I need some time to figure out me before I find him

July 27, 2010 5:20 PM

I came of age during this whole internet dating phenomenon and I think it’s caused more problems for me than I’d like. I’m addicted to it. One relationship ends/gets rocky/doesn’t fulfill me in some way and I’m dusting off the profile and jumping back in. I want to stop this.

I am a 40ish woman who has been single most of her adult life, save for two one-year relationships with extremely inappropriate men.

The rest of the time, I’ve been in short term (3 or 4 month –long) pretty unsatisfying relationships that usually start out hot and heavy (sexually, of course) and then fizzle soon afterward. Yes, I've tried holding off on the sex. That seems to make them lose interest too.

In January of this year, I met a man online, began dating him and spent six pretty unsatisfying months with him before mutually ending the relationship in June. A week later, after reposting my ad, I met another man and again, immediately began seeing him. This guy is amazing … but busy with multiple projects and has a lifestyle that in the long-run, I don't think I'd be happy with. He contacts me daily but I don’t see him more than maybe once a week or so and he’s told me this won’t change as this is just his lifestyle.

This too, is unsatisfying for me but instead of breaking things off with him and jumping into another relationship, I’d like to really take a time out … really figure out what’s going on with me that makes me think I a)have to be in a relationship or b) have to be constantly looking for a relationship.

I admit that my age has me fearing spending my life alone and that I have some self-esteem issues despite being told (often by strangers on the street) how attractive I am. I am funny, easily talk to strangers and don't have any social phobias, etc. I like my own company but have been really lonely lately.

So I guess my question is: What do I do with my time if I’m not dating or pursuing dating? I know this seems odd but I seriously get bored and just don’t know what to do with myself. I enjoy reading and live music but don’t have any close friends where I live whose company I’d enjoy enough to invite out to these things. Most of my acquaintances where I live or married, partnered or parenting. I’m none of those. What next?

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (12 answers total)

What do I do with my time if I’m not dating or pursuing dating?

Develop some hobbies or pastimes based on your interests. You could learn to play an instrument, you could volunteer at a library, or you might take up a craft. Learn to cook. Fix up your house. Follow a sports team. Collect something.

I enjoy reading and live music but don’t have any close friends where I live whose company I’d enjoy enough to invite out to these things.

There's no reason you can't go out into the world by yourself.
posted by MegoSteve at 5:34 PM on July 27, 2010

1. I'm not sure what this has to do with online dating. Probably nothing.

2. It seems to me like you're having trouble with the idea that you don't have to get into a relationship with every man you go out on a date with.

3. A lot of women are raised to think that, without a man, they are nothing. This is pretty hard to break out of, and honestly I can't advise you there since it's not really representative of my life in any way.

4. Your self worth should not be tied solely to how attractive you are.

5. I wholeheartedly agree that you should take some time to just be single and figure out who you are and what, beyond your physical appearance, makes life worth living.

5. As to your main question, what to do with your time now that you've decided to be single for awhile. What about pursuing your own interests? I'm sure you have some hobby, or even a TV show you like or some things that interest you. Do that stuff. Maybe you would have a stronger group of friends if you took some time out to develop your social circle. Throw a party. Have friends over for dinner or go out for drinks. Take a class or join a group. Get involved in your community. I don't want to be mean, but I'm sort of sad that this is difficult for you.

6. You are allowed to have friends that are not also single women. Who cares if your friends are married? Do their spouses not let them leave the house?
posted by Sara C. at 5:42 PM on July 27, 2010 [6 favorites]

: "I enjoy reading and live music but don’t have any close friends where I live whose company I’d enjoy enough to invite out to these things."

This is very striking. Everything in your post points to a pattern where you are lonely and crave relationships, but only see dating relationships as worthy of your time and investment. This is a poor approach and hints at something unfortunate about the way you value yourself.

Were I you, I would spend the next year working on developing friendships. Warning: it is much harder to do this as an adult than it is as a child. I won't lie to you. It is also, however, important, rewarding and worth doing.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:47 PM on July 27, 2010 [7 favorites]

Here are some things I did while I was single:

- took several classes (writing and language)
- wrote a few stories and plays
- produced a staged reading for one of my plays, and performed a spoken-word piece of my own
- joined a gym
- went to concerts, book readings, movies, museums and galleries (both by myself and with friends; really, it's OK to do any of these activities alone -- no one will think poorly of you for doing so, and you may even strike up some interesting conversations)
- traveled to New Zealand and England

None of these required a boyfriend. (On preview: seconding DarlingBri's suggestion that it might be a good idea for you to spend more time developing friendships.)
posted by scody at 5:53 PM on July 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

I enjoy reading and live music but don’t have any close friends where I live whose company I’d enjoy enough to invite out to these things.

Yeah, I've had the experience of not having a peer group that enjoyed the same things as me. I find you just have to do the things anyway, either alone at first, or by joining a group cold. Friendships will develop.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:54 PM on July 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

I think DarlingBri has it. It sounds to me like you're looking for a best friend.

I think if you get the best friend first, separately, the whole dating thing will get a lot easier. I will say that I don't think you can "find" a best friend. I have had a best friend for 16 years, but in the beginning (when we had to work on a long school project together) we were like oil and water and constantly bickered, and didn't get each other at all. There is a line in Joan Didion's memoir The Year of Magical Thinking (about the emotional aftermath following her 40 year marriage, which ended by her husband's death). One of her friends had remarried, then soon divorced the new wife. He said "she just didn't know the songs." The idea is that these things are based on long shared experience over time.

There's a saying "when is the best time to plant a tree? 30 years ago. When is the second best time to plant a tree? Today." So ... I think you should plant that tree. Even if you have a best friend already, I think you need one who is local, someone who can share your day-to-day life.
posted by Ashley801 at 6:11 PM on July 27, 2010 [4 favorites]

This guy is amazing … but busy with multiple projects and has a lifestyle that in the long-run, I don't think I'd be happy with. He contacts me daily but I don’t see him more than maybe once a week or so and he’s told me this won’t change as this is just his lifestyle....So I guess my question is: What do I do with my time if I’m not dating or pursuing dating? I know this seems odd but I seriously get bored and just don’t know what to do with myself. I enjoy reading and live music but don’t have any close friends where I live whose company I’d enjoy enough to invite out to these things. Most of my acquaintances where I live or married, partnered or parenting.

Hello there me. At least for the "contacts me daily" part. I don't even have that tenuous thread to hold onto. On the busy front though, I have no problems. I go to school AND I volunteer almost forty hours a week, and when I'm not studying or working , I'm lifting weights or doing HIIT, or cooking one of my six meals of the day. Hobbies can work, but only if they're engrossing enough that you a) become a little obsessed and b) take up enormous amounts of time. Believe it or not, my aquariums did that, when I had them. Knitting however, does not. It frees your hands but not your brain. Too much time to think.

As for the guy, I cut things off because I saw it going nowhere, and immediately went out with someone who got a little too close too fast, and now I'm so disgusted with dating that I imagine I'm safe for another few months, at least. Not that I have time to date anyway.

I don't even have time to go see movies with my (very few) single friends, or dinner with my married friends. It doesn't entirely stop the ache, but it helps.
posted by tejolote at 8:53 PM on July 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

I met my wife of ten+ years after taking a breather from dating, in which I concentrated on myself, being more like the person I wanted to be, and spending more time treating myself well and pursuing things that interested me. Perhaps you should do the same, and go find some other things to do, even if you don't have any idea what they are yet -- but, like me at the time, don't assume it's a new way to meet someone to date. Instead, think of it as a way to live your life in a more satisfying way, since the status quo certainly isn't working for you.
posted by davejay at 9:42 PM on July 27, 2010

Also married, partnered and parenting people often miss the friendships that they had while single. Don't assume that all of them will be uninterested in going out for a night of fun with you.
posted by troublewithwolves at 10:19 PM on July 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

I agree with the above posters who say that you need to develop close friendships.

There was once a long stretch of my life in which I relationship-hopped, basically from one relationship to another back to the first one and then to another and then so forth. When that was over, I forgot what I used to do with my time. And then I remembered, because I had to remember, because there I was, sitting in a room, and there was all this time to fill. I recorded music and painted paintings and made dumb little short films and wrote plays and stories and novels. I read books and joyrode city buses and spent time with people who were more or less assured to be fairly permanent in my life (close friends).

But it's so easy to forget.

There is an old adage about relationship-finding, and I don't know it word for word, but it's something about how you find one the moment you genuinely stop looking. Stop looking. Online dating works for a lot of people, but I personally always found it a little artificial, terrifying, and mercenary almost, because you're meeting this stranger who is bound by no prior social context with you. It's just like "I want date? You want date? I want sex? You want sex? First we spend a few hours together to test whether we like each other, and then we proceed, because this is what we do." I think relationships that develop more slowly and organically, out of friendships or acquaintanceships in your real life, might go better for you. There can be a little more compassion there. As I said, online dating does work for a lot of people, but it doesn't seem to be working for you. Maybe just cut it out and spend your time doing other things.

There isn't really an easy solution. I hear you about the married or partnered friends. You have got to find something you love to do that makes you really excited, so you want to get out of bed in the morning so you get to do it. It took me a long time to realize, actually pretty recently, that that thing can not be a boyfriend. Boyfriends can be addictive. You've got to indulge in them with temperance, or you'll wind up sort of doing what you're doing right now and not being happy about it.
posted by millipede at 6:23 AM on July 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Just because the people you know are married, partnered or parenting doesn't mean that they aren't interested in sharing time with you or forming a close friendship with you. You may have to do more of the heavy lifting of the friendship sometimes, but I guarantee you that many of them will welcome invitations from you. Don't give up on that.

I don't ever know what to say to people who are bored, because I've never not had a project or an interest or a stack of books or tapes or DVDs or something to do. I am not equipped to help you there, except to say, go try a bunch of things. Take classes at the local community college, join the Y, go to the community center, volunteer somewhere, go to the gym, take a yoga class, get involved in your community board or similar civic organization. Those are places where you will meet people. Some will become nodding acquaintances, others may become closer friends, many will introduce you to other people with whom you will become friends. You may even find dates along the way.

You have to do something besides sit at home.

Therapy could be helpful - you don't have to make it a lifetime project, but 6-12 months of therapy could be useful in talking through some of the things you've identified above. There are also books that could be helpful.

I was also single for much of my adult life (I was married very briefly in my 20s). My struggle was that I didn't like dating and hated that society valued me based on who I was or wasn't dating. I finally met someone because I just pursued the rest of my life (and truthfully, at the time I met Mr. M. I had privately given up on finding anyone).

You must like to do something: cook? shop? travel? go to movies?
posted by micawber at 8:09 AM on July 28, 2010

So much great advice here. There are lots of culturally-approved ways of finding potential relationships, and so few ways to find new friends. To fight the loneliness, you could try something like:

-- find new things you like to do alone & preferably out of the house. Reading is great, sure, but take a book to your neighborhood coffee shop.
-- find community: taking classes, joining a church, etc. Ways to see the same group of people on a regular basis, who you'll get to know as acquaintances. Go for beers after class and lunch after church.
-- start doing other things with those acquaintances to see who you click with. These folks may end up as friends!
-- (optional) find a potential relationship among this pool of new people

I've successfully done all the above and I'm much more of a loner/introvert than you seem to be. My last difficult thing is not disappearing into my relationship-- staying in contact with my friend base.
posted by travertina at 9:47 AM on July 28, 2010