My pathetic whining about how I want a relationship

[Redbeard The Pink]

My experience has been that the less I'm worried about getting into a relationship, the easier it is to get into one. Desperation is the human world's foremost turn-off, and unfortunately when you're lonely and desperate for companionship, it's nearly impossible to come off as someone who isn't desperate.


The trick is to find an activity that you legitimately enjoy and that makes you comfortable and that is also a social activity, and then throw yourself into that thing and stop worrying about meeting someone. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it consistently gets me into relationships faster than anything else I've tried.


What this does is give you a chance to interact with people without worrying about whether you're screwing up your chances with them (which will make you seem more confident and less desperate), and it will give people a chance to see you happy and enjoying yourself, which is actually what people are initially attracted to in most cases. It will also give you a reason to talk to people that has nothing to do with whether you're getting with them, which will make it easier to talk to people in the first place.


If you don't enjoy going to bars and drinking, then stop going to them. You're never going to meet someone that way. People go to bars to drink and have a good time, which is what makes them good places for those people to hook up; they look happy and confident because they're enjoying themselves, so they attract people. Unless going to a bar is giving you legitimate enjoyment, your chances of finding someone in a bar are basically nil, especially if people can tell you're going there to pick someone up and not to drink.


Basically what I'm telling you is that if you want a relationship, you have to either act like you don't care if you're in one, or you have to actually not care whether you're in one. The best way to do that is to put yourself in situations where you can have fun and interact with people on a completely platonic basis. If you do that long enough, eventually you will most likely trip over someone who's attracted to you and willing to put forth the effort to make sure you know that, and in the mean time you'll be less worried about whether that happens because you won't be so bored.


I met both my first wife and my current one by going to a nerdy game shop to play Magic: The Gathering. Not even joking. I wasn't going there to hook up; I was going to have fun. I just happened to run into some people who are attracted to people having fun and who liked some of the same things I liked, and we started talking about things we like, and one thing led to another.


So find something to do, and forget about relationships. I know that seems like giving up, but it's actually the opposite. Join a swim team, a chess club...it doesn't really matter, so long as there are people there and you're having fun.