I honestly just need to vent. I think (M26) think I’m a decent guy, an interesting person who could be a great partner, but I’ve been single for such a long time it’s really getting to me.

I haven’t really dated anybody in 2 years. I had a breakup about 2 years ago, and a casual thing that lasted about a month a little bit afterwards. That was Summer of 2018, and after that ended a went through some pretty challenging experiences with some abusive people in my life that didn’t leave any time for dating until January 2019, and by that point I just kept my head down, focused on my last semester of school, mostly just spent my social time with close friends while I worked on myself and learned to trust people again.

Since last summer I started putting myself out there, and dating just feels… different. I was never some player, but for the most part I’d meet somebody be honest, respectful, flirty and things would just progress naturally, and I had a pretty normal dating life. However, since I started dating again about a year ago, my dates mostly haven’t gone anywhere, or the possible connections I’ve had never amounted to anything. Somehow 2 years just went by without dating at all, and it just… happened.

I’ve gone on 1-3 with people from dating apps, but it never amounts to anything. There never feels like there’s real chemistry like meeting somebody in your real life, you know? And usually that feeling is mutual.

Meanwhile, the connections I make in my daily life never seem to amount to anything. Before the quarantines a mutual friend threw a party, said she wanted to set me up with a friend of hers. We end up hitting it off and flirting a lot that night, and since then some conversations at mutual friends house or via text, but eventually it fizzles out. Or another example will be I met a girl on a night out, talk all night at the bar, on the walk to somebodys house, and till late into the morning at that person house, at that point being very cuddly, touchy, my friends are telling me we are really cute together, both my friend AND her friend are convincing her to go home with me, not that I wanted to do anything more than keep talking at that point. And then the days after we text a bit it fizzles out and she ends up saying she’s not personally in a place where she wants to get involved with somebody. Not to mention I work part-time at a cafe and sometimes regular customers will ask me for my number or facebook, only for it to amount to nothing.

It just feels like you just have to be in the right place at the right time. Is that all that dating is? I get it, I went through that period where I wasn’t in a place to date, but it feels like every girl and hit it off with is unavailable for whatever reason. It’s hard to be so patient. And like I said, I think I’m a decent guy with a lot to offer. My friends have described me as a thoughtful, empathetic person. I’ve got a range of hobbies, I’m an independent person and have a lot of skills. I don’t think my standards are too high, I just want to somebody genuine who I connect with. And it’s not like I didn’t have a normal dating life in the past, or feel a connection with people I’ve met more recently, but it never develops into anything. It feels like it used to be simpler.

Does this resonate with anybody? It’s so much harder to just have to sit with these feelings during the quarantines. I’m not meeting people, I can’t put that energy to good use in the gym, and it feels like everybody elses life is going places whereas I’m just not.