Debugging my love life, 1/∞

I feel shitty about my love life. I feel like it largely doesn't exist. I certainly don't feel like I'm working on it "on my own time," or to put it another way as regularly or as diligently as I would like to do. It feels bad.

What feels off about it? Well, I haven't gotten a date after eight months somewhat "in the game." I've never been on a date and I'd like to. I'm self-conscious of having never been on a date at 28 years old. That fact feels like a stand-in for a bunch of bad habits that add up to "rarely confident around women." I would like to improve my love life and my habits.

I.

I'm going to talk about this partly in sales/marketing terms because it is funnier that way and it helps me get some distance from the process. I probably am not using these correctly, but I'm okay with that. So from that angle, how do things look?

Lead generation seems to be working acceptably well. I could name ten ladies I met in the last eight months who I am interested in. I could work on this, but one lady of interest a month is plenty for now — lead generation is not yet my bottleneck.

Qualified lead generation could be better. I fall down on both asking for numbers and flirting.

A friend of mine recently joked (ha ha only serious) about the importance for single guys like us of "getting those jerseys" (names and numbers). I'm at minimal risk of getting numbers because I don't ask for them.

This means I miss some of the leads I'm generating. Beyond the ten, I could name three or four more I liked who I don't expect to ever see again. I have no contact info for them. I have no expectation I'll see them again. Even the leads I do expect to see again are lingering as mere leads, because I'm not showing interest. I'm not asking numbers and I'm not flirting, so those leads are going to waste.

Flirting is the other part of qualifying a lead. Fixing this feels in some ways impossibly hard. I want to stick to what is respectful but clearly more than friendly, and I have only a few ideas about what will read as such. I have some hints about where to start, but I haven't yet translated them from abstractions into real examples of things I could say in real situations that happen in my life. I feel anxious about the number of options and afraid of fucking things up and I avoid making any such advances.

That's not to say I never flirt. I can think of three attempts I made. But it's not habitual, automatic, or comfortable. Of the ten ladies I'm interested in, I've flirted with exactly one. It doesn't seem at all like a given that I'll get around to it with the other nine when I see them.

Actually I habitually avoid three of the ten because I'm interested in them. Strange thing to do, isn't it? Why avoid ladies I like?

1. First one, I am not sure how much younger she is than I am, she might be too young. This is a situation where I ought to ask.
2. Second one, I started out ambivalent about her and haven't yet felt compelled to show interest for various reasons, though that's the plan.
3. Third one, I rarely see and when I do I'm always caught off guard. So I wonder if it's even worth it, because I don't have her number. As discussed above — maybe I should plan to ask it.

I offered lots of specific excuses in this list but it feels like a common pattern that I habitually avoid such ladies unless the interest is clearly mutual. In other words, I avoid making the first show of interest. But if they feel any, so do they. Somebody's got to show interest first, and I'll never find out if they're interested except by interacting more boldly.

I know all this, but it doesn't change my bad habits.

I should try doing Tiny Habits to my love life. But that's a subject for another day.

So, it sure seems like the current bottleneck is qualifying my leads. But that doesn't feel like a sufficient answer on its own to the anxiety, despair, and dread I feel about my love life.

II.

I think what feels the worst about my love life is how passive I am about it. I'm leaving a lot to chance, namely whether I will see again a lady that I like, whether I will talk to her more, and whether I will flirt with her. It's not that I can avoid chance entirely, but I feel like I'm letting myself down. Most shots I get, I recognize and then give up. I also could go out of my way to get more shots and I rarely do. But those shots I give up — why?

When I give up a shot, it looks like seeing that lady I like across the room and avoiding her. I notice I want to know more about her and be around her. I feel like it is unjustified because I barely know her — I just know she's pretty and seems pleasant enough and there's something about her that I like, probably that she's pretty, wow, isn't that shallow of me. That justification is a transparent excuse not to talk to her. I don't think I actually care if I'm approaching for the right reasons, I think any reason at all is good enough to talk to a lady and get to know her better. But it makes a good enough justification to avoid her, so I do.

I swerve to avoid the lady because I am afraid if I show too much interest too early she will bolt. Or, maybe more importantly, I worry she'll clock my romantic interest before I make it clear — because I habitually put that off. When she clocks me, it will turn her off that I am not brave enough to show interest. Then I'll feel bad because her reaction confirms my cowardice and how revolting it is, when I already feel self-conscious of it.

I think that's the root of what feels bad about my love life, not the pragmatic details. I'm caught between wanting to keep my interest in a lady low-key because she might bolt if she recognized my romantic interest, and wanting to express it because if she noticed me hiding it then she would lose any interest she might have. The way I avoid flirting and getting numbers is in part a symptom of not having grappled with this conflict.

I think I habitually choose to "be a loser" (hide interest) because it seems emotionally safer. Acting out my interest risks that the lady doesn't respond to them. I will notice if she reacts positively or negatively to however I've expressed interest, and respond appropriately with excitement or disappointment. But if she reacts neutrally then I will feel even more anxious. Should I give up and back off? I take so few shots that I feel like I ought to keep trying, to take a few more while I can get them — but then am I being pushy? I'm not ignoring her signals, I've recognized I got a neutral/not clearly positive response, but maybe she'd rather I took that as "get lost"? Or maybe she hasn't decided on me yet and I should try and get to know her and build chemistry/rapport? And I know I'll feel motivated to interpret ambiguous but slightly neutral/negative evidence favorably, while also feeling like I am a bad person for doing so, and that'll create some more anxiety...

That's a whole tangle of knots that I should maybe try to resolve another time. But that at least gives me a clearer sense of what it is that feels shitty about my love life.

Update: Looking at this meme, I think maybe I mislabeled the right side (Scylla?). I think actually it's me who isn't comfortable with how much I like these ladies. I think that's what I'm avoiding — recognizing how much I like this lady I barely know. I think whenever I recognize that it worries me, because I know it is not justifiable, not rational, that I have no basis to trust her, and I'm afraid to get hurt.

And what would hurt? Rejection stings a little, for a little while, but I think I'm not avoiding rejection itself. I think I'm evading it because it would "prove" I'm a "bad person." I worry it is wrong to feel more strongly than she does or might feel, especially when I can't justify my strength of feeling. I expect to judge and hurt myself if the lady doesn't respond clearly to my interest. It's my own judgment that I'm avoiding, not hers.

Interesting to consider for next time.