Barring this subreddit, I am starting to hate when people try to empathize with my dating frustrations.

With the exception of this subreddit where a lot of us have similar gripes with modern dating, I've gotten to the point of my frustration with dating where I don't want to hear from another person about how they understand exactly how I feel about my dating frustrations.

I'm a guy in his mid-30s who has only had a handful of dates over the last several years, and I have been grinding when it comes to putting myself out there in life and dating apps with such an insignificant amount of dates. Getting ghosted is my norm and more often than not, I don't understand it because it catches me off guard all the time. There really hasn't been any positive reinforcement over the last few years continue making me hopeful that the outcome will change.

I was talking to a female friend about dating right now. She recently got out of a short relationship after being involved in a long term one. She reads a ton of dating advice books and relationship philosophy and psychology studies, so she always tries to give me her educated take alongside these positive-thinking speeches about how I just need to be patient, and how all of this will be worth it when I finally do meet someone. She sends these lengthy texts about how chemistry is mysterious and confidence is something women can sense (but she can never concretely describe what "confidence" is…), and the part that gets me is when she's like, "I truly get the frustration. We're all in this together, and I know how hard it is, I truly do…"

And it's like, "No. You don't. You don't get it. You had your long term relationship, and then after that, you hooked up with a few guys and dated one of them for awhile before he broke things off. Yes, it sucked that happened, but just because you're single now doesn't mean you 'get' my experience of only having 4 dates over the last several years and chronically being ghosted or going on dates that amount to nothing more but a mediocre meetups that don't result in a second date. You are going to be fine. There is evidence that you are going to be fine. You are going on dates and you have had sex with 3 different people in the past year compared to my 0 in the last 10. Stop telling me that you are like me. You are not. You don't understand my frustration and the actual hit to my self-esteem this gives me. Stop telling me to continue being confident in the face of chronic rejection that you have never dealt with. Just stop."