I'm a 24 year old guy from a rust belt city and I've been on a total of 3 dates over the past 4-5 years. None of them have gotten past the fist date.
Conversely I know guys that have gotten much farther, much younger. Hell, maybe it didn't even involve a date. Maybe it was just at a party or something in high school. Back then I was the nerd/geek type, suffering from undiagnosed ADHD and social anxiety which persisted into college. Once I played a club sport in the upper class years and volunteered after college, my confidence rose, but motivation to date was still low.
Now at 24, I feel behind for my age, and the women that are 2-4 years younger can easily pick up on a lack of flirtatious humor or overly platonic banter whether it's on a date or over text. Which is why I don't stand a chance with someone closer to my age.
There are hundred of courses and endless hours of "pickup" and "game fundamentals" to talk to women, but is dating really that unintuitive? And why would I want to pay for knowledge that should be innate? I will never understand how my parents met in their teens in the 1970s... and then ask me why I haven't met anyone, or tease if I'm on my phone all the time because I'm talking to a girlfriend. No, I'm browsing /r/dating_advice wondering why the dating part of your genetics didn't get passed down to ME!
Take the conversation I had on Bumble as an example, as well as this response to see how it could have gone differently. She was already interested. I've never had enough practice to intuitively know dating strategies.
https://imgur.com/a/5tAZUYB/ https://i.imgur.com/Tqjgp13.jpg https://i.imgur.com/it5d5v2.jpg
At the end of the day, it's all mental gymnastics. When Tinder and Bumble are household names, what other options do you have? Sometimes I feel better just sitting here with nobody than getting a headache wondering how to beat the competition, app algorithms, my social circle size, and whether or not approaching a women in public (i.e. grocery store/Starbucks) is a wise idea in the 2020s.
[–]MidnightPleaser44 1 point2 points3 points (0 children) | Copy Link
Yes and no. In life, there are going to be people that have an affinity for certain things but EVERYONE has to practice and maintain. How you do that all depends on how you perceive yourself and daily life.
The trick isn’t to practice your social skills (how to smile, when to make a joke, how long to laugh, eye contact, active listening, etc.). Social skills will come with time, what you need to focus on is getting COMFORTABLE when socializing. Think of the event of having a conversation as a room and you and the person you’re speaking with are in that room. That’s a “space” that you’re in and depending on both of y’all’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors that space will alter and change. Now if you think of a conversation as a space, you can see subject matters as like furniture or items to place within said room. ANYTHING goes, you can talk about whatever. It’s y’all’s room and, so long as you both want to entertain each other, you can spend however much time in whatever way you want. When you begin to look at a conversation in this light it’s less about “what should I say?” and more about “what all can I say?”. Each response from a person in a conversation allows for a MULTITUDE of different responses in: subject matter, emotion, delivery, response time, non verbals, phrases, dialects etc. I say all of this not to scare you but to reiterate that there is NO blueprint. The freedoms to explore and enjoy the “space” as you are is the ticket.
To sum it up, yeah some people are naturally better than others at talking but by no means does anyone have it all figured out. We’re all humans, learning, growing, and trying to become a more actualized self. Try putting yourself out there more often in order to make mistakes and learn how to be present and prepared rather than preoccupied and anticipating when socializing in the future! You got this👊🏾