LONELINESS BE OVER
How I, a late bloomer, found love in my 30s — part 1
I was kind to myself and did some things differently
At age 29, I had never been in a relationship.
I’d also never done one of the following: flirt, go on a date, hold a woman’s hand, kiss a woman, have sex.
Weirdly, I didn’t enjoy this state of affairs very much.
For a long time, I didn’t let it bother me too much. Instead, I followed two classic, time-proven pieces of advice: “Just be yourself” and “It’ll happen when you least expect it.”
See, just being yourself is not that difficult. By default, you are you. U = U. Basic math, bruh. The investment needed for this strategy is basically 0. If you want, you can just let entropy do its work and let the cells of your body slowly decay in a process commonly known as “aging” — and you’d still be successfully being yourself.
Status: quo.
“It’ll happen when you least expect it” is a bit trickier. Because as soon as you think of your relationship status or lack thereof, you’ve just screwed yourself over. So the minute find yourself reflecting on the concept “girlfriend”, you need to distract yourself by bungee jumping, playing Monopoly or whatever drastic action is needed to clear your mind of any girlfriend-related thoughts.
It’s basically the Streisand effect in action. Exhausting.
I like to think I gave this two-pronged dating strategy a fair chance: about a decade.
I mean, I guess I could’ve just been myself harder… but I doubt I would’ve encountered my wonderful girlfriend if I had.
(Just for the record, I know that people who say “Just be yourself” generally are trying to convey a more constructive message than “Just lie on the ground and coast on the fact that you exist.” But to my literal, confused, and terrified mind, it never “clicked” with me as a piece of advice. That’s not to say you should fake being James Bond or something similarly stupid. Unless you’re Daniel Craig, in which case that’s an entirely appropriate action to take. But I’ll get to that.)
In short, the idea I’d absorbed from the world around me was that this was a problem I couldn’t really do anything about… but wait until it resolved itself.
Funnily, this kind of approach doesn’t really apply to any other kind of problem in life. Except maybe the common cold. But this felt a little more chronic than that.
The Greek alphabet
Of course, there were also a few weird guys with flame shirts, indoor sunglasses and fuzzy hats. And boy, were they trying hard to get my attention and sell me their glorified pdf’s about how to amass the highest number of sexual “conquests” in the shortest timeframe.
All you needed to do? Have enough expendable income to spend on their “course”; memorize their 45-step sequence of “alpha moves” to execute in the exact right order to “hack” into the womanbrain mainframe; and make a handy Excel spreadsheet to record your every interaction with the opposite sex in.
Maybe these fellas are part of the reason why most other people just shrug their shoulders and go “ah well, you’re not that old yet. You’ve still got time.” Still, I would’ve liked to see some middle ground between useless feel-good platitudes on one side, and psychopathic manipulation on the other.
Not to mention all the bootstrap-y “get over it” advice out there that seems to exist to kick people when they’re already down.
So, former self — here’s that middle ground ya asked for. I took the liberty to do the research myself. I know it’s a bit late now but, better late than never… right?
This also only really applies to me specifically, as everyone’s situation is unique and different. But who knows? Maybe some people are in a similar boat and might benefit from some of these ramblings.
I’ll format this series of articles thusly: first, in bold, I’ll put a piece of cliché advice. Then, I will elaborate how this common advice applied or didn’t apply to my situation, and what I actually ended up doing.
We’ll start with something simple and straightforward — I might delve into some heavier stuff later on.
“The clothes make the man”
I won’t go into too much detail on the mental “click” that made me decide to change things up and tackle my problem head-on. I’ll just say that at some point at age 29, after having a lot of dark thoughts, my brain was fed up with suffering. It became easier to leave my comfort zone than to keep wallowing in my pit of despair.
I modified the motto “just be yourself” to “just keep the bits of yourself you like, and change the bits you don’t.” Because that’s not pretending to be someone you’re not. It’s trying to see if being a slightly different version of yourself would make you happier and less pained.
First, I looked at my outward presentation. I realized that for a long time, my main “fashion” objective had been to blend in with my surroundings. Going unnoticed seemed preferable to standing out — I just didn’t want to be bothered. My closet contained the full color spectrum from soulsucking Vantablack to dark thundercloud grey, and all the drab shades in between.
Say what you want about my taste in clothes, but at least they were good at absorbing light.
That all went out of the window when I took a bold step into my local men’s fashion store. I figured if I wanted a woman to notice me, I’d need to start by being noticeable.
Before this, I’d sometimes look at a more colorful or “bold” piece of clothing and think I kinda liked it. But then a voice in my head would tell me: “Come off it! You’d look ridiculous in that.”
I think we all have a primitive part of our brain that wants us all to stay in our lane. Because back in the ole hunter-gatherer days, if your shell necklace or fig leaf was too fancy, you risked pissing off your clan leader. And that vainglorious bastard could then decide to kick you out, leaving you to fend off tigers by yourself — not very practical for those of us who prefer staying alive.
The above is probably complete nonsense from an anthropological, historical, archaeological and neuroscientific point of view. But because I like the idea of it, that is exactly how it must’ve worked.
Fortunately, these days the likelihood of getting mauled and eaten by a tiger is towards the lower end of the ranking as far as causes of death go. So I decided to be brave and try on some new stuff.
Another thing I did differently was actually talking to the staff of these stores, and asking them for advice.
It’s hard to describe just how out of character this was for me. Before, in the rare cases I did visit a clothing store, I’d jump onto the highest clothes rack available every time I was approached by a small young woman with a name tag. Those damn clothing store employees with their intrusive questions like “Can I help you, Sir?” sneaking up to you like they’re a tiger and you’re an unsuspecting human looking at some fig leafs.
I started doing the same for scents and footwear. Instead of despairing about the inscrutability of fashion and my complete lack of knowledge on the subject, I took it as a fun new challenge. I now took joy in just messing about and being the naïve tourist asking other people for guidance. Experimenting, if you will.
I have no idea if my current fashion choices are “correct” from some technical point of view. But I no longer feel a sense of dread when dressing myself and I actually give a shit about what I wear, and most importantly: I feel good. So that seems like a big improvement.
Whether you like fashion or think it’s all superficial tripe, doing this did one important thing for me: it got me unstuck from my rut. Just a little bit, mind you — but it did give me the wiggle room I needed for later.
The next installments delves into the terrifying world of the apps.
