Is there ANY GENUINE SOLUTION out of the Catch 22 situation?

In the past couple of months I have had so many thoughts rattling around my mind, and been spending many evenings and lunch breaks wandering around local parks collecting my thoughts, talking to myself, and trying to find SOLUTIONS to scramble my way out of this catch 22 situation. 

The problem being, how do I stop being perpetually single and be able to GET IN to relationships without it being a huge effort! 

How to go beyond first dates and get through the HOOPS necessary to get to physical intimacy with a woman.

I have been thinking hard and strategically about what I actually want. Do I want a steady girlfriend? Do I want a friend with benefits? Do I just want one off encounters?

The answer is what I would like MOST is to be settled into a steady relationship with an attractive girl. HOWEVER, failing that, and in the meantime, I want to find a way to have some sort of sensual and sexual intimacy with women (without paying huge prices), while searching for a proper girlfriend. It's not just the having sex, its things like walking to the beach together, hand in hand, extended touching, all the things that you see couples do.

HOW DO I ACHIEVE THIS?

Here's a summary of how I am feeling and why:

Wanting to make up for lost time in terms of not having sex and relationships but having no clear methodology as to how to go about this. Feeling like its my fault for not trying hard enough when I was younger.

This is the real Catch 22: IF I said to myself "I'm now 40, I want to sort out of my driving problem and learn to drive" (which I did at 30 btw), while the process of undertaking lessons and tests may not be easy, you can sure of these THREE things:

1. It is perfectly socially acceptable to be OPEN about this and say "Hey, I'm turned 40, I've decided its time I learnt to drive"

2. OTHER PEOPLE will be supportive of your aim, they'll say "good for you" rather than "just be yourself and stop looking.

3. There is a CLEAR METHODOLOGY of how to achieve your aim to become a driver. Hire an instructor who will teach you HOW to drive, and learn and practice everything you need to pass a test. Just about anyone with the determination will achieve it eventually

The same could be said for almost every other goal like learning a language, playing an instrument or losing weight.

Yet when it come to finding a girlfriend, or intimate encounters in the meantime...not only is there NO CLEAR METHODOLOGY but you're left in a real catch 22 situation, in that if you tell a prospective partner that you are looking and TRYING to find a girlfriend, or that you have a genuine STRUGGLE in this area, they will likely be TURNED OFF dating you! WHAT A CATCH 22 - YOU'RE HAVING TO DISGUISE YOUR TRUE FEELINGS, and try to be social and interested in other stuff that you're not! WITH EVERYTHING ELSE AT LEAST YOU CAN BE OPEN ABOUT YOUR OBJECTIVES.

And yes people do have occasional flings, intimate encounters and friends with benefits, yet if you ASK a woman if she'd be happy to be a friend with benefits you're most likely to a frosty response!

With all that said, I do believe that if you REALLY want something, there is always a solution out there, you've just got to scramble around to find it. 

"You'll meet her when your not looking" The PROBLEM

So many times when I talk about my lack of dating success, I get told something like "just relax, chill out more, the right girl will turn up when you least expect it...."

Now, if I was 20 years old, and was REGULARLY meeting datable women, I could except this fine. However, being 40 years old, and having been to many singles events, speed dating and other meet-up type events over many years, and now actually having a decent social life (largely thanks to covid ironically) and having been to many salsa dancing classes and events in recent years...and seriously NOT seeking to date anyone, just being around friends...then one has to realise I am talking about my dating frustrations IN VIEW of the fact that I HAVE been doing exactly what you said...yet when after so many years of being socially active and STILL you have little dating prospects, or at least not knowing how to utilise them...then if you want to change that it is no good just saying "it will happen when you're not looking".

I don't want to be in this situation at age 70, 60, or even 50, look at attractive young girls while I'm looking old and grey and think "if only I tried when I was younger". But the only way to PREVENT those feelings when you're older (which I'm starting to get already is to TRY HARDER when you're younger. 

And with ANYTHING ELSE in life that you want to achieve, such as learning to drive, acquiring a skill like playing an instrument, or taking up a certain sport, or losing weight, you are expected to accomplish this through EFFORT and DETERMINATION and there is NO STIGMA attached to saying you are TRYING, people will admire you for this. 

Want to lose 3 stone? "Oh the weight will drop off when you stop thinking about it...?" Of course not.

So if you're aim is to improve your dating and relationships life, you're in a CATCH 22 if appearing to TRY is going to be detrimental to your success!

Anyway here is what I'm thinking when I hear people say "it will happen when you're not trying"

If you are a MAN, women will RARELY be direct and tell you straight that they fancy you, or ask you out, they will rather give off subtle hints in the hope you will make the first move. There's been a few occasions when I thought this may be happening, in which case I had to think VERY hard about how to ask her out, but for the most part, I CANNOT READ THE SIGNS. People have told me about these types of situations retrospectively but at the times I just don't see it. And the times in which it happens are probably too few and far between to become good at noticing the signals, and usually require instant response when you least expect it.
Given that is the situation, and women are very rarely going to be direct, then HOW, as a MAN can you expect it to just 'happen'?

Why I'm restarting this blog ten years later!

Well it's been over 10 years since my last post and reached the grand old age of 40! Blogging is one of those things you start doing because you are eager to share some information, and for a period of time you think you are going to want to post something everyday, but at some point you begin to tire of it. You still have loads you wish to report but presenting that information can be burdensome, especially when very few people are reading this.

Summary of the Past Ten Years

Am I now married or in any serious relationship? No. However, I did have a couple of short term girlfriends back to back at age 32 in 2014-2015, one I met at a singles night and the other on pof. It was a bit of a fluke I feel. I had several dates with another girl a bit further away in 2017. And a couple of other dates with two different women earlier this year. Otherwise not much to report on that front.

However in terms of my social life in general, things have improved incredibly. During 2012 I continued in the dating coaching I had in 2012, my coach suggested I that join a band, start playing my guitar in live settings (I am a fairly good guitarist btw - not sure if I mentioned that earlier) and try to be seen to be around more women, to make myself more attractive to women. 

Around this time my uncle and another friend were hosting a monthly music night, mostly original acts, and I managed to get a few opportunities to play there around 2012 and into 2013. However more significantly, in 2013 I met an attractive female singer through a musicians networking site, who happened to live a ten minute walk away from me, and after initially meeting in June 2013, we performed our first live, paid gig in a pub in August, and continued to do more gigs in different venues, for the next five years, and this opened up a whole new social life for me. Things have largely dried up on this front, we may or may not do more music together in future, but its been a fantastic experience.

In 2017, when things were drying up on the music front, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and take up salsa dancing, which I enjoy very much to this day. I wouldn't say I made many close friends salsa dancing - its not an easy environment to get to know people that well as people are there to dance not talk - however it is added enormous value to my life in terms of acquiring the skill that allows you to go to salsa events confidently and thus opens up a new social world, and you get to interact with women, some very attractive ones I might add. 

I was really getting into salsa and had a few other social outlets in 2019 and then...oh no, 2020 happened. The lockdown in the spring of 2020 was some of my worst nightmares come true, and took me back to the sad place I was in in the early 2000s when I had no friends, except this time there wasn't any potential to forge friendships. Because everyone was scared, either of catching the virus, or of being caught by the police. I couldn't even ask someone to meet for a cup of tea without being called something nasty!

Now if I had seen some tangible, verifiable and robust scientific justification for the lockdown, and real evidence that normal human interactions between healthy people were now somehow going to kill people, and that this lockdown was for a strictly limited period of no more than a couple of months - after which we go back to normal with NO restrictions of any kind...I would have been OK with it. However I did my research and found no such evidence that lockdown was justified, yet massive evidence that we were experiencing grand scale fraud driven by people with vested interests...in which case, if there is no clear scientific justification for putting us into lockdown, how can we ever trust the government to give us the scientific justification to get us out of lockdown?

However, against all the odds, I made more friends than ever before in 2020. I connected with others online who thought exactly like me, and we started meeting in parks, against the guidance. It was indeed quite easy for those of us who disagreed with the prevailing narrative to make friends, as we all felt isolated, lost friends and were desperate for like minded connections.

Time to find a girlfriend

However as I stated at the start of this post, while my friendship circles have increased significantly, this has not automatically translated into me finding a girlfriend. However I have a very good friend who I met through the lockdown period who is very good on this front, we discuss this regularly. 

I feel that now I have hit 40, its time to really focus on finding a special lady, and going on more dates in the meantime. It's been getting to me lately, however I thought I would use this annonymous blog to document my thoughts on this and my journey.

Review of an Organised Social and Approching More Girls

Last night I went to an organised social, the first for several months now. Everyone there was between 18 and 29, with an equal mix of men and women. I only decided to go on the day. Having not been to any social like this for sometime, and after having had a new haircut, with a more fashionable style, I just couldn't face staying in on my own again.

The place was very busy when I arrived but I settled in quite nicely. It was mainly the men who were there at first, the girls seemed to arrive all at a similar time about 20 minutes later.

One unfortunate dynamic that occured in the first pub was that the girls ended up sitting all round a table, and the guys were standing around mingling beside the other table. I mean I was quite happy to mingle with the guys and as always do my best to be socialable and take an interest in everyone. But what seemed to happen at one point, and I can never pinpoint easily how this happens, is that the guys were split into a couple of groups and I somehow found myself shut out of both conversation. Solution - toilet time!

Back from the toilet things got a bit better as the guys started sitting down on another table. In the meantime I introduced myself and shook hands with the girls, along with some other men there, but the combination of the loud music and the positioning of the girls in a circle made it virtually impossible to have any proper conversation with them.

Soon after though, we moved to another pub. I'd already mentioned to the guys after I came back from the toilet that "I'm not happy with this dynamic, with the girls all around that table and the guys standing around, we need to go somewhere else to break this dynamic!" This did seem like the worst possible dynamic because when your somewhere sitting round a table it doesn't really look noticable if your not really engaged in the conversation, whereas if you are standing up mingling and you're and the converstion of the people closest to you are talking ahead of you, you can look rather like a 'loser.' That said you don't want to be stuck at the same seat all night. You need a mix of standing and mingling and sitting.

As we moved to another pub I managed to interact with the girls more. Prior to the night and on the train journey there I had done my usual brainstorming. This was for both possible topics to disucss, and also conversational techniques and opinion openers to use. I largely feel I succeeded with this.

I had more social success in the second pub. I managed to get sitting on a stall opposite a couple of girls and got them engaged in a conversation, using some of the techniques I have learnt in the past year. I tried out a new opinion opener on them (although I wasn't making a cold approach). Later on I managed even to use an ice-breaker, with one man and one girl, that I actually learned unwittingly from my parents to get a couple of people talking, and to get the conversation to become more interesting. I feel really proud of this moment because I actually managed to lead the conversation for a time. However I may also have unwittingly got those two into some type of 'us' zone, as on the second time round, they both agreed to do it again, and have the loser by a drink. When he suggested this I said I wasn't prepared to play such a game as I didn't have enough cash left, so the two of them did it between them.

Eventually we went into a third pub but by this time the group seemed to be dissembling, probably due to the crowds of people. So I decided at this point I would slip back to the station, but not before going into a favourite pub in the town and making a cold approach with my new opener. I found a couple of girls and a suitable moment to approach them, keeping an eye on my mobile whilst pretending I was recieving a text whilst looking for my window of opportunity. This time I seemed to hit the mark as far as this went. The girls seemed to be engaging with me, one of them even asked me what I do, thus investing something herself into the conversation. Mind you, they said they had to leave by this time. So mixed feeling about this one!

I bumped into a girl I had been speed dating with coming out of that pub. She recognised me, though I did not recognise her. And I managed a fifteen mintue interaction at the train station sitting down in the waiting room. I found an excuse to give that girl my number, though I don't think I liked her enough to want to ask for hers. A man from work was also entering the station and saw me chatting to the girl. She said to him "we only just met." I hope I impressed him somewhat.

Overall I am pleased I was able to put some things I have learnt recently into practice, and perhaps one thing I have learnt is to take a more chilled out approach to approaching girls. That said I still feel I have some social deficiency that I cannot quite pinpoint, but that seems to prevent me from actually making real friendships and bonding with people, particularly women. I hope to continue practicing doing these kinds of interactions.

Being Secure in Your Insecurities: A Challenge for 2012

A couple of months ago, I was definitely feeling like I was quite poorly grounded, and this was showing itself somewhat in my Facebook status's. The reason was to do with my uncertainties. For a start I am studying accountancy in my spare time but I really don't know when and how I'll be able to get a job in that type of work. Also socially I'm feeling somewhat poorly grounded. Of course there's always organised socials but that is very much an artifical context, and what I am lacking is any kind of close group of mutual friends of both sexes and my age range that I can hang out with, and get to know girls through. Sometimes it looks like something is about to take off that will change that, but all too often those thing don't materialise due to other people's circumstances. It means it's hard to know from one week to the next, or one month to the next, what social opportunities there may be. I have a number of friends that meet up with me for a cup of tea or something, but thats mainly older single guys, and all too often on my Saturday evenings I'm left with a choice of a social in an artificial context or being on my own.

I feel quite insecure about the fact that I am always seeking out new people. I don't really want to have that identity. At the same time I am very much a political person and an 'issues' man. My interests are quite specialist in a way and not everyone wants to talk about them. Politics by nature is something that divides people rather than unites them. So I feel awkward about on the one hand being political, into my own interests and views etc, and yet also feeling insecure socially and wanting to make new friends, regardless, really of their opinions on everything.

Being socially in need is not an identity that I really want, yet I am socially in need and don't want to be on my own, without opportunities to meet women.

To add to the mix, there are things that make me worried, and things that make me angry.

I am very much aware of that fact that a man who is well grounded and secure in his identity is far more attractive to women than one who poorly grounded. And I definitely want to be well-grounded, but how is that possible when life is full of uncertainties?

Being Secure in Your Insecurities

I think that over the past year, I have steadily learnt from one of my closest friends how to be secure in your insecurites. My friend has been through a divorce this past year, and the issues around visiting his son whilst going through the divorce. On top of that he is living with another couple and isn't likely to ever to be able to afford to buy his own property.

My friend has uncertainties and issues. But he is very much an alpha male. He comes across as well-grounded despite his issues. He is very much a leader of men. Other men, including myself will call him when they have a problem, and he is very good at helping guys get out of their rut, who probably otherwise would not have any way of breaking out and fulfilling their potential.

I meet with this guy and a group of other guys every few weeks. One thing I have identified about my friend is that he is secure in his insecurities. This is something I hope to become this year.

Usually as I start a new year I will begin with a degree of optimism as I determine to make a fresh start, hoping all my problems with go away and brainstorming how to expand my social circule. However, most people have some kind of issue which won't disappear overnight. As I've thought about this, it seems that in order to be secure in your insecurities, you need to first know yourself well and know exactly what your insecurities are, and to in a sense, contain them all into separate boxes.

If its an uncertainty about your social life, then its good to identify what your issue is, and what it is you all looking and hoping for. If it is a struggle with your identity or who you are as an individual, it is good to be able to pinpoint what is causing you to be insecure. If it is about an ongoing worry or anger issue, it is good to be able to pinpoint precisely what it is you are worried or angry about, identifying the issue. Put the issue in a box, so it doesn't get out of hand.

It may not always be possible to eliminate a certain problem entirely, however there should always be ways to manage the problem to avoid it escalating and getting out of control. Identifying the problem is the first step to tackling the issue, because by identifying it you made it seem smaller - it's not as big as you first think it is. And it then enables you to go and talk to someone about the problem and seek the precise help you need.

Often when a person is in a panic or in a fit of rage, much of the reason for this is because something has just occurred that has put that person into 'shock' mode, and there hasn't been time for that person to digest the issue they're worried about, so the problem seems a lot bigger than it is. Once the person has had time to compose themself and break down the issue and identify what aspect is causing worry, anger, stress etc, they are far better equipped to address the issue.

A soldier, full of energy, will be far more effective when he can pinpoint who his specific enermy is and target them, than when he faced with his opposing enermy territory that is too much to handle, and find himself in a panic about it and not know which part of enermy territory he should target.

Its the same principle with dealing with personal problems. Identify the insecurity, then try to be comfortable with this insecurity, knowing that is part of who you are, and then with a clear understanding of the problem, work on addressing the problem. That's what I call being secure in your insecuritites.

The Right Way to Address Another Persons Negative Behavioral Traits

A very minor incident that happened today reminded me and helped me to clarify in my mind something I've been thinking about lately, to do with dealing with bad behavior, or negative behavioral traits, that may occur in people with Aspergers, but also applies to neuro-typicals.

I know a man who is in many ways very helpful, but has a number of undesirable traits that he seems to be somewhat aware of himself. Those traits are firstly, that he can quckly change his tone from being friendly to being somewhat aggresive, after something he sees that irritates him, and secondly, he is easily able to see the negatives in people, and can find a bone to pick with anyone he knows.

On several occasions, he has had to point out to me a few technical mistakes I make occasionally, sometimes when he has seen a pattern. These are not fatal errors or especially numerous ones, but the type that everyone will make from time to time. He has often accused me, when pointing out these errors, of sighing and groaning at him or over-reacting or even taking offence at them, and has said he finds it 'rude.' He's accused me of trying to pass the blame onto another person. This is led to us almost falling out once or twice.

Now when someone tells me I've done something wrong or made a mistake. that's bad news. It doesn't really matter who the messenger is, although how the messager delivers may impact my impression of the seriousness of the error. But it's bad news because I want to get things right, I want to be regarded as competant, I want to progress in life an in my career, and anything that says I'm not up to standard is bad news. How do we normally react to bad news? With a sigh or a groan. That's our natural reaction!

So you've just had a tickling off over a basic mistake, perhaps some errors in a spreadsheet or walking too fast, you naturally sigh and groan, the the same person moans at you for a sigh or a groan and tells you you're being rude, then guess what - you have compounded the problem. You are now faced with two pieces of bad news - you've made an error and your behavior is sub-standard and rude. What's you naturally reaction? An even bigger sigh, and on, and on. It can go round in circles.

Now this type of situation happens all the time. It happens in schools when a telling off over a sub-standard homework assignment is followed by a a telling off over a bad reaction to the teacher's displeasure. At least that's how I see it.

Now my question is, do we learn better when we are in a good mood or a bad mood? Sometimes it appears the only times we're taught how to 'behave' is by being told off when we get it wrong. As autistic speaker Ros Blackburn has said, there is a difference between being told how to behave, and being told off about how you behave. I would like to suggest that after facing a rebuke on two different accounts, it is a bit much to expect one to walk back to their desk with a happy smile on their face!

It is important that we distinguish between what is 'rude' and what is a natural reaction to bad news. I strongly object to the charge of 'rudeness' simply because I'm displaying my natural reaction, and the fact I happen to have a nervous and reactionary disposition and a tendency to panic. One must be careful in their use of words. If we say 'it may appear rude' is better than 'that's rude' it helps to shows we recognise that they are not being malicious.

The main point I wish to make is this. If someone, after facing a ticking off over one thing, is reacting badly, and has a behavioral trait that needs to be addressed for whatever reason, the time to address it is not when that person is being told off for another misnomer. No, the time to address such traits is when a more calm, controlled and positive situation arises, such as their annual review, which will most likely begin with a few 'well dones.' If more urgent, organise a one-to-one meeting several hours or days later when that person is in a good mood, and at that kind of meeting start off with something positive, and just gently mention the negative trait or issue that needs addressing, and explain calmly how that person needs to be aware how their behavior is impacting others. That way, it will also help ensure that what you are saying is accurate depiction of the person's behavior and not a 'reaction' to it. A few positives will assure them that their misnomers do not make them incompetent or a failier, and that in itself will mean that they will be less likely to react badly when the next one is brought to their attention.

In short, don't bombard you child, pupil or work colleague with more than one rebuke at once. Address behavior when that person is in a good mood in a planned and organised setting, and do it all carefully and sensitively.

Social Shields and Avoiding Awkward Conversations

For as long as I can remember, I have adopted various 'social shields' as a way to get out of an awkward conversation. By awkward conversations I am talking about when someone asks me a question about an issue that I wish to keep private, not because of any kind of bad behavior I've done, but when it relates to a matter of personal preferences that for some hard to explain reason is a sensitive issue for me - often because there is some kind of pre-concieved image tied into my preference whichever way that I am embarrased to associate myself with. My main social shields used to be my watch, and being concerned about time keeping, and needing the toilet. These days, it tends to be my mobile, and its use is not in such obvious situations as it used to be, as I am better prepared and able to handle more questions.

One thing I am sensitive to is knowing what personal things certain people know about me and what I keep private from them. Now sometimes I may have very mixed feelings about whether I want to tell someone I know, such as a work colleague, certain things about my life, preferences and beliefs. On the one hand if I do tell them, it will open myself up to some more interesting conversations and enable me to discuss things that I definitely do want to talk about, but won't make much sense unless I explain the sensitive issue first. On the other hand, revealing the sensitive issue has the potential to give rise to more awkward questions and conversations with that person, and there may be future occassions when I may be concerned as to what that person is thinking about me when a certain situation arises (i.e. if you tell someone you fancy a certain girl and then three months later you're all out together, that's just one general example of the sort of thing I mean). On the basis that you cannot undo information you have given to someone, I generally play safe, and if telling that person something about me is just going to make life harder, I just choose avoid to avoid that topic.

What makes life very difficult, is when someone, whilst not necessarily asking you direct, tries to engage you in a conversation about something that just so happens to be a sensitive issue for you. Sometimes the conversation will start on a 'safe' subject, and then in a way that cannot possibly be anticipated, the other person veers the conversation off into what happens to be your senstive area. Sometimes they may feel very strongly about an issue, and I strongly disagree with them, and they try to engage me into a topic, and when this happens, the only form of defense I can use is to pretend to be having to concentrate on whatever I'm doing a bit more, or look at the clock. If I express my views on the matter, I feel it could lead to a whole host of awkward questions, and potentially awkward situations in future - so it is safer just to keep the whole subject private.

When it comes to how open I am on a certain issue, I am often wanting to be all or nothing with people. Either that person knows the full story, or much of it when it comes to my views or preferences on this subject, with all the whys and that, or I just keep quiet about it. Because that person only knowing half the story is likely to make me feel most uncomfortable and leave me wondering what that person is thinking. Besides 'coming out' as such (I'm not gay) on a subejct and explaining everything at once provides a necessary shield against potential awkward questions that may arise in due course. Its like answering them all in advance so you don't have to face them unexpectedly later.

What If They Find Out Through A Third Party

Unfortantly, a recent incident occured by which I appear to have discovered, that a certain person does know after all something about me that I intended to keep private. I have a number of ideas about how that person may have found out. This is surprising in a way, in view of the way they had been talking to me about this subject. I have to say I have absolutely no respect for someone who knows your secrets, and then tries to engage you with a conversation topic you haven't opened up about to try to get you t reveal more, when revealing with could make life more difficult in future. Now the issue I wish to address is: How do you deal with this type of issue with a person with aspergers?

In short I would say, when a person has found something out about another, and has become apparent to both parties, that really that person would rather not have had them know, but its out there now anyway, the best way is to try and reveal in gently, away from others, that you happen to know this, and give the person time to ask questions about what they know and explain their position, and 'come out and reveal all.' Basically revealling everything necessary to avoid awkward conversations in future. Give the person time and space to adjust to the fact you knew about this issue, and if necessary allow them time out to wander and think it through.

I am of course beig very vague in this post, this is necessary to protect my own and other people's identities among those I know. How exactly one will deal with this will vary upon the individual situation. But I hope readers will understand the general principles here, in terms of why some issues will want to be kept private, and have to sensitively tackle a sensitive issue with someone, especially one with aspergers, when unwanted things have become revealled.