I am crap at relationships, help please x

[smudger]

Sounds like you have self esteem issues like me. Im doing a 3 book course with a counsellor you can get off Amazon.Its by Melanie Fennell called Overcoming Low Self Esteem Self Help Course. Its a 3 part programme based on cognitive begavioural techniques. You can go at your own pace n u dont need to see a counsellor.Its really good and helps you take control of your life. I get easily offended and often interpret things completely the wrong way. Part of my problem (amongst many) is being assertive without being offensive or aggressive, so i don't assert at all, doormat syndrome or I go completely barmy n ruin what cud have been a lovely friendship where there may have been a simple misunderstanding!As a woman I like a man to be assertive but not in an unfair bullying kinda way.Likewise, its a quality I like in my female friends too! Its been said if you like yourself then others will like you, if you constantly say you are ugly n fat(thats my favourite) then others will begin to see you that way. Same goes with assertiveness.Hope this helps.

[NoPoet]

Warning: VERY LONG POST!!

there should be a dating area on here for people on here who are single and would love a partner..??

That works in theory, but it won't be fair on the men cos once I sign up for it, all the women are going to head my way. It will be like the end of an episode of Benny Hill. (j/k)

Seriously though, I don't know if it would be good, cos then people could end up burdening one another and making each other worse. I guess I'd risk it though if I knew I was going to meet someone nice.

My history with dating was awful too. i wasnt interested in dating, i just wanted to go to partys, travel with friends etc, but seemed to attract these intense guys who would be a friend then when i told them i just wanted to stay friends i got called everyname under the sun. i attracted stalkers too...urgh!!!

I actually believe that men are more vulnerable to falling in "unrequited love". I think men get attached more easily. I think this might be because men get less attention on average, so once they become close to a woman, they tend to want to hang on or become involved in some way.

I'm not saying this is right, I know there are loads of men who play the field, but look at it from our point of view:

Men have to make the first move. We must be careful how, where and when we approach a woman. We have to say exactly the right things. Even women themselves don't know what these right things are, so there IS no right way.

It's socially acceptable for a woman to treat a man like dirt if he says or does the wrong thing. I have heard plenty of horror stories, including the time my ex threatened to break a bloke's arm.

So basically we have to suck it up and trust to pot luck that we say the right thing to the right woman, and incidentally she's got to be in the right mood, and there's always the risk that she is not wearing her school uniform to attract a man but to "feel good about herself" and our attention is not welcome (now THAT would be taken by men as slutty, attention-grabbing behaviour), and she's already been chatted up by five people who treated her with drunken disrespect, and...

Men are often up for random sex or just a smooching session with no strings and with nothing but fun in mind, but there is a very long list of things men need to do to get there with a woman (read the advice on any dating site and you'll know the horrific task facing men). I asked female friends today what would happen if I simply went up to girls in a club and asked if I could kiss them - all of them strongly advised me to never do this.

The point is, sometimes we have had so many knock-backs or we simply don't want a relationship, we just want to snog or have sex. We do not see anything wrong with this. Sex to us is NOT complicated, it is NOT an entire series of Home and Away, it is NOT a "very special episode" of a teenage girl's soap opera.

Of course sex CAN be very special to men, but sex with that special someone is TOTALLY different to sex with a random in terms of emotional content. There is a VAST chasm of difference between me taking my new girlfriend to bed for the first time and a drunken snog with someone who stumbled across to me and told me I'm lovely.

We don't always WANT to have to chat someone up all night and buy her loads of drinks, then ask her out and get her number, then phone her while praying she still remembers us and still wants to be with us, then pick her up, buy her dinner and spend all night listening to her problems while we resolutely keep our mouths shut in case we seem self-obsessed, then spend three months getting to know her and spend all that time wondering if sex (which to a man is generally a REQUIREMENT in a relationship) is ever going to happen... aaaargh, sometimes we want to have FUN and be SPONTANEOUS!

Some men view that rigmarole with dread, and they've had fifteen knock-backs from smiling blondes in short skirts with their boobs out that night, so they come out with a stupid chat-up line out of drunken desperation and make all men look like selfish morons.

Anyway, I've come a very long way off topic here but I HOPE this redresses the balance slightly and gets my point across -- I find the whole dating game biased, unfair, distressing and basically a dance around the bush, if you'll pardon the unintentional pun.

I have got a chip on my shoulder... maybe one day it will be gone, but having read back through this post, I am saddened to realise it is probably here to stay!!

[peach]

sounds like you've gone after the wrong busty blondes with the short skirts....

i can only speak for myself, but ive never spoken rudely or been cruel to a man. quite the opposite.


what i think tho, is when i look at those women, i figure, they either feel extremely comfortable with thier bodies and want to show off a good thing, or, they are very insecure (thus the short outfits to attract male sexual attention?) and would be a nightmare to date.....perhaps another type of short skirt?
i think some people get confused and think sexual attention is telling them they are irresistable and therefore a worthwhile person. many women are judged on looks and so i think they tend to judge themselves on looks also....many women in my family are so focused on looks that i know it has attracted men to them, but has also eventually driven the men away.....

my brother has been having a hell time of it, his gf is a very pretty blonde with a taste for expensive things....shes also given him a very hard time. when i asked him why he stays with her, he says its because she is the best looking girl he can get.....this made me realise....men are very visual, while women are very emotional...no wonder we all have a hard time understanding where each other is coming from.....he did leave her in the end and she spent 8 months chasing him to get him back, she finally did, but the tables have turned now and she seems very appreciative to have him now. i think she realised that there are a lot of awful people out there to date, and when you get a good one.....hold on

maybe thats it...maybe you need to meet the bad ones to really appreciate a good one when she comes along?

im not a man, so i cant say i understand your issues, i dont, but as a women my issues have been quite different to what you have experienced with other women...if that makes sense.....

there are women out there who would love a nice man, a decent man.

when i met my man, he could barely talk, definatly not the cool type lol...
he was dressed very weird and was very shy....but there was obviously something i liked.....as im still here

maybe you should throw away the 'dating books'....here in australia, we dont date...at all...
also, sex never takes 3 months here...lol.....that just seems crazy...
a lot of my friends are very spontanous and fun.

it really sounds like you should try meeting a different type of women.....
if its one night stands and fun you want...then aim for that...
if you want to have a relationship, then, well, with that comes all the other stuff....
i really hope you do meet other types of women, so you may change your views on all of this and become open to whats really out there


oh and- i understand it must be horrid having to make the first move, but when a friend of mine did it, she said the guy was shocked and said he found her too foward and that women who try to make the first move as too dominant...so what can women do to help?

[NoPoet]

Peach, THANK YOU for your reply, it has helped me a lot!!

I came to NMP due to anxiety and depression, and as these problems have backed down, this whole relationship thing has come back into prominence. Relationships are one area of life that I have never been able to cope with and there are loads of reasons, most of which I mentioned in the previous post.

It brings a sense of angry futility, that I am being forced to jump through hoops for people who don't even know what they want. I guess I am a control freak, as I feel like everything slips beyond my control when it comes to women, and I feel at the mercy of another person's whims.

This is sort of how I felt when I decided to fight back against my anxiety. I do not cope well when I am not in charge of my life, I become stubborn and determined to fight for change, especially when I am being forced to do something that someone else wants me to do. (I have always struggled to follow rules and orders, which I guess is why I got made redundant and have never been promoted anywhere.)

Mixed messages

Western society seems to send mixed messages to both genders. Women are taught from birth that they must have a boyfriend, they must have a husband, and single girls are asking for trouble; yet they are also taught that they don't need men. I know several women who surround themselves with men to feel "safe" and from the sounds of it, as an ego boost, even though they do not want any kind of relationship or intimacy with these men.

Women have only 5% of the testosterone that men do so they cannot feel the same need for sex and physical intimacy that we do.

I read on one website that a man who goes without sex for one day is like a woman going without sex for 20 days; a man who goes without sex for 20 days feels like a woman who has gone without sex for a year. I'm not sure how true this can be as it takes the 5% thing literally.

Men, on the other hand, are thought of as unusual if they do not have a high sex drive and an obsession with women. Men think about sex more than women not only for biological reasons, but because we are constantly bombarded with sexual imagery. name me one programme or film which does not feature at least one sexy woman who appears to have been selected on the basis of her looks. Semi-naked women appear in car and computer game magazines, we are relentlessly confronted with fake lesbianism in the media (even though male homosexuality is still reviled, even by many women including women who fancy other women).

If you ask me it's no wonder so many women find their own gender attractive. They have been exposed to naked women in the media from day one just like we have. Therefore human beings are being programmed to think that the naked female form is sexually desirable. I would be interested to find any sexuality studies of cultures which do not have a mainstream, sex-obsessed media.

maybe you should throw away the 'dating books'....here in australia, we dont date...at all...
also, sex never takes 3 months here...lol.....that just seems crazy...
a lot of my friends are very spontanous and fun.

Again, in the West having "fun" seems to be illegal. As a man, I feel that I am automatically a paedophile/rapist/pervert/criminal. I have to be very careful about how I approach a woman, to the point where I just don't bother. I am literally afraid of approaching women, not just out of nerves, but in case I end up being humiliated by her. It would hurt me very much and ruin my night. :'(

Wanting sex is wrong; wanting a one night stand is wrong; if I come on strong I am being intimidating; to top it all my female friends constantly warn me that women are "not nice" and I need to be very careful because they will take me for a ride if they can. "Women love free drinks" is one warning I was given!

On the other hand my female friends tell me they have an easy time of it; when they want a man they just have to smile or say hello. One girl went around asking men to buy her drinks and simply walked off when they did. So if women want it easy, why do they make us work so hard? this seems like blatant sexism to me...

Women coming on to men

But women DO come on to me sometimes. I always forget about this cos I focus on the bad stuff. On the occasions where I go out looking nice and making eye contact with people, I do notice women looking sometimes. Again, female friends say I probably get a lot of attention that I don't notice cos women are too subtle or they play games, neither of which are appreciated by men by the way. My mum can reel off a list of girls I was close to who she thought fancied me. BUT THEY NEVER TOLD ME! So I never got with them. Needless to say, they never had trouble finding boyfriends, even if they continued to display an interest in me while they were in their new relationships.

I have had drunken women come onto me, but this was intimidating cos they do it in front of all their friends. One girl once slurred to me, "It's my birthday, do I get a snog?" but I declined, pretending I had a girlfriend. She then told me she was seeing one of the bouncers of the club so she understood.

If women hate it when we use horrible lines, it is hypocritical to expect men to respond to them, especially when it comes out of the blue in public. Men don't always like looking "easy" either -- if we are constantly getting rejected or ignore by women, we aren't going to be inclined to roll over for the first girl who snaps her fingers!

Also, when a relationship breaks down or I stop fancying a girl who isn't interested and I move on to someone else, I find the girls usually pursue me a lot, especially the girls who are up their own a*ses and don't normally give men the time of day. My male friends get annoyed when beautiful (but horrible) women keep trying to get into my good books. They're like dogs who bite you because they couldn't be arsed to play, but as soon as you ignore them they keep sniffing round trying to be friends.

On the other hand a woman who said to me "You've got lovely eyes" or "It's my birthday, can I have a kiss?" (as opposed to "do I get a snog"), and a woman who is not obviously very drunk (many girls who come on strong are very drunk - this does not come across as flattering, it makes me feel like a two o'clocker) would not have many problems with me.

[NoPoet]

Yeah I think I'm a god mate, my constant remarks about low self-esteem and depression and the way I admit I get very arsey with people really bring that point across. Thanks for pointing out deficiencies in my personality, ones that I am already aware of every minute of every day.

My horrible experiences and general sense of frustration with the opposite sex speak eloquently of the way I am the master of the universe and how I think women should be my slaves.

You don't get banned for speaking your mind here, but I would appreciate it if you would voice those kinds of opinions somwhere else. Like Mars.

[cathytink3rb3ll]

I think I'd like to chip in on this convo for a sec... phychopoet and I are quite good mates and go long back and I'd like to say that hes not like that at all. He just needs a break from a nice woman that will give him one (no pun intended)

Noone is perfect on here... We all have issues, thats why we are here in the first place. And I know some guy having a long rant might pee some women off a little. But id like to say hes not all that bad.

Hes been given some hard cards to play in his life with the opposite sex and is finding it hard to come to terms with. And instead of asking him if its all his fault i think we should be supporting him with some answers that he needs.

After all we are all here for support at the end of the day.

I hope you all appreciate my message

Thanks
x

[nomorepanic]

You don't get banned for speaking your mind here, but I would appreciate it if you would voice those kinds of opinions somwhere else. Like Mars.

Bit harsh I would like to add. Poppy wasn't rude so was there any need for that comment?

[suzy-sue]

Before the edit it was pretty rude .and a bit uncalled for ..When someone posts for help ,is it necessary to reply if you dont have anything constructive to say ...Better not to reply at all ,I would say ...If someone has had a bad time ,it does make you feel wronged and maybe angry for a while about the opposite sex .Constructive helped is called for and needed. Not an assasination of your personality ..Sue

[NoPoet]

Bit harsh I would like to add. Poppy wasn't rude so was there any need for that comment?

Nic, I felt that her original post was insulting. I'm not sure if you saw it, but is has been revised now, and it did come across as an attack on my personality - I think Suzy-Sue saw the original post as well, the one where I was accuased of seeing myself as "a God" and how she was "fed up" of reading my posts on the subject of relationships.

That's hardly constructive... how many people have I actually been harsh with on NMP? If someone doesn't like my posts, they can simply avoid my threads.

I find that when I vent my feelings about the opposite sex, I get shouted down and it causes a big debate, one reason why I rarely broach this subject... but what am I supposed to do, suffer for the rest of my life because I'm afraid to make a stand? If THAT was my attitude, I'd still be a shivering, anxious wreck.

Before the edit it was pretty rude .and a bit uncalled for ..When someone posts for help ,is it necessary to reply if you dont have anything constructive to say ...Better not to reply at all ,I would say ...If someone has had a bad time ,it does make you feel wronged and maybe angry for a while about the opposite sex .Constructive helped is called for and needed. Not an assasination of your personality ..Sue

Is that an attack on me? I never edited my post, and so far, nobody has offered me any help whatsoever from the post I made earlier today.

[cathytink3rb3ll]

get on messenger and talk to me!!