Can't fall in love?

Does anyone else have this problem?

I'm 20, female, never been in love or even been really attracted to any guys. I know what I find attractive, but my standards are way too high. (And those that do manage to fit the standards, would have no interest in me.) A few have asked me out, but they were exactly the sort I /couldn't/ be attracted to (personality-wise as well as appearance-wise). I would also be WAY too embarrassed to actually accept any guy's advances and would probably chase them off deliberately.

It disturbs me when people ask me if I have a boyfriend, like one who jokingly asked me if I EVER had a boyfriend as if there was no way I hadn't by age 20. I can't understand my fellow geeks at uni who look like they have no life but turn out to have had 2 ex-boyfriends or a fiance. What do these people have that I don't? I've just never had any interest.

It bothers me as I feel like I'm missing out on life's experience. I don't want to get married or have kids, I just couldn't stand to get old without knowing what the whole craze is about.

I don't even think sex is all that interesting anymore. o,O

(EDIT: I don't know if any one else thinks such weird things, but I almost wish I was was a lesbian as there are tons of attractive girls out there, just that I know I don't swing that way. If guys spent as much time on their appearance it might help, but many of them around here can easily get a girl looking like crap. I don't understand it.)

I hear you, NB.
I'm 18, never dated, never been interested, don't want to marry and don't want kids (they repulse me).
I wouldn't say my standards are high, but I am particular about what I like. Having said that, when I come across someone I find attractive I merely think this and then carry on like I never saw them.
I don't know if other's find me unattractive or if I'm just blind to the signs aka flirting (I've been told over and over that I am), but whatever the reason I've never been approached but neither have I done the approaching. I don't have low self-esteem, either, so that's not the reason.

I never dwell on these facts, though. I never think 'Poor me', nor do I think I'm missing out on anything. I used to think this was strange and maybe to others it is, but I don't care. Like you I don't find sex interesting.

I was in love once when I was younger(atleast I thought I was) but I was too chicken $#%^ to ever let her know how I felt. As I got a bit older I got bitter and I don't think I'm capeable of feeling like that anymore. I think I would make a horrible boyfriend anyway.

Women do not seem to reach their sexual peek until a later age. I was in a forum on a dating site where I saw a woman who was 40 and had never had a bf or found a guy who she was really attracted to. It is possible that you will get these feelings at a later age.

N-Block wrote:I would also be WAY too embarrassed to actually accept any guy's advances and would probably chase them off deliberately.

This is one thing that really bothers me about my own behavior. Not only am I too much of a pussy to ever tell a woman that I like her, but if she where by some ######6 miracle to tell me that she likes me I would freeze up or act like I'm not interested or push her away some how.

Every time I have ever had feelings for a woman I have kept them to myself, in my 20 years I have had maybe 3 instances where a female has expressed interest in me to a various degree. And I never did $#%^ about it. In fact I was so self concious and nervous/embarressed I did everything in my power to discourage her, every time with somebody who I was actually attracted to.

I've completly given up on ever having a relationship. I'm too avoidant to ever go get one, if one happens to find me I know I'll sabatoge it.

Parador wrote:Women do not seem to reach their sexual peek until a later age. I was in a forum on a dating site where I saw a woman who was 40 and had never had a bf or found a guy who she was really attracted to. It is possible that you will get these feelings at a later age.

That's true. I read somewhere that women reach their sexual peak at 35 and men at 18. But why is it then that pretty much all couples are young woman + older man? Sometimes you even get teenagers with middle aged men. It's even worse in Japan (the country I love and am planning to live in), it seems women are considered old by the time they're 28. It scares the $#%^ out of me. We're attractive at the wrong time of our lives.

Looking at the world around me I get the impression that women over 30 are really viewed as unattractive. You don't see so many older women in movies compared with men, especially not as a love interest. Maybe older = unhealthy = unattractive mate?
And you see so many young mothers who look your age, barely out of high school having already stuck with one man for the rest of their lives. There's just something so profoundly boring about this "normal" path of life. I feel this huge pressure, as if shy women like us have no time to get over our fears and date different kinds of men (not all at once ), or start a career and dedicate ourselves to it before settling down with a life of experience under our belts.

I'm shocked most of all, to discover myself scared of aging and being alone just a couple years out of high school. I'm still a kid, and in a frighteningly short time I'll be considered old.

It must really be nice to be a man and have plenty of women still attracted to you at age 40....I know guys have their own problems, I can't help but envy that aspect though.

I'm sorry if this post depresses anyone, it's just my typical negative thinking, I just hope someone out there has a more positive opinion to counter mine. ^^

CriminallyVulgar wrote:This is one thing that really bothers me about my own behavior. Not only am I too much of a pussy to ever tell a woman that I like her, but if she where by some ######6 miracle to tell me that she likes me I would freeze up or act like I'm not interested or push her away some how.

Every time I have ever had feelings for a woman I have kept them to myself, in my 20 years I have had maybe 3 instances where a female has expressed interest in me to a various degree. And I never did $#%^ about it. In fact I was so self concious and nervous/embarressed I did everything in my power to discourage her, every time with somebody who I was actually attracted to.

I've completly given up on ever having a relationship. I'm too avoidant to ever go get one, if one happens to find me I know I'll sabatoge it.

Damn, well on the bright side you like them, want to say yes to them. You're a step ahead of me, and I'm not giving up, so it seems a waste for you to...though yeah, giving up is such a tempting option. If you could tone down your avoidance to just being "shy", well, a lot of women find shyness attractive!

sugarfoot wrote:I wouldn't say my standards are high, but I am particular about what I like.

That's it...particular. If you've waited all your life for someone, you're going to settle for no less than the exact type of guy you like.
Which also means...if you do find the guy, you'll be ULTRA-serious about him. Hm, people like that might actually make good boy/girlfriends.


Sorry for spamming the board!

I hate posting because I'm overly anxious about anything I write, so it takes me an hour to post anything and I don't have much time today, but I need to reply to this. In the few months I've lurked around this board I've rarely seen another female avoidant. All of your concerns have been major concerns in my life too. So I want to relate.

I was the same way when I was 20. Beautiful, smart (it took me ages to accept that, I didn't feel that way about myself exactly back then, although I suspected I had something good in myself) obviously socially crippled and not interested in sex or dating. Naturally all of my relatives were wondering if I were a repressed lesbian or something. And truthfully I was more sexually attracted to women than men, but not emotionally attracted. I think that was because I'd just had more sexual experience with women (sexual play with childhood friends) and could relate to them better sexually. That's changed with real experience with men and my physical attraction is catching up with my emotional attraction to men, but that's kind of another story.

So yeah, disinterest covering deeply buried confusion and terror when it came to sex and dating, that was me. I was also (it's embarassing to admit, but you say you want to move to japan so you can probably understand, if not empathize) that I was specifically more attracted to well groomed, strong and beautiful men, like the japanese teen pop idol type, and american men seemed all too clumsy and brutish. Not to mention loud and clumsy personalities. I didn't think I'd ever find what I was looking for.

The happy ending to the story is that I did, though. I still don't know how it happened, but I fell in love, and at first he wasn't physically my type at all, but after having my first real sexual experiences with a man I came to understand and even adore the build of a manly man. I think feminine men are easier for virgin girls to relate to, less threatening, which is why they're so popular with teens, but again, that's another story that I'm not sure you're interested in.

Falling in love was hell. The whole butterflies in the stomach thing, the nervousness and "excitement", it made me sick. Some people think infatuation is the best part of a relationship, but I hate even remembering it, because I knew something serious, deep and beautiful was waiting beyond it. (And, of course, safe.) But we were both people that were waiting all of our lives for one another, serious to a fault, and we do have an intense and incredible relationship. I know you can't expect anyone else to fix you, but his total acceptance, love, and friendship helped me like nothing else. So somehow I went from being a 20 something year old girl that thought she'd never be comfortable or infatuated or even sexually excited with anyone else to being with what you could call a soul mate. It can happen, even if you don't expect it or want it. You never know what life will throw at you. I guess if I could sum up what I've learned from that, it would be to believe in yourself. If you aren't interested, then don't force it. When what you want comes along, you'll know.

I think experimenting for experimenting's sake is bull. Which brings me to this:

What do these people have that I don't? I've just never had any interest.

These people that end up with children at your age, they're throwing themselves at anybody. They don't have standards, they don't know what they're looking for, they're playing life like a game. That works for most people. For people that know exactly what they're looking for, like you and me, I don't think that's necessary. It's okay to have standards. I waited longer than most but I've also got exactly what I wanted now, and how many can say that?

That's true. I read somewhere that women reach their sexual peak at 35 and men at 18.

This is a popular myth. Hormonally, it's false. It's closer to the truth to say that women appear to sexually peak at that age because that's when most women are sexually comfortable with themselves and have figured out what they want.

I'm turning now towards what I've really wanted to say, which is that the sex lives of a lot of women are crap. Young men are selfish and it is a man's world. If you watch television then your image of the ideal woman is a stick-thin blonde bimbo with big boobs. Japan's vision of the ideal woman being a child comes from a warped youth worship that does not fit into the real world. These things are lies. Women are beautiful and remain beautiful all of their lives, if they take care of themselves and are good people. The good men out there do not want a child for a wife or a blonde stick figure. It is the selfish men that want to control or own a woman that desire the child and the bimbo. There is no deeper psychology to it than that. Those images and ideals are sold for the emotionally stunted masses, not the men you are after. Don't believe for a second that that is reality.

I spent too much of my life worrying about this. I tried to conform to this ideal, dyed my hair blonde, despaired about my curvy body, and was sure I'd be an old maid all my life because I would and could never "put out" to gain a man's acceptance. Now that I know what love and attraction really is, I know that's all bunk. My guy loves me because I look like a woman, he loves the stretchmarks that I've had since puberty because I grew into my body overnight, he loves me with black hair as well as blonde, he loves it when I'm independant as well as dependant, and he waited three years for me until I was comfortable enought to lose my virginity. Basically, he tore apart every myth about what a woman needed to be to get a man.

I know that I'm rambling, but there's too much I want to say and I have to go now, so forgive me for this huge wall of text. I felt so strongly that I never want to see another girl go through this crap of feeling like she doesn't conform to what men are "supposed" to want. Most of the people on this board are guys and they're coming from a different perspective of what they are supposed to be (getting laid, being a tough guy, being strong, etc) and I know that is a source of great pain for them, but it's not something I can relate to. It's great to hear someone post that I can identify with.

Re Karana:

Wow..I don't know what to say. It's a huge relief there's someone older who understands my position. I don't have any role models or confidants offline who I can talk to about this, so thank you for taking the time and energy to post.

Ah, I understand exactly what you mean by the "well groomed, strong and beautiful men" thing. Although it's not that I want to them to be feminine...(for me, it'd be more rock star than pop star image). The humbleness and self-control and care/consideration that Japanese culture emphasizes attracts me a lot - not that the people there are necessarily going to be so. But I can relate to the way they think exactly (being half-Japanese helps). Don't get me wrong, I'm not moving there for the guys (though it'd be great to find an awesome guy there), it's just that all of my interests lead inevitably to Japan and Japanese culture. I live in Australia though, and the way guys are brought up here is so totally different, I can't really relate to them. In high school pretty much all they did was show off their immaturity and act deliberately 20 IQ points lower than they were, and talk about how many times they nearly got arrested, and that was meant to be cool. That would be one reason I've never been interested in dating. I now have a couple guy friends who aren't like that, and it turns out they're social misfits like me.

Man, you're right, I shouldn't believe any of that crap in the media.
The biggest proof that it only caters for certain types of people is that not an inch of it is made to be attractive to women. Main characters are almost always male, love interests almost always female (and cardboard cutouts of real women), the male's usually a loser or something, not sexy. Porn is quite similar - even porn involving men is made for gay men, not women. Even chick flicks repulse me - generic man meets generic woman on the beach and after 3 days of saccharine "romance" they get hitched....urgh.
They could at least set it somewhere interesting, I don't know, a post-apocalyptic world, dark and violent perhaps, throw in some philosophy and controversial themes and mature/ intriguing character interaction, with a strong female lead, give the guys interesting flaws and a character that is their own, and the romance happens on top of all that. Now THAT would be cool.
But ANYWAY, back to the topic.

Like what you said though, when you grow to love someone you won't care about how they look or if they're your type. I'll take your advice and just not get desperate and feeling like I should rush my life.

Thanks again for posting, you weren't rambling at all (I'm the one with the irrelevant rambling problem), because all of it was helpful. It's taken some weight off my mind.

Btw, I didn't know there were more males than females here, I wonder why...