I have dating anxiety.
I'm a decent looking guy (big dick too) but whenever I receive any female attention I get this terrible sense of dread. I'm not a virgin but I haven't had a serious girlfriend due to my anxiety. I have no problem meeting new people and making friends male or female, but I cannot shake these deep feelings of fear and apprehension when it comes to romance.
Any advice?
find something in common to talk about is helpful
I'm not sure you understand. I have no problem finding girls who like me; we always have stuff in common but when she makes it clear she's interested, I just want to run and hide. It's not a problem of finding things in common, the problem is I'm terrified of dating or being in a relationship.
try
Do you think of any past experiences when a girl expresses romantic interest in you?
Yeah, when I was very young (starting age 5) my mom's friend had a daughter my age who was nuts about me. It felt like a lot of pressure when this girl took me into her bedroom and started kissing me because I had no concept of romance at the time. I kept thinking I would do something wrong and my mom would yell at me or something.
At this early age, all I knew about relationships was that they break down and end badly. I had just seen my parents split up; aunts uncles and cousins getting married and divorced. As far as I knew all relationships ended badly so I wasn't eager to get into one myself.
Your anxiety could be rooted in that collection of experiences. Worrying about making mistakes is a common roadblock to developing genuine relationships.
Have you gotten a hold of this girl since then? How's your current relationship with your mom?
Also applicable to my situation, bump
I can sympathize because my family was plagued with divorces during my childhood, too. Hearing more about how my parents were before they broke up enlightened me; I realized sometime after I got back home from university that I don't want to put much effort into sustaining a relationship.
I'm 31 now and this girl got married years ago. I told her mom I always felt bad about failing to return the feelings she had for me.
Right now I'm not talking to my mom. I moved out (again) back in May, and in November there was an incident where she chased me into a parking lot and screamed at me saying I had to drop everything and come have coffee with her at 9pm. She said she was extremely worried about me because I missed one phone call she made (I was out grocery shopping).
She's always been very controlling and because I moved out of her house she couldn't handle the fact I don't have to follow her rules any more.
I don't want to visit her because every time I see her she says I sound like I'm sick and I need to take better care of myself.
have you talked to a psychiatrist or psychologist? or even your family doctor? Nothing a little medicine cant fix if its an anxiety disorder
I have a psychiatrist, but he refuses to talk with me about psychological problems. (I have bipolar 2) All he does is ask me if I want to kill myself and prescribe medication. Every time I mention anxiety, he says I should find a psychologist. They cost about $120 an hour and I can't seem to find one who will just tell me straight up how to fix my problem. They just want to hold my hand and talk to me like I'm a child.
You don't have "dating anxiety" you have autism faggot
Going off of these, I recommend you clarify to yourself what you want out of a sexually involving relationship, as thoroughly as possible. Flow-of-thought writing and diagrams are handy for this. It's hard to be realistic/practical/commonsense in these exercises with little experience, but that's not the point of them and you'd be your harshest (and hopefully only) critic anyway.
As you converse and go out with potential partners, analyze them in comparison to your ideals and consider if any of their deficits are covered by other traits. I know you have the capacity to control who stays in your life, OP; seize it.
If you bothered to read the thread you'll see my diagnosis is bipolar disorder.
They're not licensed to do much else, unfortunately. I believe the economic pressures practicing psychologists have to face ripple throughout society (at least in America).
Bipolar, autism and faggotry. Sounds about right
>clarify to yourself what you want out of a sexually involving relationship
That's just it. I don't really care about sex or about having some friend who is "there for me". I'm intimidated by women because most of them have had more sex partners than they can count. I don't have any friends right now either.
It's a conundrum. I'm lonely but I don't want to be around other people.
>I'm lonely but I don't want to be around other people
What if other people approach you?
Thanks for the bump.
They do, sometimes and I get a terrible feeling of dread and anxiety.
Break the cycle, I lost my virginity at 24 after holding myself back throughout my youth. Feeling the same feelings at 16 everyone has lost their virginity im so far behind, in college wow now everyone is having sex from a frame of it's just for fun and I'm looking for a puppy dog innocent type connection. After college it feels like it's sex and dating normal for everyone else and I'm just so out of the loop that I couldn't be relatable.
Just stop, break the cycle. This is completely self-inflicted. The night I lost my virginity I did within a week of taking action, meet girl, date girl, fuck girl. It was that simple and at the end of it their was this relief, but also a tinge of sadness. Like I missed out out and I couldn't blame anyone else or write myself as a hard case. I couled have got on top of it whenever I felt like if I just took action earlier.
The girl isn't on a pedestal. She isn't better than you. She's either objectively what you want and you take action or you don't. If you love yourself you'll push through and take action to get what youw ant out of life. I realized that last year.
Try dating guys instead
>I'm intimidated by women because most of them have had more sex partners than they can count
>intimidated
I see no reason to be, unless you're deathly afraid of contracting an STI. If you and a girl end up caring about each other before the two of you have sex, a difference in amount of past partners won't matter much.