The more I see the less I like

Sometimes you can love someone from afar but then when you get to spend time with them your feelings change for them. Their beauty doesn’t change and you are still attracted to them but by spending time in each others company you start to think that it wouldn’t work and in turn your feelings change.

This can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. You may think well I am glad I got to know them first before asking them out and that you have saved yourself from getting in a relationship with someone you don’t actually like in that way but on the other hand you may think to yourself that you should have asked her out before you got to know so at least you would have gone out with them.

If the girl doesn’t know you are interested in them and you create a situation where you are around each other a lot like a work colleague, classmate etc. you can find out what the person is like. Sometimes this takes time but the more the person becomes at ease with you the more you will find out about them. Also if you spend enough time with them you will find the true person as if they are putting on a façade they can’t keep that up all the time.

In this process sometimes you will realise you aren’t in love with the person any more or it may just happen organically without you realising. Remember just because you are attracted physically to someone it doesn’t always mean you will be attracted to their personality.

The Friendship Zone

I have been in this zone so many times in my life and it is the worst place to be. This is when you really like a girl and have spent a lot of time getting to know her without making your intentions clear so she just views as a friend and would never consider anything more.

This is such a frustrating place to be because once you are in it, it is very hard to get out. The only reason you put the effort in was because you wanted to go out with them not because you wanted to be their friend. Once you are in this zone you are stuck as you don’t want to be seen as the bad guy and break off the friendship but being friends with them just make it even harder to deal with as you know you will never be going out with them.

I hate that soul destroying moment when you ask a girl out and they say they just want to be friends. Do they really want to be friends? Are they just saying that as a nice way of saying no?

So a word of warning if you are trying to win a girl over try and make your intentions clear without being obvious and don’t spend forever developing the friendship without asking the question. The longer you drag out the friendship building phase the more problems that can happen. If you do this the girl may think that you are not interested in them and do really just want to be friends or they may find someone else as you have taken so long getting your act together.

There may be some rare occasions where people have managed to successfully break the friendship zone and change somones mind but I think these are few and far between.


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Telling your friends

When you love someone you sometimes have the compulsion to tell your friends or you will be the opposite and not want to tell a soul. Doing either can be good or bad for different reasons.

If you tell a friend they are going to give you all kinds of advice and make all sorts of comments. The friend could make you believe that the person loves you when they may not or they might convince that they don’t love you when they do. When you are speaking to a friend you are inclined to believe what they say so if what they are saying isn’t true it can really mess with your head.

When you are in love with someone it is good to get an outsiders opinion as when you are in love someone you don’t always think clearly. So telling no one is not always the best way forward especially if you are in need of advice or are going about things in the wrong way.

If you do ask for advice take it on board but think before you do anything about the advice. Try not to tell too many people or you will be even more confused and conflicted as different people may try to give you completely different advice.

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Jealousy when you are single

Jealousy in relationships is quite common but it is also very common in single people. It’s like when your friends have a girlfriend or a boyfriend and you don’t, you feel happy for your friend but at the same time you are jealous that you don’t have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. You think why have they got someone and not me?

It is also hard when you are single and you really love someone but that person already has a partner. Even though that person loves there partner and that they don’t know that you love them you feel jealous of that persons other half. You think to yourself why are they going out with that person? And you think you would be much better for them.

I’ve been there before and it is such a hard place to be. You have all these unreasonable feelings of jealousy that you can’t tell anyone else about and with no way of stopping feeling like that. You just have to keep believing that your time will come and that if it is meant to be it will work out. Instead of spending time being jealous of your friends who have partners invest time in trying to find a partner of your own.

It’s hard to stop feeling jealous of someone that is going out with the person you think is the love of your life but you have to try. Try being happy that the person you love is happy and go out and see if there somebody else out there which you feel the same about as I believe on most occasions that there is more than one girl out there that could be your ideal partner.

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Settling

Why is that so many people just settle in love?

I see so many of my friends and people around me just settling for their other half because they want to be in a relationship, they don’t want to be alone, or just because they are too lazy to go out and see what there is around. Some people I know are going out with their other half just because their other half asked them out and because they couldn’t say no or just loved the fact that someone asked them out without loving the person that was asking.

A key thing to remember is if someone asks you out you can always say no. Although it may hurt the persons feelings that person that is asking you deserves to be in a relationship with someone who loves them wholeheartedly so by saying yes you are only hurting them in the long term. Never confuse the feeling of happiness of someone finding you attractive with loving the person that finds you attractive.

Some people find someone to go out with just because that’s what all their friends are doing and don’t want to be the only one without a partner. This is when it’s a case of anyone will do just so you are not the odd one out as in your head going out with someone you aren’t in love with seems better than being the odd one out.

The problem comes when you have settled for your other half and its now five years down the line and you have got married and/or had kids and you realise this is the rest of your life now. Even if you don’t do the marriage or kids thing the longer you get in to the relationship the more depressed with it you can get. You get to a point when you are not even making an effort with your relationship anymore as you don’t care for it which is not fair on you or your partner.

The older people get the more worried they get about growing old alone so the more likely they are just to settle for someone, anyone, just so they don’t have to be alone and they don’t feel they can be picky as the clock is ticking and another opportunity may not come their way.

The key thing to remember is the most amazing girl in the world very rarely just falls in to your life. If you want to be in love and with an amazing girl where you have to pinch yourself everyday to believe you are going out with them, you have to put in the hard work. You have to be proactive and get out there and never settle until you find her.

I think people settling is a big shame as in love it should never be a case of settling. You should be with your partner because you love them and be besotted by them everyday.

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Being the only single person in your social circle

Why is it when you get to your mid/late twenties all your friends have a girlfriend, fiancé, partner or wife? When you meet up with your close circle of friends this fact is drummed home as you feel like a spare wheel and a bit inferior as you aren’t with anyone. Now I helped match make for most of my friends so I have only got myself to blame really but having spent so much time matchmaking for other people I forgot about myself until I realised there was no one left for me.

Why is it that other people find it easier to meet women and talk to women than me? When your weekly routine consists of getting up, going to work, then going off to do charity work and doing some work on the side to afford the mortgage before getting in late to go to bed to do it all over again how do you meet people? All the social things you do revolve around your social circle who normally just want to go to someone’s house or do something where meeting people isn’t the priority so meeting someone comes near on impossible. Then if you do go and do something where you can meet people like going to a pub you have no wingman or singleton in the group of your friends who may be going to meet someone so it feels too awkward for you to try and meet someone so you just end up staying with your group of friends. There is nothing worse than trying to chat up a girl when your friends are in earshot as just knowing that makes you all self conscious and if they are like my mates they will try and embarrass you either intentionally or unintentionally so trying to meet someone when your friends are around is not an option.

You then have the bright spark of asking your male friends other halves if they have single friends but you are never in a one on one situation with them where you feel comfortable doing that so you just chicken out. If you do get the courage to take this step you are then admitting to that person that you can’t find a girl yourself and they then may tell their partner (your friend) about it so it becomes social suicide. If they do keep it in confidence and do have a single friend you then have to play the lottery of what you could be set up with. When you get to your late twenties for many people there is normally a reason why they are single but as the saying goes beggars can’t be choosers. On top of this if the blind date thing doesn’t work out whenever you see your friend and her partner they are going to be asking about it and how it went.

If you are starting to feel like a third wheel at social gatherings you may then start to shy away from going out with your friends to avoid that feeling so now not only are you feeling down that your single but it is affecting you having fun with your friends.

Why is there no place for men in their mid twenties to meet women which doesn’t involve a bar or a nightclub. For those of us that actually want to get to know someone first and to do so without having ten pints of alcohol where is there? Answers on a postcard please.

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