So I’m pretty new here to this sub but I have already learned a ton of theory that has helped a lot with my confidence and success. That being said I’m a year removed from a 3 year relationship, and have really only ever attempted to date seriously(minus one hookup that went comedically bad for me). This year however I’ve seen 3 different people.

The first was a past coworker who I got on amazing with and ending up matching with online. We went on several dates and were progressing physically, just short of having sex. She had never been in a real relationship before but we had agreed to be exclusive without a label. She was not the promiscuous type so I was okay with going slow, however I think I pushed things too fast/got too clingy. She told me a few weeks later after cancelling several dates that she was actually not ready to date at all due to her anxiety and she was sorry for dragging me along despite her having a great time on our dates. She typed up a few essays and was very apologetic during the convo, and it essentially ended with her agreeing to reach out in the future after she worked through her personal issues. She thanked me for showing her that’s guys like me still exist and offered to still be friends but I said it’d be too awkward at that point.

The second woman I just didn’t really have chemistry with and stopped seeing her after a month or two. Nothing crazy happened, she just was looking for a serious relationship and I only liked her enough to want to hookup.

The most recent situation involved a married, but filing divorced woman I had known and went to college with previously. Her tinder bio said she wanted long term, she was getting really lovey-dovey with me giving me the sweetest birthday card I ever received saying how things just felt so right and familiar with me already. We did have sex that night and I made her cum at least twice so I thought this was really promising. A week later I said if we were going to have sex I wanted to atleast be exclusive even with no labels. She agreed enthusiastically, however the next day I reiterated that I will eventually want a serious relationship in the future and then the truth came out. She had admitted she couldn’t imagine being in a relationship for the foreseeable future and that she had felt shitty ever since giving me that sappy card. We agreed to go separate ways but met up one more time this past week to say bye and make each other cum (my idea) lol.

I am not opposed to hookups up but the first and third women I mentioned had serious long term potential chemistry wise. Should I be approaching women with a hookup mentality first and foremost and then just be open to a relationship? It seems impossible to do the inverse, of wanting a relationship and settling for fwb.

I am not neurotypical and I don’t get along with a lot of people, so when things click I tend to want to keep a good thing going, thus my tendency to want exclusivity once sex is involved. It seems though that I have lost two quality people and I can’t tell if it’s because I fumbled or because they were both clearly going through their own situations in life(anxiety and divorce).

TL;DR: Two women I dated this year who claimed to be looking for long term relationships changed their minds despite our chemistry and compatibility. Should I take a break to just hookup and be a fuckboy, or do I keep trying to be genuine in my search for long term partner? I won’t rule out the possibility that I made mistakes but it mostly seems to be bad luck with these two women.