My upstairs neighbor set me up with a lady he knows. The setup was part of a group getting together to try to make it less uncomfortable.

We've been talking about this for a while and, from what he was saying, she was interested.

She was great. Really nice. Good looking. The conversation was a little forced but ok. There was a loud band playing which made it difficult to talk.

I was certainly interested, but i havent heard anything so im assuming she wasn't feeling it. Oh well.

It always makes me think what i did or said wrong.

??????????
GOOOOOO!
DUUDE!
You are interested! Show the initiative! Put some effort in!
Did you ask her for some kind of contact?

GRRRRRRRRRR!

Yeah, i suck at this. It felt wrong asking her for a number in that setting. I didnt want it to be uncomfortable. I let my buddy know i was interested but havent heard from him.

You don't suck at dating. I am completely sure, that you are pretty good.

There is just no guarantee for success, no matter what you do. Otherwise it would be to easy. But generally it is kind of similar to poker. Passive is rarely way to win.

No, I suck.

This sort of put me in a little funk. I mean, it's fine she wasn't into me but from a meta perspective it's disheartening. It seems almost impossible for me to even meet someone and when I do, it seems like I have to be perfect on the first date. And, I'm not.

All these profiles I see are loaded with all of these requirements of greatness that I'm just not. I'm just a guy.

At the same time, I also see "don't want player, must be honest, no druggies", etc.

It sort of confuses me. I'm not any of those bad things, but not any of those great things. I feel like I have a decent self awareness. I'm not a bad guy. In fact, I think I'm pretty nice and try to do the right thing. I'm reasonably funny (although my humor is dry). Not horrible looking - in pretty good physical shape. I have a good job. Feet firmly planted I think. Overall, qualities I think are pretty good.

But, I just don't have whatever it is that makes women interested. I've heard the term chemistry tossed around. Maybe that's it. I don't know how to fix that.

The attribute you're looking for is confidence. Based on your writing you definitely don't have it in a date setting. You can either approach it like you have nothing to lose or pretend it is some situation you do have confidence in.

Come on.

Don't wallow in self-sorry. You are interesting for majority of women for a relationship. I could now recount, why exactly, but it is not about that.

And about "how to fix that". I struggled with similar feelings like a female. And at some point I started to play pretend. I went to dates, thought before, how shy or how talkative or how funny/serious/needy/vampy/helpless/emancipated ....... how interested in this particular guy, I want to come over, and then presented that and looked at results. Worst case: a guy is not interested. I learned a lot this way.

And even without any details of your date, I can tell you one point, that went here not optimal. If you are interested:SHOW IT!. If you don't know how, read-up on that. Interest from a guy, makes him immediately a lot more attractive, than when I think, that he is indifferent.

edit: And you are not bad at dating. At least not worse than an average middle aged guy with your education. I date a lot of nerds. And most of them have very similar issues like you. So you are pretty average with all that problems.

Thanks guys.

This sort of set me into a little spiral of negative thinking. ugh. I shouldnt set myself up like this.

Get her number, call, ask her to go fishing. You are pretty confident there. Or just for a walk. If things seem good, don't hesitate to just say that. Don't second guess stuff, just go for whatever comes to you.

Buying this boat was a horrible life decision. I'll be in debt for years and have no hope of retiring in the foreseeable future.

Accepting who you are is a hard thing sometimes but necessary for emotional health. Wanting leads to disappointment and failure.

Now my buddy is avoiding me. I guess he feels bad it didnt work out. Why does this **** happen to me. I just try to be nice to people and it always goes wrong.

You are sliding into blues. It is all not the woman, not your buddy, not the boat, not your retirement, but your brain. But I am sure you know all that.

How is the sleep? I am not sure with weather and so. Can you go fishing now?

And don't do mind reading for your buddy. Mind reading is female prerogative.

Try to just let it all go. If your buddy gets back to you, great, if not, no biggie. I still like the idea of finding a bar that has line dancing or whatever it is you're good/serviceable at.

bigger, I think you really need to cast your net wider if you really want a woman to share your life with. You gotta put yourself out there over and over again. It's like sales in that way, or perhaps fishing, although I don't fish much.

It seems like this type of dating situation rebounds a lot in your head, thinking about it too much, and I know that feeling well.

Yeah, my logical mind and my emotional mind are having quite the battle right now.

I'm sleeping fine. Between the wind and me being sick I haven't had the boat out in a while.

It is a biggie to me. I constantly seem to do things that make people retreat. I don't even know how or why. I guess I could have just declined the offer to meet here.

Yeah, the bar thing is definitely not an option. I really do suck at dancing and I just don't like bars all that much.

Yeah, I hear you. My internal dialogue is "how many times do you get back on the horse before you come to the realization that the horse just doesn't like you".

There's more than one horse in the ocean. Or something.

Dad update.

Ugh.

Just talked to my sister who is at my dad's right now.

Apparently my dad continues to abuse drugs. He has a prescription for Klonopin (for anxiety) and he is triple and quadruple dosing it. I've noticed that the last few times I've talked to him he slurs his words so bad that I can barely understand him. He is also abusing whatever painkiller that has been prescribed. Some sort of opioid I'm sure.

My first question is why isn't his caretaker monitoring this? Apparently she is but she can't tell him no when he complains of being anxious. This is the caretaker that he really likes so it's a sticky situation. But we have to put a stop to it.

Although I think we can control this, there is an immediate issue. He is 60 days ahead of his prescription and the doctor will not give him more. From what I read, this is pretty addictive stuff so he's going to have withdrawal on top of everything else.

UGH.

Some time back I wrote several children's stories, with the hopes of having them turned into books.

I worked with a girl who liked to draw and she came up with some really good ideas for the look and feel of the characters. So, we collaborated to create a book. At the time, self publishing was a lot more difficult. I ended up buying a high end printer and putting it all together myself. I took the printed pages to a book binder and eventually got it done.

I was never really happy with it, though. We tackled the first story in the series, which was definitely the weakest. Although I loved her characters, I wasn't really happy with the rest of the artwork.

I sort of dropped the whole idea quite some time ago. In the meantime, the computer that I had all of my work on bit the dust. Of course, it was a hard drive problem. I did back things up periodically on an external hard drive, but that, too, bit the dust.

I somewhat resigned myself to the fact that I lost everything but I thought I'd at least try to recover some of it. I took the external hard drive in to a computer place last week, and they were able to get everything off of it.

It appears as if most of my work was saved successfully. This is great news. I still think these stories are pretty good and hopefully I can find a way to get them published. Ideally I would like to have these illustrated but I remember how time consuming and difficult that was before. I'm not sure if I'm up for it right now.

I might post them here. Dunno.

Good job going on the date, don't worry about the outcome. It's very much like Kioshk said: dating nowadays is a number game.

Pretty cool about the children's stories. I'd love to see them.

edit: and as far as not meeting someone's "requirements" if everyone employee had to meet their employer's hiring criteria then the world would probably be 95% unemployed.

Lapka touched on something that hits home for me. She mentioned it in her blog and i dont want to sidetrack hers so ill post it here. In fact, i think ive touched on the subject here before.

She mentioned that a lot of men fear intimacy. Most women I have been in a relationship have said I lack intimacy.

I certainly dont fear it. I don't even really know what it means. It seems so undefineable to me. Does it mean holding hands? Cuddling? Bringing flowers? Talking about stuff? I dunno. I do all those things and yet I still lack the elusive intimacy.

It is something I would work on, but I honestly don't understand what it means.

I sort of believe a lot of men are in the same boat. Its not something they truly understand the way women think of it. Most probably get it a lot more than i do, but just not at the same level as most women.

Just got back from a trip to see my Dad. Actually, it was my Mom's birthday - more on this later.

He continues to deteriorate, both mentally and physically.

My mother has been really wanting to put him in a different facility and now I think I know why. He just needs around the clock care. He calls for help 5 to 10 times every night. I doubt he really needs help more than once, but he lies in bed and obsesses about, well, everything so he picks up the phone. The facility he is in is just not set up for that. They charge him $10 every time he calls. This is on top of the tons of money it takes to keep him there.

So, my sister and I went with my mom and one of Dad's helpers to check out the new place.

The building itself is fairly old but they keep it very lean. The rooms were really weird. They were all different sizes. Some were just way to small. Some shared a bathroom with the adjoining room and some had no bathroom at all. Dad is particular about his cat so Mom wanted a second room just for the cat. Seems crazy but, yeah. We found two adjoining rooms with a shared bathroom that would work. The only downside is he won't have a kitchenette any more but that really isn't an issue for him as much as his caretakers. Really just a matter of convenience.

The facility is family owned. We met the owner, his son, and some of the staff. They were wonderful. We all got a really good vibe from them. They have nurses there around the clock including 2 all night.

We talked through some of dad's, umm, peculiarities and they said a lot of what he does isn't really unusual. They deal with it all the time.

The biggest sticking point is one of his helpers. She absolutely has to stay with him. He is extremely emotionally attached to her, and her with him. She has a no compete clause in her contract that says she cannot quit and work for any current client for 6 months. But, we think the new facility will hire her. If not, we might just take the chance. The firm she works for is very small and not likely to pursue any legal action. It's not a great situation but I think we can make it work somehow.

Anyway, all the family and his caregivers all agreed this is the right place for him. So, Mom signed the check right there on the spot. We have been talking it up, but haven't told him it is a done deal. He will fret about it if he thinks it is. They will sort of ambush him Monday. His caregivers will take him to Mom's and my sister will have movers move all his stuff.

it takes a village

As a side note. I've always felt this and my sister verbalized it this weekend. I think I've even said as much here.

There is an army of people trying to make my father comfortable. I don't want this to sound bitter, but never in his life did he put his personal needs aside to help another person. Throughout this whole thing, if something didn't go his way he has bemoaned that nobody cares for HIS needs, which is BS. So many people have bent over backwards to try to make things as comfortable as possible for him.

It dredges up some "stuff" once in a while. I don't dwell on it too much because I do realize he's just incapable of being anyone other than who he is. Doesn't mean it doesn't bother me occasionally.

The real reason for the trip was my mother's 90th birthday party. It was quite the extravaganza. She is quite opposite from my father. She seems to know EVERYONE. There were people there that I knew from work and other things that knew her. I had no idea. There was even a columnist from the Austin newspaper that will be writing a column about her and the party.

I was really nervous about going to this. I knew there would be a lot of people I hadn't seen in years (decades) and I knew there would be a ton of people there and my social anxiety was kicking in big time. But, it ended up being a really good time and I'm glad I went.

I walked in and there were easily over 100 people there. The first person I spotted that I knew was my cousin. Haven't seen him in years. I've always really liked him and whenever our paths cross we usually have a lot to talk about. But before I could get to him, a couple approached me to say hello. I had no clue who they were so, ugh. They reminded me and it came to me. I chatted with them a bit and headed over to talk to my cousin and got stopped again by another person I had no clue about. This happened 5 times before I got to him, and at least another 10 times through the night. Some were relatives, some were childhood friends, some were people I even worked with at some point in time. I couldn't remember any of them. UGH.

But, it was good sort of catching up with a lot of folks I haven't been in touch with.

Well..........

Turns out things werent what i thought. She invited my neighbors and i over for some wine. We had a great time and i got her number and she made it clear she was interested.

Wooot!

That's great news, bigger. Good going. Wasn't as bad as you thought it was!