Take a long hard look in the mirror, and ask yourself, "What do I bring to the table in a relationship?" I can tell you now, the main thing a woman looks for isn't sex or money (they are nice additional extras, but not the main item for long term), it is safety. Do you make a woman feel safe? If you had a sister that you love, or more importantly a daughter, would you be happy letting her date someone like you? If not, fix that.

Thank you Guest!!! Wonderful, true and heartfelt. I wish i could still write.

And Bugout, very good points, thank you too.

Thank you ratfink11 and Nate. I hope it is of some help to someone. I do want to clarify something- I don’t think we should distract ourselves to avoid facing uncomfortable emotions and such, I think that we should do things which are distracting. The subtle difference there is that distracting ourselves is avoiding the problem and understanding it.
When we find something to do that is distracting we are doing something because we enjoy it, not just so that we don’t have to think or feel. We aren’t avoiding the problem and can still be introspective, but self development doesn’t have to be some punishing isolation where every moment is about seriousness and temperance. We grow while we live, how we live Shalea who we are, who we are shapes how we live. It creates a feedback loop, or sets us on certain trajectories. When we already feel negatively, and we start to unpack those feelings, it can be difficult mentally and emotionally. For most people, trying to tackle self growth like….

.. cramming for an exam where you shit yourself away and focus on nothing but your “homework” is not going to be helpful. Having some quiet moments of focus to examine and unpack how we feel and why and what causes that, and perhaps some things we can do to start changing our perspectives or results, can be good. There is a such thing as overthinking though. It’s different for everyone, but over thinking is the place where we have lost purpose or are working against it- an example is wanting to paint a fence but spending so much time thinking about the best way to do it, or trying to be most efficient or add things like: “if I’m going to paint I should fix that bad section first, if I fix that bad section maybe I should redo the posts to a different style..” and then months later we haven’t even started any of it because we keep thinking about it- our purpose was to paint the fence and we over thought it

The other place over thinking can usually be recognized is when we are harming ourselves. As said earlier, introspection and growth can bring discomfort or hardship. We may mourn for people and habits we are giving up, we might have to admit things about our behavior or face truths about ourselves or confront past traumas- that can hurt, but the key is to take those things in dosages we can handle. To not try to do everything all at once and then buckle under the weight of change or pain. It can be very counter productive to put ourselves into an “honesty spiral,” a place where we start out being honest with ourselves but over examine and over self criticize and start to really damage our self worth or mental well being. We may feel depressed or hopeless or lost. So in my view, it is important when looking at oneself to be kind to oneself, to have some fun and as best able make sure that through the process you are taking breaks and not just always living in the problems and sorting..

.. through your mental closet. It’s important as much as possible to spend time with friends and loved ones, to enjoy your life and do things you love. To get caught up in them in healthy ways.
At the end of the day, no matter what we are trying to do, no matter what things are weighing on us emotionally or in life when we feel these sorts of things, what it comes down to is we are longing to have a good life. Whatever our idea of a good life is. We want to have joy, we want to have experiences and to feel good and to be happy. That’s what it is 99.999% of the time. What makes us happy, what we think is a good life, these can vary person to person or day to day. But that’s what we want.

Our tendency is to latch on to an idea, that there is one path to happiness. That there is only one valid experience. Happiness isn’t a destination on a road, it is a moment. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, they can be unhappy. With all their wealth and access and the fact that they have a potentially endless string of people who would want to be friends or lovers- less wealthy but still very wealthy actors and such with good looks and piles of cash and the freedom to do almost anything they want are unhappy at times. Nothing we ever do will “reach happiness.” You can have happiness in a moment, however long that moment is, but nothing we’ve ever found as humans can just be found and leave a person happy forever. We also get used to things and tend to take them for granted at times or no longer see their value as we once did. So it’s a moving target.

We have to ask ourselves how can people be paralyzed in a car crash or have their faces burned off by acid or lose their spouses and money and children or so many things and keep going? How can you be happy when you can’t walk or type or wipe your own butt? It can truly be hard for people living with such circumstances at times- in whole most probably would prefer not to face such things. That said, so many people have lives they enjoy and while their lives are often changed, they adapt. My point isn’t to say that being lonely or wanting a Ferrari or whatever is equivalent to being diagnosed with painful chronic disease or losing your arms and legs- but it shows us that even in very extreme circumstances where people’s lives most likely change drastically from what they pictured or probably would have chosen, we can find joy and worth and value.

So it is tough to feel that need or want for another person and not have it satisfied. I won’t say I know exactly how you feel by I think like most people above a certain age, I can relate in having had times in life where I just wanted a partner or aspects of a partner and it could feel overwhelming and suffocating at times. You can feel a twinge inside of you perhaps when you see a couple and think about how nice that would be or how you’d like to be in that moment but are instead watching them have it from the sidelines. My comments about distraction are just that- again, not to distract yourself to ignore your emotions, but that when we are happy and doing things we enjoy we aren’t going to notice that couple, or if we do we aren’t likely to get that twinge or more than the slightest and briefest longing before our minds go: “you don’t have time for that, we are about to do this other thing that’s going to be awesome!”
Because who we are shapes our life and our life shapes who…

.. we are, we have the chance to change our trajectory. To determine our identity as the “person longing for what they don’t have..” or “the person enjoying what they do have and finding new things to enjoy.” When we shift to the latter, we start to find things that fulfill us and make us happy. We start living a fulfilling and happy life and that helps shape us into a happy and fulfilled person. We do things we enjoy. We find happiness in the moments we can or make it as able.
That’s the big take away- don’t get so caught up in HOW you want to find happiness that you ignore all the potential alternative paths to happiness around you. Some people want kids and they just can’t make them not for lack of trying. IVF and such doesn’t always work even if you do 7,10,20 rounds. They might adopt, they might foster, they might teach or work with kids or they might find something else. I’m not going to say this sort of process is going to erase any desire or any negative feelings you might

Ever have when you want something and can’t have it. How many people dream of walking on the moon or mars, being president, winning American idol, meeting a dead historical figure etc? If we stop and think about it there are lots of things we want or might want that aren’t really even possibilities. Finding love I believe is far more possible or practical than walking across mars, but the fact is that while we might land on mars in our lifetimes, you never know, until or unless that happens anyone pining for the red planet had to keep living in a world where they are denied that desire.

So life is all about the ‘meantime’.
We are always waiting. Think about it. We tend to contextualize life off major events. As a kid you might be counting the time until recess, counting the time to holiday break, and trying to get through the in between.
Then we counted the time until we were out of high school maybe. Until we were old enough to drive, old enough to move out or get a job or whatever. We grow up and count the time until the next day off, count a year or years to our next decent vacation. We look at milestones like first place on your own, first car, marriage, retirement- working decades and sacrificing spending the money you earned so that someday you can do what you want with the money, do all the things you couldn’t do with your 2 weeks off a year or whatever. We are always waiting on something over the horizon. Always just trying to make it until payday or the weekend or the semester break or for the tax return or for summer or for fall…

And in between we are killing time. That’s not the best way to do things because most of our lives aren’t in those moments. Most of your life in school is in the classroom and in studying. Most of your work life is at work, not weekends. So finding ways to be happy while we wait for those moments IS life.
Finding a coworker to talk to, finding the parts of your job you like and trying to do as much of that stuff while avoiding the stuff you hate, having friends at school or having an interest in the subjects you are learning… and love can be that way too. It never stops. You have no partner and then maybe you do. But now they have feelings. They have wants. They get bored or whatever else- you generally have to evolve, dating, going steady, engagement, marriage, cohabitation- there are all these places where we tend to need to recommit.

But what is there after marriage? Kids some might say- the “next level” of commitment- tying your lives together and showing trust and being vulnerable to this person. But then what? For 18,20,40+ years after that? Renew vows…? Plan for trips or adventures or projects in retirement? But you still need to GET THERE. you need to live every day for the next 30+ years or whatever and do it in a way that when you get there you still want to see this persons face. So what do we do for 30 years? Just kill time? Why would we need another person to just wait out a clock? Life shouldn’t be spent waiting. Our goal is to enjoy it. We want a partner to enjoy life with and help increase our joy. In simple math-
If we want to end up with a happy life, having a partner and no joy is not a happy life. Having a joyful life and no partner is a happy life.

The partner is not the main course they are the toppings. If you ordered buffalo wings and they didn’t send the ranch (or whatever sauce), You probably will not be as upset and will be able to still have an enjoyable meal much more than you would just drinking ranch (or whatever sauce.) sometimes we get the sauce we want and they forget the wings and we just have to put the sauce on whatever we have to eat. That’s ok too.
In the meal of life focus on the main course and even if they come a little late you can still enjoy the sauces, or you may find st that like you’re quite satisfied and don’t need the sauce at all.

One thing I wanted to mention but fell asleep is- a riff on bugouts premise- of course what we bring to the table matters, but what is important is that we are who we want to be. If you are who you want to be in life or are working on it, the right person for you is the one who appreciates who you are and what you bring. I’ve known VERY successful and wealthy women who enjoyed dating men who were not so much of either. They often liked rough neck guys. They were attracted to the image and attitude and found something about men working “honest” labor and using strength and cleverness and knowledge and such. They didn’t need money from a partner and what they wanted was someone who they found attractive. You might think to date some beautiful rich woman you’d need to be “worldly” and wealthy and such- but everyone is different so be who you want to be and try to live how you want to live. The luck, the numbers, are that in general there are certain things that more potential partners..

desire in average or value. So I mean- if you make a film about the politics of small English towns in the 14th century concerning water rights- that’s a niche audience but the people who want that content are probably going to love your film more than any other right? Compare that to something like transformers films that has lots of viewers but most people aren’t exactly die hard loyalists to the film franchise.
So that said- my riff on what you bring is this- like a reversal of my boring friend story- if you opine that you have so much to offer someone else and feel it is wasted, realize that there is nothing stopping you from giving those gifts to yourself and the other people in your life. If you know how to show a girl a good time- show yourself a good time. If you know how to be kind and attentive and supportive- be those things to yourself.
If you think you make a good provider and can be responsible and provide s good life- provide them to yourself.

Take what you have to offer others and offer it to yourself. Take the things that you think a partner can give you and find how you can give them to yourself. Encouragement? Encourage yourself. Connections? Get out and network. Entertainment? Discover how to be entertained without them. Sex? We covered this. New experiences? You can do those things. You can pick things you’ve never tried and try them. Companionship? We have friends and family and there are all sorts of groups for making friends or engaging people or doing social activities.
Another time hindered option, and one shouldn’t do this on a whim and it is only to be considered by someone who takes the responsibility seriously- a dog. Dogs are great companions and give us lots of opportunities to meet people, get out, feel loved and needed, etc.

So it sucks and I’m sorry you’re going through it. I hope you find what you are looking for or what you need and can be happy. Just love your life as best you can and try to get out there a bit and interact with people. The more local the better generally but in 2023 we aren’t generally limited to who is around us so do what suits you. Best of luck.