffy nose, always dehydrated, low energy. That combined with my depression makes me want to just stay in bed all day. FUCCKKKK. The only thing right now that made me happy was my BF but now he’s gone too.
I feel a little peppier / happier today than I did before…so hopefully this will continue! I met with my parents today for the first time since I was kicked out and showed my mom a picture(s) of my BF. It was kind of … actually very awkward but I guess it’s a step in the right direction, you know? I hope that one day they can look past me being "gay" and just see me as me. I’d still say my Dad is disgruntled with the thought of it but my mother seems much more open to accept me for who I am and says maybe later she’d like to meet my boyfriend. Sigh…………living life one day at a time. That’s all it seems anymore. Get through one day and just continue to live until you get to the next. I think I might visit my BF this weekend before classes get too hectic. Plus I really really miss him after he left his weekend. I just want to hold him in my arms.
I was going to visit this weekend but I can’t wait any longer. I’m driving up there for the day tomorrow after class and will be back in the afternoon/nighttime. Ya…it is a lot of driving but I miss him a lot right now. Is this something I should not be doing? I only say that because it is like me caving in to my feelings so quickly that I won’t be able to adjust to this. I only have to wait until Christmas to be with him permanently but that seems so far away.

i see no reason why you shouldnt if you are able. you have to take every chance you get to spend time together. while driving back and forth like that every week would be exhausting, get expensive and might get in the way of your school, every once in a while you need it and thats fine. you guys should feel lucky that you are close enough that this can be an option.

christmas is so close (though i know it doesnt feel close enough in this situation) so see if you guys can set up a schedule to see each other so you know the next time you will see him. if he leaves and its unknown, i think that makes it even harder.
right now we are thinking every weekend or every other weekend if we are busy. He is about 2 hours away right now so it’s not a HUGE drive but it’s not short either. I just got done with classes so I’m going to head out in a bit. Can’t wait to see the look on his face.
thats about how far away my SO and i were (thanks to so cal traffic….) so we saw each other every weekend, and then had the occational middle of the week meeting, but most of the time, those were really stressful because of hours of driving and very little time to actually spend together before he had to drive home or i had to drive home for work the next day

you guys should be fine with christmas ending the LD part of it all
Bleh. That’s too much driving for just a few hours but it was worth it…I think that is what I needed to last me until the weekend(s)…and yea…it is just until Christmas/December. But that is more than 2 months away. Nothing horrible though I guess, it could be worse. I’m just glad he’s switching schools. He wasn’t expecting me though…so it was funny to see his face when he saw me. Knocked on his door…

"Who is it?"
"house keeping"
"what the hell…"
*opens door*

I already miss him again. I want to laugh because it has been like half a day since I last saw him but then I still do miss him already. This summer we spent like every day together so it was a very abrupt change I guess.
Hung out together, slept over at his house, went swimming, went to the gym, got lunch…did like everything together and now he’s gone.

I guess all I can do is wait until Friday…only 48 hours.
I think I have a problem. I’ll be fine, doing homework or something and then be really really depressed like instantly and I can’t get out of this state. The past few months of my life have been so hard I think I am just mind fucking myself. I don’t want to be a sissy fuck but something in my life is not right and I can’t figure it out. I have a loving boyfriend. I go to college and just changed majors to something I like more. My family did kick me out of my house this summer and I think that is what destroyed me. My dad beat me up and when I woke up he told me to leave and never come back. I’m still not over that I think. I have seen him since this once and he was typical nice. Nothing overly excited to see me but wasn’t an asshole or anything. I just really hate myself sometimes and feel depressed and I don’t know why. I have a family, shelter, food, caring boyfriend, friends from class, gym, high school, dorms… I quit doing all drugs but I don’t think that is it. I’ve done x maybe 6-7 times, coke a lot more than that, probably more like 20 occassions and then smoked(weed)/drank a lot. I quit all of these though. Haven’t done X since high school and haven’t done coke in months and smoked weed in weeks and drank in a week or so. Even typing this now I cant think of why I’m so depressed but I just feel really dead and soulless. The only times I don’t feel this way is when I’m with friends because I don’t want to be the awkward sad kid and then when I’m with my boyfriend I am legitimately happy but that’s about it. I’m not as depressed as I was this summer when I was going to kill myself, I feel fine in that way but still feel pretty horrible.
This was in re: to a PM but I am sadly going to share this with everyone. I don’t want to but I think I need help. I’m in the shitter right now.

I ordered some bomb chinese food earlier and video chat with my boyfriend…made me feel a lot better. Thanks for my PM buddies.
I lived in Northern Alabama and then Atlanta while my now wife lived in Birmingham finishing up her college degree. I drove to Bham almost every weekend for 1.5 years I think it was before she finished school and we got married.

We are coming up on our 2 year anni and everything is going great so far.
Great to hear that halflife!

I know we will make it happen, it is not a long time…December actually but it will just be hard during the weekdays without each other. We’re just going to alternate going back and forth every weekend.
I can’t wait for tomorrow. Get to spend the night at his place for two nights.
ya i definitely dont believe in long distance anymore since that was the cause of my divorce
Back home now. I love him so much. We had such a great weekend.
We got to do what we always do together and it felt good, it felt like summer again.
Lift, eat big, go party, meet some new people, destroy some beer pong (5-0), then somehow walk back to his place and have some fun and go to bed.
He’s too nice.
*edit* Making a new thread…unrelated to my boyfriend.
So we’ve been alternating weekends, he visits me, I visit him, he visits me and so on. We only get two nights a week together though and he always wants to go out and party. I have no problem with this…I like to drink, party and whatever. But not like every day we’re together. We end up drinking at like 8 PM and then pass out at like midnight-3 AM depending on the night and we both wake up at like noon the next day at the earliest, hung over and then pretty much just shower/eat/do something little and start the whole cycle over again. I can’t wait until we live together so we can just RELAX. I want to have some lazy days together. Sit around on the couch and watch some movies, make some good food and sit down to eat, stuff like that. Maybe go mountain biking or snowboarding?

We don’t even get to have sex as much as I want because he always drinks way too much and ends up blacking out. If it was up to me it’d be at least once a day, haha kind of often or a lot I guess but we only hooked up once this weekend. Had sex on Friday but thats it besides some making out.

Probably sounds like I’m complaining or mad, I’m not…but I wish we weren’t so far apart so we could take some time for ourselves. Just like a simple day…wake up, have breakfast, go to class, get some lunch together, go back to class. Come home, watch TV, homework, lift, dinner, fuck, sleep. Rinse and repeat and I’d be a really happy guy.
We were just chatting on Skype…both of us are depressed/angry about something in our life right now so it was not that good of a conversation. We both miss each other and like each other but its hard to act happy when we both know the other person feels like shit. It made it feel like we felt like shit at each other but that’s not the case. BLEH. I can’t wait until this long-distance crap is over. What we need the most right now is to just relax and be with each other. I don’t know what I am to him, but he is practically my life right now…I think I actually love him. Yes, the L-word. We’ve only been together for like 4 months or so but I already know.
OMG sooo much in this thread to read!! I’ll post soon I promise!!

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So, fast forward to a few years down the line and we are "friends" (with of course, me still trying to pursue things subtly). So we were out the other night and she said to me "You know, you do more things now than you have in the past".

Now, this gets me thinking. I have done a lot of "dating" things with her and some husband/wife things with her as friends only. This is more than what we did when we were actually dating. Is it possible that she sees this and goes "Hmmm, he’s more fun and interesting when just a friend, there is no need to date him if he’s like this as a friend."

Let me give you guys some ideas of things we have done together since we started hanging out again in July 07:

-Went to local band together with friends, she got sloppy drunk, I took care of her.. she wanted to hook up, I didn’t.

-Had a small private pool party with mutual friends of ours, she spend the night (in same bed, I made two advances that were rejected but we were still close).

-Went to Atlantic City together for a weekend of gambling and dancing, met up with some friends there as well.

-She took me to the mall to help me update my wardrobe for work, etc. In return for the favor she did for me, I got her a new phone (don’t get me started, bad mistake I think but her old one was ready to blow up in her ear)

-Took her to a college football game in September (where I discovered she was dating some guy who was banging her, so I ignored her for a little over a month)

-We started talking again, we planned a Halloween Party together and spent 3 days putting to together and invited all of my friends and all of her friends (even guy friends of hers) and had a fun time..and yeah, she spent the night in same bed again.

-Went to friend’s house for sort of a fondu party, spent the night there.

-She invited me over for Thanksgiving with her and her family, to which I gladly went to have the second dinner.

-She helped me put up a Christmas tree this year, it was really nice and kind of felt good to do something like this with someone I care about and someone who shows they actually care.

-We put together a small get together for a combined Christmas and New Year’s party.

-I took her out for a nice dinner for her birthday

-I also took her out to a nice thai dinner in the city and a play, to which she thoroughly enjoyed

-She stopped seeing the guy, and in the process, I guess I got distant with her for a month.

-This past week she was texting a lot, etc.

-I took her to dinner at my family’s house and had my uncle do her taxes for her as well. We later met up with some friends for bowling.

Now, my question is this… How do I get out of this friendzone trap and am I doing too much with her as friends to make her not want to date me? Sometimes there is really heavy flirting going on there, but it doesn’t go beyond that. So methods I have tried:

-No contact route.. while she does eventually fall for this after a month of no serious contact, it’s just not right and honestly always has backfired on me.

-Dating other women.. tried this route as well. She actually openly suggested I continue to do so and actually has pushed me to do so. (I’ll post more on my dates since October)

-Her friend also pressured her at one point to go back out with me, she didn’t oblige at the time and I don’t think her friend helped by pressuring her.

How do I get from the ex-bf who still does things with his ex-gf like this to the guy who is banging her AND doing all these fun things with her (without playing stupid games, keeping our friendship and not worrying about pressuring each other to be in a relationship and taking things as they go)?
jesus you think too much

…just like me

You don’t. She has already rejected you quite a few times, when are you going to get it? She doesn’t want you to use her for sex. Why should she want to sleep with you when you don’t even want to date her? If you want to get laid go find someone else. Don’t ruin a good friendship just cause you want to get your dick wet.

I think you are mistaken. I *DO* want to date her.. but yet, she will go out and let some guy bang her without him really dating her at all. Anyway, all the above things I mentioned we did together, are things people do together normally when they are dating as well (and if they aren’t, then obviously the only thing that is left is kissing and sex). So I figure, that’s not what she’s looking for… she’s not looking to date someone, she’s looking for something with no strings attached.. when it really comes down to it, I want to date her and be the guy that’s in bed with her at the same time, but she has rejected that idea again for whatever reason. And no it’s not because I am just trying to get in her pants, I hardly ever try to do that, I’m always good to her, put up with her (and she knows it), despite what you are thinking my intention is. I’m not a guy who normally jumps in the sack with the girl, but I’m sick of this friend’s only bullshit when it’s clear we should be more. I’ve had at least 4 people approach me and ask me if we were bf/gf this weekend and then ask me why not and tell me we would be good together.. if I had my way, we would be, but it’s her decision that we are not.
She probably friendzoned you long ago and don’t see you that way… If you can’t see her as a friend, then it’s time to tie it off.
You’re too nice. Stop flowering her with all these gifts and everything else.

After you’ve done this space yourself out from the girl and take time to think and improve yourself. This one’s been done for a while and you still haven’t learned anything.

Welcome, my friend, to hell. She sees you as a friend — a good friend, sure, but just a friend. The advances you make are nothing more than an ego boost for her. If you can’t just be her friend, like she wants, you owe it to both of you to give it a rest. Sorry broseph.

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But it’s not a product of my nature, it’s a product of my environment. I’m just really interested in a lot of things and they so happen to be physical in nature.

I’m really just a huge fucking geek. I mean it. I’m IT crew, I collect comics (my collection is worth more than my life insurance), I watch anime, I play video games, etc. etc. But I do well in hiding all of it and pretend to be really cool all the time.

Here’s the problem, asylum crew, I am a total idiot with it comes to women. Example, I was with my friend (who isn’t) the other day while at the grocery store buying some stuff for a BBQ. This chick who I thought was cute, came over and asked us if we needed help. I just said, nope that we were just looking for stuff to cook. So she took me around pointing things out that would be good. Asked when we were doing it and saying how much she loved cooking and BBQ’s and whatever.

She had to get back to working so she took off. My friend smacked me and told me that she was, in fact, hitting on me. And I was completely oblivious to this. And then when I realized this, I immediately became horribly afraid of her. <– this is the problem.

I get terrified of girls. I don’t even know what it is. I think it’s the rejection. I think it’s the confrontation. I don’t even know. What should one do to overcome this kind of thing?

Everyone is afraid of rejection in the beginning, keep approaching and it goes away.
Just relax. I know how cliche it is, but just be yourself. A lot of women like the nerdy type.
just talk to us like we’re anyone else no need to act in a particular way.
my biggest problem is not talking to women, it’s the approach. like finding opportunities to approach them.

you just need to learn to be a good judge of reaction. you could meet women wherever you go. i was thinking about this today actually, because i was at this coffee shop in my school’s library, standing by the toaster and putting cream cheese on my bagel. this dude walked up with his bagel so i moved over to give him room. we made eye contact, he smiled politely, i smiled politely, and we went about our business.

but suppose he was interested in me. he could have said "hey" or made some joke about bagels or whatever. since i’m not single, i would have just politely said hi, and then "good luck studying" or something and went on my way. but if i was interested, i might reply to his joke, or ask him why he’s at the library, etc… conversation begins. you don’t need to stress about having good "openers" or saying the right thing all the time. just act normally.
What you’re afraid of is not being able to meet their expectations once they get past the superficial crap that you do to lie to them about who you are. And you should be afraid of it, because they won’t like it when they find out you were lying to them.

Now, on the other hand, if you can be a geek in a cool way, instead of pretending to not be a geek at all, you’ll do much better and have nothing to be afraid of.

Hmm… Geek in a "cool" way? I think you seriously underestimate my nerdiness. It’s more of an obsession than anything else. Remember Mr. Glass from Unbreakable? It’s like that. Only less murdersome.

What? Who cares?

Tell her you’re really into all that stuff, then explain to her that you can’t see her again because your other anime friends might think she is a nerd. I don’t know…anything…just don’t care.

I’m a Star Wars fanatic and usually girls make some snicker at first, but after they see I don’t care, they usually think it’s pretty cool.
It might help to just kind of remind yourself that there’s nothing special about girls. And there are a lot of them. A lot. You don’t need to sweep them all off their feet or impress every single one if you’re going to talk to them. People always say ‘be yourself’ but that’s bullshit advice. Just smile and be confident. You’d have no problem starting up a convo with a dude you don’t know…just figure out how to apply that same calm to a girl. And if you’re afraid of rejection – just think about it, you basically rejected that girl hitting on you at the store. And it wasn’t bad. She’s probably fine. Start forcing yourself out of your comfort zone and talking to girls, just to be friendly, not even to ask them out on a date. Who gives a fuck if you like nerdy shit? There’s always a million reasons not to do something
I love how everyone says "just be confident. Be confident. Girls like confidence."

Confidence in what? Think you’re going to win at what? Please fucking define "confidence."

comfortable in your own skin, not worrying about what people think because you know who you are and you’re proud of that, but not too proud..

something to that effect

It’s a pretty stupid piece of advice by itself. Just like ‘being yourself’. Doesn’t mean you should ignore the thought behind it though.

You find confidence by taking some time and finding out what it is you’re good at, or if nothing, find something(s) to BE good at. You build yourself up, see yourself achieving. It could be ANYTHING (or everything). Rock climbing, parkour, MMA, physics, sex, anatomy, law, brewing your own beer, being charming, photography, romance languages, driving, playing an instrument, making model rockets. As long as you know you’re good at it, or at least you consistently see yourself improving.

Eventually, the real confidence comes when you stop having to reassure yourself that you’re confident. You just know. But it takes time.

so basically being confident that you’re confident? I’m fairly sure that I’m certain.

The real answer is that women want a guy who can work the room like Frank Sinatra. That’s pretty much it.
Do you feel like you don’t deserve women being attracted to you? I know it was my friends problem. I think it’s just an esteem issue. You can work out scenerios in your head about what you would say in various situations. People can tell canned responses but this is just to get you thinking about talking to women that like you, not coming up with set responses to different situations. Just visualise that she is hitting on you and what you would say if you were calm and was having a great day.

I’m horrible at this advice but I do know that visualising will help you.

Also learn empathy and how to read people. There are good books on this (Just search amazon for empathy, emotional intelligence, facial regognitin, micro facial expressions (This last one is the key to first seeing what they really think)) but I used to be horrible when I was in high school about recognizing compliments. Mainly becuase I never really paid attention to a girls face or her tone or body movements becuase I was too busy stammering through my part of the converstion and looking away from her.

It’s really hard to look someone in the eyes and understand what they are feeling when they talk to you but it will help you greatly with women and in life in general.

I would follow others and say get your life in order first but you seem to have a lot going on so I wodul focus on the above things now. Maybe get some activities that you can share with girls like co-ed sports or art classes, etc…

Certain of what, your confidence? Fairly sure? wat

That’s a pretty black and white way of looking at it, but being charming doesn’t hurt. Sinatra was good at that, because he knew he was the shit.

I’m asking. People say "be confident" because they feel like talking out of their asses.

Women want a guy who can work the room so they look cool in front of their friends.

no… i would actually rather not have a guy who’s constantly "working the room". i like a guy to be socially comfortable, but who doesn’t need to be the center of attention all the time.

being confident doesn’t mean "feeling like you’re going to win at something", it means being happy with yourself, being secure in the decisions you make, and just generally being comfortable in your own skin, as Crowbar said. if you’re comfortable with yourself, other people feel comfortable being around you.

Only recently have I actually been paying attention. In high school, I was too busy with my nose in a book or something else when they were talking to me.

It’s really amazing that I have sex. Sometimes, I think I just stumble about and I just so happen to land my penis inside of a willing girl’s vagina.

What is it that you women pick up on?

in what sense?

i mean confidence as i just described it is a huge one. i think it’s obvious that people who are happy with themselves are just more enjoyable to be around (men or women).

I said can work the room.

the definition of confidence is not what you’re provided. I agree with your answer, but it has little to do with "confidence."

fixed

umm, yes it is. confidence has many definitions, and the relevant one is "a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities". that’s pretty much what i described.
its so funny that women want guys who just think they are cool, even when their raging douchebags.
look, its every girls most powerfull lust, a guy who is CONFIDENT!!!!

being confident doesn’t mean being an egotistical douchebag. there is such a thing as being too cocky. and confidence isn’t the only thing that attracts a woman to a man.

That is a huge difference.

Knowing the guy can work the room > the guy working the room all the time

black jesus, you’re obviously familiar with m.m. but there are other equally effective approaches you’re either ignoring or ignorant of.

like Kiri said – exactly like she said – you’re near a girl, there’s something situational, you open your mouth and out comes absolutely meaningless gibberish, it doesn’t matter what you say because the fact that you ARE saying something makes whatever you’re saying of interest. (because it’s an escalation of the interaction; escalation is always interesting).

then she says something, then you ask a question, then say "I" blah blah blah "I" blah blah, she reciprocates, this is all just normal conversation. if you’re feeling playful then be playful. at some point tell her you’d like to see her again, offer your phone for her to type a number in. the actions aren’t complicated

In that case, that’s basically what I meant.

They are talking out their ass if their only contribution is to say "be confident." For someone who doesn’t necessarily know what that entails (lots of people), it’s like telling the fry guy at McD’s to make you tiramisu. People said that (and ‘be yourself’) to me for years before I figured out what I was supposed to do to find said confidence (and the best version of myself).

If your idea of confidence is the guido from "my new haircut", you have your vocabulary mixed up.
The problem is ‘you care’, the moment you stop caring on wether this girl is going to be your gf that’s going to have sex with you, is the moment you can talk normally to them. Really, when you stop caring on what they think about you, they’ll lose all power over you.
man you are too negative :S
go read some pua stuff, it will help you build a nice self esteem and confidence(at least for me helped)
and also you need to pay attention to guys who can do it, you will learn from that too..

so you should be yourself, but look a certain way even though everyone said it doesn’t matter what you look like. You’re using "confidence" as your only contribution here. You could say, "be pork-chop sandwiches" and it would mean the same thing.

actually the more I read, the more I want to resist compromising my intellectual integrity. I don’t like the idea that I can never relax and enjoy what I have because I’ll always have to use a strategy. I really think I’d rather be alone and relax over a strategic clusterfuck of manipulation and scheduling.

The more I hang around guys who can do it, the more I want to kill myself.

are you opposed to learning strategy and manipulation, or just opposed to manipulation?

strategy can be entirely transparent..

this guy pantomimed something to my lover outside the window of starbucks the other day. she waved back. she’s a very friendly, beautiful girl. then the guy nudged his friend and made a "go over there" gesture, so his friend came into starbucks.

the friend said, "HI."

"HI," said my lover.

He told her his name, she told him her name, he said why he was in town. She reciprocated. He told her what he’d be doing later that day and then added, "and I’d also like your phone number so I can call you."

She said, "That was very bold,"

He said, "Yeah,"

She gave him her number…

There was obviously strategy there, but the entirety of the strategy was transparent and, in addition, was WELCOMED by the girl. You don’t have to be manipulative or conceal your intentions to know what you’re doing and do it well.
Confidence is when someone thinks that he will be able to behave in a certain way and that this behavior will help him reach his goals.
Ex : a guy wants to get a chick’s number at a bar and he believes that by taking to her he’ll be able to get it.

Someone who isn’t confident can have a problem with 1) being able to behave in a certain way (a certain lack of ability, so to speak) and 2) that the goal and the behavior fit.

Black jesus, I think that you think you’re able to adopt the behavior. The problem is more with the goal and, to a certain extent to "act" (in the sense of an actor) instead of just adopting a certain behavior and that this "acting" will lead to a shitty goal, ie : getting a slut who’s easily influenced.

I personally think you just need to stop thinking so much. You see problems when they haven’t happened yet. Talk to a chick, have fun, don’t focus on your insecurities or what MIGHT happen after (cheat on you, ditch you, etc). Stop worrying. I know, it’s easy to say, but that’s the best we can do since you don’t want to see a psychologist.

wow, what a heartless bitch.

I want to, but I don’t have $400 per month to spare. Now you can flame me for paying rent and my student loan payment because I assume that if I were really interested in a psychologist, I’d live in my car or default on my loans.

i’m in love with her

and she’s basically hooking up with other guys in front of you? I would have cut her off right there. Shit like this is why I have zero hope in any woman. They’re incapable of not fucking anyone they meet on the street. How can you just sit there while she shits on your face?
it’s not a closed relationship. i don’t give a shit about that stuff, neither of us has more than an ounce of jealousy in our bodies. what she does with whomever doesn’t change what she has with me.
look, don’t go for my balls just to piss me off. the point of that anecdote was that strategy can be transparent and non-manipulative. are you opposed to that?

well, I saw the strategy and manipulation.

What’s the point in hanging out or spending time with women if they’re just going to use that time to find someone better than you, while they’re exploiting your time together?

I won’t flame you (see, you expect something negative). You are the one which has to live with this so I don’t see the point of blaming you again.

Stop. Quit thinking about what might happen next. You just need to learn to enjoy the here-and-now with a woman first. You can’t enjoy someone’s presence (not sure if it’s the correct word, it is in French though) if you’re already thinking about something else at some other time.

i don’t really follow this.

the point for me of spending time with someone is that we both enjoy spending time together. it is its own end.

my lover getting validation and being social and alpha-female and friendly doesn’t magically affect what we have together. it doesn’t suddenly make hanging out with her unenjoyable. on the contrary, in can make it more enjoyable because it boosts her mood and mental health, as it would any person’s.

what manipulation?

she was a willing and active participant of the entire process. she saw that he had intentions when he and his friend gesticulated, understood why and what he was doing when he came into the store, and ultimately went with it at the end by giving him the #-close.

so, what manipulation?

has it occurred to you that maybe you’re just calling it manipulation to rationalize what a Bastard that guy is for pulling off a #-close?

there was no deception here. manipulation without deception, then?

that’s like calling a genuine compliment manipulation because it makes the other person feel good. at which point you’re just dickering with semantics, because if that’s manipulation, manipulation is a wonderful and healthy thing.

yes, but then you’re going to feel like shit when she’s out with someone better who she met in your company. She’s not added another obstable to the mix…so the next time you want to hang out with her you can know that she’s fucking someone better than you, and there’s no doubt in her mind because he had the balls to piss in your face.

its all manipulation, just like selling a car. All highway miles = I’m from out of town and I’m about to leave and you’ll never get to see me again so dump this guy off so you can fuck me tonight. He’ll be around for you to shit on constantly and you can just dump him off for tonight. Actually, why don’t you have him drop you off at my place and pick you up when I’m done fucking you.

ew. no, not at all. god i’m not some clingy nutjob wretch, i don’t know why you keep insinuating that i am. of COURSE i would only want her to be there with me if she wanted to be. and i’d want to know how it went with the guy

what you’ve described is not manipulation. what you’ve described is "life being a bitch."

personally, i wouldn’t see the situation as life being a bitch, but that’s still not manipulation.
you’re setting up a distinction that i personally do not have between her going out to a movie by herself and her going out to get laid when i’m not around.

i don’t think to myself, yeah go ahead, dump me, cause i’m always around to shit on, go see that movie and abandon me, leave me behind for that celluloid.

edit: anyways, the point was that it’s not manipulation; at worst it’s, ‘life’s a bitch, and that guy’s offer is more appealing than mine!’ because you view sex & love as a zero sum game where one guy’s success is your failure. but not manipulation. i’m attacking the manipulation rhetoric because it’s what you are currently using to rationalize your distaste for "strategizing" when strategizing would presently be immensely helpful in your current situation. seriously, it would.

I guess I’m a nutjob, but even though I know every woman is going to go away, I hate to see them go instantaneously. I mean seriously, in the middle of sitting together she dumped you off for another guy. That sucks.

It just supports that there is no reason to pursue women because unless you’re the best of the best in a social circle, you are destined to fail and be replaced by someone better instantaneously.

you’re not a nutjob wretch.

first of all, i wasn’t present at the time. this happened while she was waiting for me at starbucks outside my work place.

look, to me it’s equivalent to, in the middle of hanging with you she up & went to see a movie by herself. it happens, sometimes that’s what people want, and the movie she sees doesn’t mean that what we have is any different when i walk through her door.

speaking of which we’ll be moving in together this weekend

I strategize and manipulate. I lie all the fucking time because if women knew anything about me, they would blow me out immediately.

How can you expect people to not lie and manipulate if you do it all the time ?

just a side question:

will both of you be allowed to have other partners over your mutual home to have sex while the other one is home?

people lie all the time, its not like I’m hurting them with anything serious. Its impossible to talk to women without a lie and creating a conversation or experience. Its not like I’m lieing about anything important, if I tell a woman I’m about to leave, but talk to her, I’m not telling the truth, fabricating a situation, where I’ve manipulated everything I can in an attempt to dupe these women into thinking I’m what they want to associate with.

johjohjohnson,
are you a swinger or something?

neither of us is "allowed" anything, no rules, no agreements. i don’t know what will happen or what it will be like with other partners, i expect vaguely however that it will be fun, "fun" meaning hot

I’m sorry, but this is a load of bullshit. If you really want to find someone, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and focus on the good things about yourself.
You seem very articulate and intelligent, both good qualities. I’ll bet you’re a pretty interesting person.

What do you think is going to send girls running the other way if you are straight up with them? It’s not like you’re an axe murderer (I assume).
You’re setting yourself up for failure by lying, that is what sends people running the other direction. You really aren’t even giving anyone a chance to know you. Let them in, and let them decide whether or not they want to stick around.

I guess that would be a cool arrangement, but for people like myself who don’t have options with women and must take whatever shows up, it sucks because she’ll be fucking anywhere from 5-10 guys per week, and I’d fuck 1.

i’m not married, i’m in love with a girl, we haven’t set up any agreements around our emotions, and we both want to build a lair together.

and sometimes, how often or rarely i don’t know, go out and catch someone and bring him / her back to it.

it’s so fricking awesome.

ha ha ha ha ha

i see what you mean, but thta scarcity thing is a problem you need to fix anyway…

best not to compete with a girl for numbers, if she wanted and she was hot she could get 5 decent looking guys a day every day. you can’t match that without being absolutely sick with your l33t game skillz, it’s the nature of the beast i think.

hi, I’m an ax murderer…lol.
I might be interesting, but I’m weird…really weird.

I don’t know what’s going to send girls running, and that’s the problem. Women don’t like some men, I don’t know the reason why, but they avoid them like the plague and I have it. There is something about me that scares girls away and I don’t know what it is so I have to hide it.

I’m setting myself up for failure because I know I’m annoying. Girls don’t want me talking to them, they want someone who looks better, with a more exciting life. I wish I could change this, but I can’t.

the scarcity thing is not something which can be remedied for some people.

I’m not talking about #’s, I’m talking about fucking.

revelation:
I feel like women can all see my past embarrassments and failures in all of my life. Every time I talk to a girl, I feel that pain again and again. I’ve probably done 100 approaches now, and its not so much the approach that I fear, its them looking at me after 10-minutes with nothing left to say and something weird comes out and they bolt.
Sweetie, there’s girls out there that are just as weird if not weirder than you. Maybe you’re going after superficial, flaky, crap for brains girls. Someone out there is probably looking for someone just like you. Seriously, if my husband and I found eachother, there’s hope out there for everyone. Just be weird, who cares? Own it. Being just average sucks.

well, that’s the topic under discussion; i’nnit.

accept for the time being how horribly blinkered your inner game is and work on outer game. specifically the JUGGLER METHOD. nothing else. all the other stuff works, but you need purely positivity-based outer game, in no small part simply because it will break your extremely self-limiting worldview. which means nothing but JM.

yeah, but just because a girl is weird doesn’t mean she wants someone as fucked up as her. I’ve met roughly 2 women since the new year who I actually wanted to speak to. I’m not average though, slightly below. I have a lot of work to do. I need to change up my career, move, do something different in the gym considering I’ve gained a whopping 4lb in 3 months…so I’m pretty much leaving this desire behind, again.

I’m just about to be motivated enough to sell everything I own and move to the Bay Area. ITs time to get the fuck on with my life and there is too much shit here for me to deal with.

Juggler is probably my favorite PUA guy. Fucking hilarious.
And that’s okay too. I’m gonna lay out some hippie crap here, bear with me.
When you radiate negativity, that is exactly what you draw in. If you can change that to be more self assured you are going to find that people will begin to give you a more positive reaction, acceptance, interest, all that good stuff. You’ll be fine, have a little faith in yourself!

I know you’ve probably heard it a thousand times before and think it’s bullshit advice, but it’s true. That’s the reason you keep hearing it over and over. I just get the feeling you have really low self esteem, and I keep thinking to myself that you need to take all the mental crap, burn it up and let it go. Easier said than done, I know.

Have you considered talking to a Dr. about depression meds,maybe some short term ones? I think you would highly benefit by getting help, I saw earlier in the thread that you can’t afford a therapist but maybe you could join a group of some kind. I’m not suggesting this because I think you’re crazy or anything, I just think you need a little help getting out of your mental funk .
black jesus, what do you do for a living? what do you do outside for fun?
Men take what they want

Boys take what they can get

I’d love to switch over to optimism, I’ve never had it. I don’t know how to flip the switch. I can’t really explain it any other way, I want to exist and be happy and enjoy my life, but there is no logical reason to expect anything positive at any time considering human nature and previous experiences.

I manage a grant program and planning program for FEMA where I’m basically a politician and I travel all over the nation teaching people how to write the plans I review. Its a fairly massive undertaking, and I’m proud to state that I was selected by HQ as the only planner in the nation to set the credentialing standards for my program…but its a temporary position. I really want to start consulting and making real money so I can have a future.

for fun…not much. I don’t have money to go take the miata to the track anymore, so basically I go to the gym which is more of an obsession than fun (my friends think I’m jacked, I feel scrawny). I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately. I’m a pretty good cook and I know wine really well, but that’s not really "fun" for anyone to join in on. I’m so bored all the time. So fucking bored.

Well, maybe a change would be good for you, the excitement of something to look forward to. You said about moving or changing careers, go for it! Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

I know you want to flip that switch so to speak, and that requires change. I’ve been through some deep depressions myself and I know how hard it is to want to be happy but you just can’t. You just have to find a way and make it happen.

I’ve genuinely hated every day of my life since 5th grade/10-years old when I thought poor sports performance was important. It hasn’t really gotten better since.

Are anti-depressants affordable? I could charge the doctor visit and pay it off when I have money again. I really want something to change. I started smoking again a few weeks ago, maybe that could get me on wellbutrin or something mild like that. I don’t want to be a zombie, but I’d like to not take everything so seriously.

Wellbutrin is relatively cheap, I think mine was about $12? I was a little tired for a few weeks when I started it, but it wasn’t bad at all.

is it going to make me lose the desire to lift big in the gym?

Dunno, I never had the desire to lift big in the first place.

lol, I’m kidding, I really doubt it would, it’s very mild. Keep eating your protein and switch things up at the gym, that’s what will keep your motivation up for working out.

It’s day-to-day work for me to not be depressed. Just like being in the gym, eating healthy, etc. it’s all about conscious decisions. If you’re not working for this, don’t expect happiness to come down on you.

No wonder everything fails. How can you expect things from people that you don’t even do yourself ? Try to do this first. Sure, it’s not easy, sure, you’ll fail, some people will suck and so on, but you’ll have the possibility of telling yourself that you tried and that if it failed, it’s not YOUR fault because you truly tried.
Everyone faces failure man, everyone. It’s not failure per say that’s important, it’s what you do towards it.
Did you know that Donald Trump was in debt for a freaking long time ? Yet, he’s frickin rich, has a hot wife, lives better than a king and has anything he wants. He has a perception of what he want his life to be and fights to get it.

IMO, you should change your mind on success anyway. Success is not being rich, beautiful, muscular, lean, good at sports and so on. Success is being happy. I think you’re chasing the wrong bird.

I don’t know how to do this. When I adopt a new mindset, or attempt to, I can’t even get started, much less keep the idea in my head for more than 30 minutes at a time. I essentially "have it all figured out" in my head and it is written in stone to be negative and expect the worst out of every situation. All good things come to an end, every time. Well, actually everything ends, and when these things end its bad, and rarely can they be replicated with any enjoyment. I feel like expecting the worst is the only logical expectation, and every time its come true.
Think about meeting a girl, and getting some great experiences out of it…eventually she’s going to leave for whatever reason, and I’ll be back to solitude.
When I go talk to a girl in public, she’s always going to wish I had something cool to talk about, had better hair, cloths, better vascularity, better anterior delt to tricep definition, 1" taller, or whatever.
With my only hobby, motorsports, I can only expect that when I’m on the track destroying every other car (rarely) some dude is going to pull an old Sauber race car off the trailer and shit stomp me.
When I go to the gym, there’s always someone who’s going to be more pumped or lift more weight than me.
When I go to a bar or restaurant, someone is always going to make fun of my cars because I don’t own a Maseratti or Veyron.
If I have a good bottle of wine, eventually I’m going to have to drink it, but I’ll have to drink it alone and hopefully it hasn’t turned because most of my bottles are 5-8 years old and reaching the end of maturation…so either they’ve turned or I have to drink it alone and that’s pathetic.
If I had friend’s come over they’re probably be bummed because I only have a 61" TV, and not a 67".

Maybe this is why I like instructing at the track so much. When a student asks me to drive their Evo or F430, for a few laps, they think I’m a god. For an instant in time, I’ve achieved something, and no one can touch me. I don’t want to be mediocre, but that’s the best I can do.

I took a trip to the California Wine country recently. When I was there I felt like a god. I knew all the hot restaurants, knew people at each vineyard we visited, , drove an Audi Q7, never paid for a hotel room, stayed 4-days in a multimillion dollar home on the 2nd highest point in Sonoma, and for the first time in a long time and I felt like the typical life-successful person. I didn’t feel special, I felt normal.

Unfortunately I’m not any of the things I want to be. I could provide a list, but it would go on for days. I feel like everything in my life is analyzed and planned as well as it can be, and frankly I micromanage everything in my life. I can’t even sign a credit card slip without thinking "I should have made a more symmetrical transition between the ‘e’ in my last name from e-ll-e." I can’t sleep at night because either I’m worried that I didn’t get a big enough radiator for the miata on the track in 103* days, can’t find a girl, not making progress in the gym, should unplug the tv at night to save electricity, my student loan interest rate will keep rising, I may have been curt with someone on the phone last week, I have to adjust my budget for gas prices, or whatever else I’ve dreamed up that day.
In sport psychology, people can have 3 types of goal : 1) based on the result (which is the least controlable, and winning depends on the fact that you play against someone who is worse at that precise moment) 2) based on the performance (how you do something, which you can focus on doing your best and enjoying it) and 3) focused on the process (which is again how you do things but in a more precise way, in sports it refers mainly to a movement, in dating it could be how to kiss for example).

You focus strictly on the result and no wonder you’re unhappy, there will ALWAYS be someone better. So what ? People don’t always judge other people on that precise thing (although YOU tend to, so 1) you can tell yourself that if you do, other people must do it and 2) you can’t establish a connection with someone if you’re constantly judging them).

You can always be the best, but you can always use your potential at the best you can. For 90% of the people, it’s more than enough and it might not even be that important.

so if I pick #2, I’m supposed to just do the best I can and attempt to enjoy the experience? I’d like to go with that, but why would any girl want to hang out with the honorable mention, when they could have the world champion? What kind of woman thinks, "oh, well this guy is good enough for now?" Even if the woman did accept me, I’d be burned off in an instant when something better came along.

The last girl I dated, I thought we were awesome together. Everything was going fantastic for 2 months or so…then one day, she didn’t call. She disappeared, and I haven’t spoken to her since. She just disappeared. No one cares about the mediocre people, they want to win, and I’m not the winning ticket so I feel defeated. Then, I look around at all the other people who are locked up in relationships with girls that haven’t left. It would be a mistake to assume anything aside from my apparent inferiority.

This is where I’m stuck. 2nd place is not good enough in the important things in life. I don’t know what I have to change about me to bring up my value to women.
She was crazy, stupid, dumb, whory. She’s the bitch, life’s a bitch too and we all face hard stuff. Move on and try to live other nice things.

Enjoying the moment is what you should do. Living it fully, not comparing it to what you did before (is it better, or not ?) or what will come next (will she ditch me, or not ?). Begin by just enjoying being with someone, goofing around and so on.

If no one would care about people who are second, who would get attention ? There can only be 1 winner and we sure as hell can’t all win. People can and will still like you if you don’t end up first in a championship, because they might enjoy YOU. Not what you do, YOU.

actually, she was really really cool and probably the only girl I’ve connected with since my last gf split in January 2000. I thought she had her shit together, and I don’t blame her for upgrading.
There is no such thing is a #1 or a #2, because one beautiful girl’s #1 may be another beautiful girl’s #15. This is why rejection isn’t very important, because many girls just have different desires.

However, most girls are attracted to similar things, such as confidence, humor, nice body, status. ambition, etc etc etc.

Luckily, all of those things are things you have control over. Perhaps your ex just found a guy who had more of those things than you, in which case, you can’t blame her for jumping ship.
From reading some of the posts here, I get the impression that many of you guys think you are somehow doing something wrong by inviting a woman on a date.

I want you to pay attention to the wording of that phrase. I purposefully avoid the phrase "ask her out."

Why?

Because "asking her out" has all sorts of connotations that go back to when we were young kids. For youngsters, "asking her out" means asking her to "go steady."

Your purpose isn’t to "ask her out." Your purpose is to invite her on a date so that you can spend time together and get to know one another.

When you see a woman you are attracted to, you need to realize that you don’t have enough information about her. Most of men’s attraction to women is based on her looks, so automatically we think she is perfect for us.

The problem is, you don’t have enough information to make this determination.

You have criteria of what you want in a woman (and if you don’t have criteria, you better spend some time figuring it out!).

How do you gain the information that you need?

First, you approach and talk to her. Then, you request her phone number. Next you plan a date, then call her and make the date invitation.

Very simple steps.

The problem is that men today do not believe this is normal. We think we are somehow doing something wrong when we try to do the steps. So instead, we look for shortcuts.

We give her our number, then bail because we are afraid of rejection.

We become friends with a girl, then confess our feelings to her.

These are shortcuts. You have to do the steps listed above.

The goal is not to somehow trick her or circumvent the steps. The goal is to discover is she’s interested, while at the same time closely watching what she does to learn if she is the type of girl we would like to have a long term relationship with.

That last part is very important. Even if she’s interested, we may discover she isn’t right for us (because she’s a smoker, has a chemical dependency, or whatever). That puts us in the position of dumping her.

Many of us have never dumped a girl early on. If she’s willing to see us and fuck us, we aren’t going to dump her under any circumstances. This can get us in a lot of trouble (been there done that).

You need to examine your beliefs regarding meeting women and going on dates. If you find that your beliefs are not consistent with the reality that inviting women on dates and talking to women, and asking for their numbers is 100% normal and natural, then your beliefs need to be addressed and changed.

Do not fear "rejection." What is rejection, anways? Its a woman letting you know that she doesn’t like you. Is it possible for every girl to like you and want to date you? Absolutely not!

When she rejects you, she is giving you information. Before you talked to her, you didn’t know if she was right for you. Now you know for a fact that she isn’t!

You can’t get what you want without risking rejection. The key is how you deal with it. You can be happy that she let you know early on so you don’t waste your time, or you can let it hurt you emotionally.

Dating used to be a huge mystery to me. So instead of learning how to do it, I would just date whatever girl showed the most interest in me. The problem was, they were choosing me over other guys, but I wasn’t choosing them over anybody. So I ended up with women who weren’t right for me.

How can you find the girl who is right for you, if you aren’t out there dating many women? What are the odds of the first girl you meet being "the one?"

Keep it simple.

Talk to her. Get her number. Make a date. Invite her on the date.

If falls by the wayside at any of these steps, then so be it. She has made her decision, and she won’t be looking back. Neither should you. Immediately start the process anew with a different woman.

You can let your fears get in the way, or you can feel those uncomfortable feelings and DO IT ANYWAY. That’s what courage is: being afraid, but still taking the proper course of action.

And talking to her for the purpose of going on a date is the proper course of action.

right, so why start anything when they’re all going to end the same way? This is obviously a reoccurring theme in my life where I constantly lose, but for some reason don’t retire from that game and get into something where I can be successfully…um…I’m not trying men though.

Failure is friggin normal. Whether one fails or not is not the key to succeeding (whatever domain we think about), it’s all about getting back up, learning from this and trying again.

Right, but why would the pattern change? Some people win all their lives, most lose though. Rather than lose constantly, I’d rather not play. What’s the point in getting shit stomped all day? It keeps fucking happening every fucking time, there is no reason for me to expect anything different.

It all comes down to you finding the courage to make it happen.

You’ve heard how to gain confidence, and you know what it takes to get in shape. You have to make the decision to change, make the plan (Either us, a therapist, or a book can help you with that), and have the discipline to carry it out.

There is no reason why you’re not in the gym at least 3 days a week (at least I don’t think you are, correct me if I’m wrong), eating healthy, working towards a plan on seeing a therapist, keeping a journal, and just being out approaching girls. Make the decision man. You’re not doing everything you could.

Don’t try then. Avoiding failure is not a good way to live your life IMO. Running after success is though. We all heard about inventors who failed like 500 times, but succeeded ONCE after all those tries. That’s life.
And you seem to think relationships are important, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking about it. How would avoiding it would make you happy if you obviously think it’s important ?

And we can choose how we define failure.

We can define it as "she stood me up, I failed"

Or we can define failure as being in an unhappy relationship and/or marriage.

I’ve been there, and I can assure you it was the definition of failure.

If we accept that not every woman can possibly like us, when one of them rejects us, we understand this as part of the process, and not as a valid reason to feel a deep wound to our inner-self.
Science, not always useless

I had the same problem when I was younger. You get terrified because you don’t have a plan of attack. Instead of letting her dictate the conversation and giving you clues as to how to behave, just decide wtf you want to do and say and make her follow your lead. If you find her attractive and want to ask her out, then act like it. As soon as a cute a girl starts to talk to you, you should be setting a goal for yourself to ask her out because you find her to be a suitable mate.

After a couple of mins of flirting to lead into it, you ask her out. You don’t have time to talk for 10-15 minutes because you have to get back to your friend and finish your shopping.

If you drag it out you’ll find out she’s got a boyfriend or is married and you’ll have wasted your time.

If all you want is some conversation then that’s the only thing you’ll get.

Even if you’re just looking for a friend, you still need to see and hang out with her in your personal life.

And if you’re really into her but you drag it out long, you’ll tend to overthink and forget about the task at hand. Then end up leaving without a # thinking you’ll get it next time, but she’s already assumed that you’re not interested so if you ask her out next time, she’ll think that this is more like a second chance offering and will be offended.

See I have the problem of picking up on the signals and don’t realize it until it was too late. I have gotten better picking up on it. I Still have problems talking to them. I can ask the basic questions, " Do you goto school" "what school?" "Taste in music" etc. Thats pretty much how far it goes.

Uh, no, I’m explaining what it means to gain confidence, rather than arbitrarily telling you to ‘be confident’. I don’t ever remember saying you had to look a certain way, ever. Please indicate where I bring up looks, or stop putting words in my mouth.

I did say be the best version of yourself. I’m referring ENTIRELY to your personality and state of mind. Are you happy being the way you are? If not, judging by your threads I assume you’d like to be. The whole idea is to figure out what gets your rocks off (other than women) and improve on that. If you’re in a good mood, people (not just women) will want to be around you. If you come into a situation feeling pessimistic and negative, well fuck, nobody inherently WANTS to be around that.

For example, it turns out I thrive on academic success. So I quit slacking/doing just enough and slowly brought my grades up. I also didn’t like the way I looked, so I hit the gym and bought clothes that I liked that I felt fit me better physically and along with my personality. There was a lot of other stuff too. Anyway, the whole idea is that I started doing these things because they made ME feel good. Not for any other reason.

And all things considered, I didn’t just turn into someone else. I’m still tied to so many things about myself. I’m still a dork, and not just at heart. The only thing that really changed were things I didn’t like about myself. I’m not nearly as needy, defensive, or lazy as I used to be.

So you can sit down and think about what it is you aren’t satisfied with in your life, and start trying to work on it, or you can continue being miserable, if you feel so attached to the current version of yourself.

Sorry to double post. But do you really enjoy all that stuff? If you do, you shouldn’t necessarily have to go out of your way to hide it. If you say you’re a huge geek and go out of your way to hide your interests, what else do you have to talk about?

I’m not saying you should start talking about the gritty details of Stargate (if you were a football player, it would be the same thing as not giving her a dissertation on defensive formations), but don’t be afraid to mention the things you like when she asks about you. If it really turns her off that much, what kind of future did you really have?

:: If it comes up in a conversation, whatever, sometimes the girl will say yea me too! or if not then you can use that as a pickup line.
I’ve read through most of this thread and the one thing that got me was the whole advice thing of be yourself and be confident. The whole confidence thing, was something that used to bug me for almost two years after I had a girl basically rip into me 3 months into us dating and telling me I had no confidence like our one mutual friend did (and honestly, I think he has the least confidence out of any of the guys.) Before this girl did this, I NEVER used to hear the "be yourself" or "be confident" advice used, so it seems to be a trend to say this.

Basically, what I see here, is people giving you useless babble on the generic ideas of what true confidence is. Now, I’m going to give you my point of view, and many will actually probably agree with me on this.

There are different levels of confidence. There isn’t just one level of confidence. Confidence applies to different scenarios. What you were looking for is not a generic answer on how to be confident. Rather, what you are looking for is an answer on how to appear confident towards women in order to get them to like you or date you, etc.

But before we go there, let’s get into the levels of confidence:

1.) Confidence in yourself. Believe it or not, you already have confidence in yourself. Everyone does! Some people just display it better than other people. Some people sense it better from other people, and then there are those who fake it. Confidence in yourself stems from what everyone else has said in here. Be comfortable in who you are and the things you like to do, and don’t change it for anyone. If someone likes you, they will accept you for those things, etc.

2.) Confidence when first approaching or talking to a woman: This is the point where you are trying to get to, I know. This is where you are having those problems. Forgot those books that tell you how to act in situations, how to score amongst many women, etc. Sure, if you want to score a lot, these books can help, but in essence you are faking it.

Now, the confidence I am talking about is your initial reaction to someone. For some odd reason, you talk to someone, and then you freeze up right? Look at it and ask yourself WHY you freeze up. Fear of rejection? Afraid of how the conversation might go? Don’t be afraid of any of these things. My first piece of advice to you, eye contact and smile. Even if it’s someone you aren’t interested in or just a co-worker or whatever. Doing these two things displays you confidence level big time.

It also helps if you can be a bit "witty" in your responses. Girls like that… they see it as you having a sense of humor. Laughing makes you smile. In your case, if I remember reading correctly, she wanted to help you with cooking something. See, there was the opportunity. You say "Sure" and then talk a bit with her about what you are making, tips she has to offer, etc. From there, you can lead that up into a "Hey, I never tried that. Maybe you can show me one day" and try to lead it into a dinner date of some sort. Sure, it won’t work exactly that way but you get the idea.

3.) Confidence when first starting to date a woman: Ah yes, this is where some people screw it up or when some people just don’t know what to do. Listen, the first thing you do, is you continue with your smiles and eye contact. It is very important and very key that you do this. It builds up the attraction level between you two.

However, you need to remember to keep it respectful with the woman and go out there with her, keep a good sense of humor. Also, you need to be very direct with the questions you ask her. No beating around the bush to try and ask her a question. When I mean questions, I mean questions like "How many bf’s has she had" or "How many guys has she slept with". Sometimes people wait too long to ask these questions, and just end up getting the girl to think that the guy likes her as a friend even though there might be more, thus they friendzone the guy. So remember, eye contact, smile, laughter and be direct.

4.) Confidence while dating: Ah yes, this is a biggy. Keep it going. While you are in the early stages of dating, don’t be afraid of anything or be afraid to make any moves. By this, I mean do not be afraid to kiss her, do not be afraid to have sex with her, etc. Lots of girls, in this stage, measure confidence with the experience a man has with women and with how he knows what to do with them whether in bed or whatever. If you are reluctant to do something, you must continue and do not stop. If you stop or just continue with teasing and what not for 3 months, it won’t last at all. I could give you examples but it would be too much.

5.) Confidence in the comfort zone: This is the confidence you have when you start getting comfortable. This is when you can do and say things that you normally won’t say to a girl you first meet, because you just know you are that comfortable around her to be able to do these things (and vice versa). I think this goes without explaination and essentially, this is the point you are trying to get to.

Hope some of this helps

*sigh*

That’s not true. Some books teach you how to fake it. And they admit that OPENLY. Some books teach you how to go about it without faking it but without making certain mistakes that would fuck you over.

Well-meaning person speaking from a place of ignorance, you don’t know anything about pick-up from watching VH1

I just realized something……this is me!
Goign through this whole thread has given me new perspective. Thanks a bunch you guys.

I’m gonna try these new things out.
Practice makes perfect….

What is the worst thing that could happen? She turns you down or has a boyfriend…
the OP described me in his first post. except that all the girls i like are either taken or don’t want anything to do with me. not only do i have trouble talking to girls, i have trouble making friends in general. just recently i found out this girl i have been crushing on (couldn’t approach her-to nervous/scared to get rejected) is going out with one of my friend’s brother. that really struck me deep considering that i actually thought i had a chance with her. oh well, i guess i’ll be alone forever, i’m already used to it
Wow, there is some really good information in this thread.

I am also currently in pursuit of finding true happiness and comfort within myself, and picking out the little things from this thread that apply to me will hopefully help me achieve my goals.

There is something that I read earlier last week that I think will be helpful for some of you guys here..

Even though this mainly deals with conquering anxiety and stress, I would definitely recommend everyone read the information in the link no matter how confident you are with yourself and even if you don’t suffer from anxiety or stress.

This is extremely true.

I’m in the finance crew. Ever see the reactions when explaining CDO/CMOs and the subprime/credit crisis to girls who are hairdressers? It’s sorta funny, but it’s not what I know, it’s the fact that I can make people believe I know wtf I’m doing.

It’s not easy for most, it’s natural for me but I really do know what I’m doing when I’m explaining it to a novice.

Girls are turned on by extraordinary intellect. If you know a complex subject really well and have a decent personality, you’re already in.

It took me years to learn this.
I’m shy around girls when it comes to approaching them in a dating manor. But once I know a girl is interested in me I am a lot different

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Get back and at about 10am I sk the guys goibng to the shop to get some beers, flash the wallet with a million Ruppees notes (back from iNDIA), dude gets about 18.

I crash oiut Ii’m 5 foot ten other dudes 6 foot 4, hge’s smaking mr with a full biottle of beer. The other guy 44 who we can call Simon is punching me.

Had to make my excuses to go to the toilet, locked the door to try to get out of the window. Simon breaks down the door and I had no choice but to go for him qwith a bit of broken mirror…..bounced after that.

Sorry, noi aspell checker here, no lightts and it’s about 35C AND 95 hUMIDITY,

I was also thinking something along those lines
uh.. wow, wtf?

you killed someone with a mirror in russia on new year’s day?
I hope this is trolling, regardless should probably be deleted.

so if someone is truly and genuinely disturbed. not just that "i have ennuis" bullshit we all suffer from once in a blue week. we prolly don’t close their thread

What he typed is completely non sensical, and if he’s serious, he just admitted to stabbing a guy in the face with a piece of a broken mirror.

I’m just thinking it’s trolling, personally, hell idk.
This is the guy who says he has schizophrenia, just so you all know.
maybe this thread was describing a flashback of his then, I don’t know (just saw the disorders he listed in the father thread). Either way, hopefully all is well and he can either explain, or this thread’ll just go to the bottom.

And he was last trapped in India, trying to get new meds from the docs in the UK.

Ohhh.. Makes sense now.

Poor guy.

No, I went back to a party, woke up on a chair with one guy bouncing a bottle of bud off my head and another smacking me off the face.

I had just traveled for 40 odd hours and had been drunk at new years.

I I was told to give them my money, I say ok, just let me use the toilet. I get in, lock the shitty little snib and look to escape from the window.

No chance, two stories up, no foot holds, I jump I get screwed.

Now this fuck wkwhit, lets call him Simon had a gf who broke a mirror in the bathroom. He must have tossed everything into the bath. I pick two pieces up.

He breaks down the door, I show him what I have, He goes for me. I take a swipe and cut his neck.

Fuck him.

After that one piece had flown and I ran after the guy to get a good quick way out.

It was a council Estate so, all looks the same. I had to stay at the same door for a few minutes for emergency services…….cool but Forensics went in.

Other way around I thought?

Last I thought it was meant to be a forum for people to have their personal problems taken seriously.

Well done in turning things upside down to suit your own silly comments.

This is not a flashback. I worry when it will it will play in my head 5-6 times or whatever an hour.
is this a joke mod edit; nope it isn’t , it just needs a more clear explanation from the op
Work hard to get your life back on track. Don’t use any alcohol anymore, and try to rebuild your life. From what i last remember you went with your dad to the psychiater in order to talk about your mental problems.

What you clearly need to distinct is those things which are benefitial for you, and those things that only bring you down the drain, and steer away from those.

Killing is an absolute no,same counts for torture because if you look at the overal picture it only makes things worse. You, especially you should not make your life worse now then it already is. You’ve got enough problems you need to tackle together with a therapist one by one, and change your life dramatically into a positive constructive world.

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perfect timing that i filed divorce about 30 days ago, and was in process of securing financing for buying a house to live in. so:

1) no house for me
2) still divorced and lonely

fuck, i just now this moment realized what was keeping me going… was work. going there m-f has really been keeping my mind off the exwife (and step son), while weekends have been killer sitting here by myself.

fuck fuckity fuck fuck.

i just hope i can find something soon before the severance package (3 months) ends. ive already got an appointment with a headhunter on thursday. these people have called me like 3 times a year for the past 5 years, and ive always politely declined, that i was happy where i was. hopefully, they will still be able to come thru with something for me.

wish me luck!
Sorry about that man. Your def right about work keeping your head off things. My only advice is stay as active as you can and spend time with friends.
that sucks, been there done that. Good luck finding another job, just stay busy and hit the pavement as they say.
Fuck dude, so sorry to hear Got the "heads up- you’re probably gonna get laid off soon" speech today too. Good luck out there big guy.
man, like my entire adult life, ive been like han solo or something… a never ending supply of luck. ironic that it all tumbles down at once. on top of what i mentioned above, was that i took a 401k loan for $9000 just a few days ago. on the 15th of this month, i was going to pay off the entirety of my credit card debt, so that i would only have a house payment and (what i call static bills… power, cell phone, student loan… bill that never change and are always there and not for something i bought or consumed).

thankfully, the 15th didnt get here yet, and i still had the 9000. i called fidelity and scheduled the payoff, and its on its way back to them now.

it all just keeps getting better and better!

i WISH i could have had one of those. i took my 401k loan because i felt as stable as possible at my job… and i also just wasted about a 3 weeks of my realtor’s time.

sorry to hear this man….when it rains it pours huh?

The good news is 8 years sure shows that you’ll stick with a company even when things aren’t going well or when people are being laid off. That speaks very well of your character. Someone will surely pick you up soon. Have faith and stay positive!!
they don’t call it rock bottom for nothing. ;] believe me, i understand how you feel.

you know the best thing about being at rock bottom? there’s only one place to go: the TOP!

believe me! stay positive and one day, things will all just… click. i can speak through experience
The good news is that you ONLY waisted 3 weeks of your Realtors time and didn’t sign any papers you couldn’t get easily out of.
The good news is that you didn’t spend any of the 9K and it was as simple as sending it back to the bank.

The timing could have been worse.

I can’t speak for you, but in my life I often need a good swift kick in the ass to get me to do things that I should have been doing.
You won’t be out of work forever. Immediatly times will be tough. No doubt about it this will be a summer that will be harder then most.
But 2 years from now you will have a different job, you will have new friends and you will be making more money.
You will look back at this and be glad it happened.
i just hope i can find a full time job before at least the final week of july, as my apartment lease ends on the 31st (and realistically, it needs to be by the 1st or 2nd week of july, since apts are rarely ready or available in just 3-5 days). i have to move out of here anyway, and logically, id like it to be in the vicinity of wherever i’ll hopefully land a job. so ive got about a 5 week critical window before i have to activate one of the many offers from friends to come stay with them a while. props to my friends… they have really been there for me thru this entire messy 5 weeks.

thanks for all the encouraging replies guys and gals, i do really appreciate them.

Oh FUCK. That sucks a big wad.

Really though, maybe this is the launching point for something great?

hehe, yes, this would be the appropriate time!
Well you know what they say, when misery comes, it all comes at once.

Hold on ,even tho its hard
well that sucks. Sorry to hear that. It happens to everyone sooner or later and it was jsut your turn. I;ve had 5-6 companies go out of business on me. lol

I was working for a steamship line in Jacksonville Florida a few years ago. I and the office manager were not on friendly terms. She was nasty woman, a drunk, a coke freak and extremely lazy. I was busting my tail because I loved my job. It was more of a hobby then work. Well since she was the sales manager and office manager she was the manager of the office and since she came from Charleston SC where the regional offices were she had connections.

I was about ready to quit, but I decided to stick it out and find another job first. So I just renewed my lease on my apartment. Walked in to a my yearly evaluations ashoertly after that and this dingbat trashed the hell out of me.

I had never missed a day nor had I ever been late and often worked Saturday mornings on my own time for 3-4 hours. She called my attendance average. I was pissed She very rearelty came to work until 11 am and themn left at 230 and thit the bars. So I told her where to stick her evaluation and that was pretty much the end of the job. I sent a scathing letter to the regional managment and to the president of the company. I opissed them all off. LOl.

I looked for work for three months – nothing! It was Christmas and the New Year and everything was dead and it was hard because I ahd moved there from another town and didn’t have that many connections.

Then I broke my leg in two places, dislocated my ankle and shattered it. Had to have surgery and bolt everything back together. I had no medical insurance so I was stuck with the bill. All the while this witch would call me and cheer that I was hurt and out of work

Then after months of therapy I walked into a place and was hired. I effectively doubled my salary, had full benefits, was put in charge of two departments and had a number of people working for me.

The best part of the deal was I got to pull all the work my new employer gave my former company away. I love dooing that. Then I hired some of their people away and effectively dismantled their operation for several months. I was having a blast and enjoyed every minute of it. They would hire a new employee in the office and if they were any good I would hire them away. Got five peole that way.

So you see, hang in there and believe it or not that proverbial "other door" does open. And you will be better off in the end. Just remember as soon as you begin your new job start quietly looking for your next job and a move up the ladder.

No such thing as employee loyalty any longer and employers have no loyalty toward their employees. In fact I have noticed when times or rough the best workers are let go while those who were slackers were kept around. Life is sometimes ironic.

So good luck. hang in there and you’ll come out on top.
was it idearc by chance? look into some consulting companies in the area, they are growing if you are in IT

you sound like a solid guy who just had a spat of bad luck in a short period of time.

assuming you had a good (professional) job with a good set of transferrable skills, you’ll do ok. just keep your head up.

my aunt got laid off right after 9/11 from her bank in nyc. had a new job in a week despite the financial sector recession then. you’ll be ok my man.
Oh man that sucks. Yeah, a lot of people I know are getting outed by their jobs. But I’m sure you’ll be able to find a job soon. Any news from the other people yet? Hopefully they still have a spot open for you. if not, I’m sure there will be other opportunities waiting for you. You sound like a well committed guy when it comes to your work and I’m sure companies like to see that in the people who they are looking to hire.
What’s your area of expertise if you don’t mind my asking?
go sell hybrid cars while you wait for a job in your field.

UNIX (of all types), and datacenter disaster preparation and recovery.

I was actually feeling really really bad yesterday, truthfully i was fighting back the full on tears. everything that i truly loved or desired in life, has systematically been denied to me in very quick succession. all this despite i had a visit with a recruiter yestereday morning, and i could see his excitement over my UNIX background, and i was just decucing that he had never actually met someone to give their UNIX skills test to. i killed this 53 minute test in 9 minutes, and scored siginificantly higher than their national average. and then after i got home from that, it wasnt long before someone cold-called me from my resume on monster, asking of me about the same skills. reguardless of how things were looking up, i just couldnt shake how every solid thing in my life, down to even what i felt was my own foundation, just crumbled to pieces totally out of my control.

i spent the night over at a friends house, drank some beers and ate cheese tacos and later chinese take out… i was just telling him all this shit thats happened to me, about all these things that i truly love in life and how they have quickly been denied. i was telling him, that when i was a deeply spritual man, there was always the reality that when God wants to really get your attention, he will break you down, as absolutly low as you can go, before rebuilding you back up again, completely new. that absolutly must be whats happening to me. maybe this is my calling to start going back to church again, like when i was younger.

ha, i just realized im living a pretty fair modern version of the book of job.

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