Home→Forums→Emotional Mastery→Being a lonely young woman in a world obsessed with romance and sex
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August 18, 2024 at 12:04 pm #436336
Elais
ParticipantHello. I’m a young woman in my late 20s and perhaps a bit uncommonly, my love and erotic life has been so far minimal. This comes with its intense own intense and negative feelings of frustration but what also gets me is the side of “social repercussions”. I recognize that during my years, I’ve drifted away from certain friends or social circles just to not keep going admitting that my sentimental life is empty. Where I live, in the west, is almost expected that if you aren’t already paired up at least you’re experimenting sexually and having fun and I, for some reasons, I am not doing neither and has eaten at my self esteem a lot.
A bit of background: I’m definitely not religious not a “prude”. I’ve considered to be asexual on some degree but still, I woud very like to have a romantic relationship. I’m not hostile to that as most like to think. I’m not single by choice, it’s just that for some reasons I elude love and love eludes me. This feels deeply alienating.
I see people from all walks of life loving and lusting and I never see it happen to me, that I am as average to others as you can get, and ask: why? Why something that comes to easy to others like breathing don’t come to me? And I am a woman. Society still agrees that romance and relationships should be my main object of interest, that if I don’t have that, I’m nothing interesting. And sometimes I feel that that applies to me and to how others perceive me. I admit that, by feeling alienated by the rantic/erotic side of life, I have drifted away from the more platonic side too. And it’s not just taking a huge toll on my own self esteem but I also feel frustrated because I recognize I am touch and love starved and i want it. I want it so bad, yet I can’t help but drift love away and for love to never pick me.
August 18, 2024 at 1:41 pm #436340Helcat
ParticipantHi Elais
I’m sorry that you’re having difficulties with friendships and dating. It sounds like you have a lot of anxiety over it. What kinds of social repercussions have you faced?
When I was younger I wasn’t attracted to many people so I called myself asexual. I don’t know if you have ever experienced feelings of attraction for anyone? In time, I was very surprised when I learned that I was only attracted to very specific things instead of attracted to a lot of different things which is more common. If there were hundreds of guys, I would be attracted to one of them and it would take me about 6 months of being friends with them to start to develop an interest. I never had any stigma from my friends about it, I simply told them I was asexual and they accepted it, but I guess we were all a bit weird.
Well if you’re ready to date, have you tried tinder? What do you think has stopped you from dating in the past? If tinder isn’t your thing. There are in person groups that you can go to where you can meet a lot of different people. What would your ideal dating experience be like?
My thoughts are it’s 2024 and perfectly acceptable for a woman to hit on someone they find interesting. For me, this is the most effective method because I am so rarely attracted to people. I told my partner dirty jokes to gauge his level of interest after being friends for a while. If they tell dirty jokes back this is a sign of interest. Funny story, he didn’t get the jokes. So I had to explain them to him and tell him that when someone tells him jokes like that they might be hitting on him. It finally clicked for him.
I don’t think that dating is easy for everyone. I spent many years not dating. My partner spent many years not dating. It is more common than you realise. I don’t think that it means anything bad about a person. Perhaps the people who judge you for it are the ones who have problems?
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
August 18, 2024 at 7:08 pm #436347anita
ParticipantDear Elais:
“I’ve considered to be asexual on some degree but still, I would very like to have a romantic relationship… why? Why something that comes to easy to others like breathing don’t come to me?“- is it being dissociated, as in being dis-associated from romantic and sexual emotions and drives, having those suppressed or repressed, but not completely, so there is a longing?
anita
August 19, 2024 at 2:01 am #436359Elais
ParticipantDear Helcat:
Maybe it’s a bit incorrect to talk about social “repercussions”. My own shame over being unable to get a partner has contributed to a lot of my social distancing from others, so there is a lot of my own doing as well playing here. However, I always observe the world around me and see how you’re supposed to have been able to do x, y, z steps right by the time you are a certain age if you want to to be considered a well adjusted adult. It’s a bit like “if you want to get this degree, you need to have finished this course and achieved this certificate first”. It feels a bit like this.
I think I’m definitely capable to feel attractive but it’s very rare. Usually when I meet someone even attractive, I tend to relate to them platonically and it’s very rare that this perception may shift to romantic or erotic as time goes. Unfortunately, I notice I am more likely to feel real attraction to people who breadcrumbs me rather that people who take real steps towards me. I tend to feel easily overwhelmed and want to maintain distances, so that may play a factor. So, I don’t like dating apps, it’s just not my thing and that doesn’t help either.
August 19, 2024 at 2:08 am #436360Elais
ParticipantDear Anita:
Not sure if I got your question right, but anyway, there is definitely longing at play foo. I definitely do feel touch and love starved sometimes, so a part of me genuinely would love to share her life with someone else, to love and be loved back. What gets in my way is that unfortunately, these kinds of longing live just in my own mind. I think I suffer from some degree of maladaptive daydreaming because I feel like I would rather fantasize about having sex or being in love, or even just watch a show about people having sex and being in love rather than engage in real life. It’s like I am asexual on the outside but full of longings and needs inside. I tend to see people all around me very platonically and it’s rare I start feeling a certain way for them. None of my friends can relate to that so it feels very alienating. However, I am not 1000% sure I am just asexual either because there are rare times when I also happen to feel something for irl people too. It’s all so damn confusing.
August 19, 2024 at 4:10 am #436361Helcat
ParticipantHi Elais
When it comes to society, there’s a secret that you learn as you get older. There is no wrong way to do things as long as you aren’t hurting anyone else. You can do whatever makes you happy and other people just deal with it. There is no bar for being a person. Everyone is different.
So instead of worrying about it and judging yourself for it, try figuring out what would make you happiest. Try to accept yourself and so what if you’re different, learn to be proud of who you are.
I didn’t like the apps either, that’s why I spent a lot of time single. It’s the trade off when you’re not attracted to a lot of people. By dating organically only the people you bump into you are limiting your options. You would actively need to go to an in person group meet up to increase your options. Or speed dating to make up for the numbers. So it’s really either making peace with the situation, or trying those things. You could do hobby groups if you prefer a smaller number of people. Going to parties is also a situation where people are often actively looking to date.
You mentioned that you tend to be attracted to people who breadcrumb you. Have you ever experienced any difficulties growing up? I only ask because people tend to be attracted to people who aren’t really healthy for them tend to have experienced some kind of difficulties in life. If so, therapy can be helpful for changing that paradigm.
I had trauma in my childhood, so at first I was attracted to the wrong kinds of people. Therapy helped me to want something healthier for myself and changed who I was attracted to.
My experience of relationships is that there isn’t much difference between a friend and a romantic relationship. The sexual component is the only difference. That and eventually you build a life together. But that isn’t usually something to worry about immediately. Hugs and massages can also satisfy the need for touch. If you want something more, you will have to consider actively dating in some way.
It is also okay if you don’t want to date. If you are happier just watching a tv show that is 100% fine. You do you!
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
August 19, 2024 at 4:20 am #436362Helcat
ParticipantIt might also be helpful to figure out exactly what you are attracted to. My type didn’t change drastically, I just learned to look for the same kind of person except they were also kind. Intelligent guys are my thing but a lot of intelligent guys can also be unkind in my experience.
August 19, 2024 at 5:32 am #436363Elais
ParticipantDear Helcat:
I know that the most logical route at this point for me would be to actively dating, that so may include less organical options for getting to know people as dating apps, as you yourself have mentioned. I feel very blocked to do so, for some reasons. Maybe I suffer from some kind of avoiding attachments where I feel most comfortable at arm length from people. But how does one change their own attachment style? I have done therapy in the past but was more like, talk and CBT therapy rather than attachment focused. I can’t say it didn’t help but for some things but unfortunately, for others it didn’t.
<p style=”text-align: left;”></p>August 19, 2024 at 9:33 am #436365anita
ParticipantDear Elias:
(the boldface are your words:) You expressed intense and negative feelings of frustration about two things: (1) that your love and erotic life has been so far minimal, and (2) social repercussions: societal negative judgment of you for failing to be either paired up, or experimenting sexually and having fun.
On one hand, you are touch and love starved, and you want so bad– to love and be loved back, but usually, when you meet men, including attractive men, you tend to relate to them platonically, and rarely does this perception of them shift over time from platonic to romantic or erotic.
When men in real-life take real steps towards you, you tend to feel easily overwhelmed and want to maintain distance. But in fantasy, you don’t feel overwhelmed, and you don’t maintain distance: “I think I suffer from some degree of maladaptive daydreaming because I feel like I would rather fantasize about having sex or being in love, or even just watch a show about people having sex and being in love rather than engage in real life“.
In real-life, you feel very blocked to do what you do in fantasy: to touch and be touched, to love and be loved.
“Maybe I suffer from some kind of avoiding attachments where I feel most comfortable at arm length from people“- I agree, Elias: in real-life, you avoid that which you long for, that which you dare have only in fantasy, or by proxy of watching a TV show. I think that it’s fear that’s blocking you from real-life love relationship.
It may be fear of abandonment, as in: if you’ll be in a relationship, the man will leave you, and you’d be devastated. It may be fear of engulfment, as in: if you’ll be in relationship, the man will control and dominate you, he will mentally take over you, and you will lose the bit of independent-self that you now have.
These two fears may be rooted in your childhood where a parent abandoned you physically or emotionally, and/ or a parent was enmeshed with you, taken over you mentally and emotionally, not giving you the space to be.. you.
” I tend to see people all around me very platonically“- seeing people very platonically is self-protective: it protects you from either being abandoned or taken over.
“A part of me genuinely would love to share her life with someone else, to love and be loved back“- but another part of you is afraid.
“It’s like I am asexual on the outside but full of longings and needs inside“- I think that the term asexual is not helpful here: it is too broad (it means different things to different people) to explain what is specifically happening with you.
Some consider the term a sexual orientation. I don’t think that it is a sexual orientation in your case. I think that you are afraid of irl-love relationship.
“I notice I am more likely to feel real attraction to people who breadcrumbs me rather that people who take real steps towards me. I tend to feel easily overwhelmed and want to maintain distances“- it makes sense to me that you are less afraid of breadcrumbs than of a whole loaf of bread, meaning: you are less afraid of men who are not taking real steps towards you. No real steps toward you= no reason to run away (no immediate reason).
“But how does one change their own attachment style? I have done therapy in the past but was more like, talk and CBT therapy rather than attachment focused. I can’t say it didn’t help but for some things but unfortunately, for others it didn’t.“- attachment-focused therapy sounds just right for you:
From psychology today/ attachment based therapy: “An attachment-based approach to therapy looks at the connection between an infant’s early attachment experiences with primary caregivers, usually with parents, and the infant’s ability to develop normally and ultimately form healthy emotional and physical relationships as an adult”.
A bit about me: I grew up with a mother who controlled and dominated me on a regular basis, making my life all about her. She did not give me either the space, or the permission to be me. I felt guilty and too enmeshed to free myself from her mental domination. As a teenager, I daydreamed about romantic relationships a LOT, often from morning to night, but avoided such in real-life. There was a boy in high-school I fell in-love with for a couple of years maybe, fantasizing about having a love-relationship with him. One evening irl, following a youth-group meeting, he asked me to walk me home (just me and him), and I said.. No.
If you relate to what I shared, we can talk more about anything or everything, if you would like to.
anita
August 19, 2024 at 11:48 am #436374anita
Participant* Dear Elais: I just noticed that I misspelled your screen name. I am sorry.
August 19, 2024 at 11:21 pm #436395Elais
ParticipantDear Anita:
I do relate to some of your experiences, first of all, thanks for sharing a bit of your story! Hope you’re doing better now.
As a teen, I was very much like you. Daydreaming a lot over some boys, watching them strictly from a distance. When it comes to family, I think that over the years I’ve taken the implicit role of the family balancer. Unfortunately, my siblings and parents in their own ways are a bit emotionally immature and can’t communicate in a constructive way so it ends up with a lot of grudges and hurt. I find myself trying to do what I can for others but maybe, my own avoidant tendencies may stem from this too: fearing that I’ll end up as some unwilling emotional caretaker for a significant others as it often ended up with both relatives and friends. I’ve made explicit in the past to people around me that I don’t want to be their “therapist” and I don’t want them to spill to me their own grievances about other people I know, but then I feel selfish. Because no one around me knows how to check for others, and I’m afraid that by continuously putting my own walls and boundaries I’ll leave some people alone in their own suffering. Maybe this will give some context to my avoidant tendencies.
August 20, 2024 at 9:22 am #436400anita
ParticipantDear Elais:
You are welcome! And yes, I am doing much better, thank you.
“When it comes to family, I think that over the years I’ve taken the implicit role of the family balancer. Unfortunately, my siblings and parents in their own ways are a bit emotionally immature and can’t communicate in a constructive way so it ends up with a lot of grudges and hurt“- a balancer is a person or thing that balances: distributing weight over something unsteady so it remains in place, so it doesn’t collapse.
The Family Balancer = your Family Role: keeping the family steady, preventing the family from collapsing. This means that, as a child, you were not free to be a child. You had an adult job to do while being (objectively) a child. This is too heavy of a burden for a child.
“My own avoidant tendencies may stem from this too: fearing that I’ll end up as some unwilling emotional caretaker… . I’ve made explicit in the past to people around me that I don’t want to be their ‘therapist’ and I don’t want them to spill to me their own grievances about other people I know“- your role as a child (and onward): the family balancer, the emotional caretaker, the therapist, the collector of family’s spills (grudges and hurt).
“but then I feel selfish. Because no one around me knows how to check for others“- this means that within your family, no one knew/ no one knows how to check on you..?
“and I’m afraid that by continuously putting my own walls and boundaries I’ll leave some people alone in their own suffering“- your family role has been to join their suffering so that they don’t suffer alone..?
“Maybe this will give some context to my avoidant tendencies.“- I think so. I will now re-read your original post, the info in your most recent post considered (I will spontaneously share my thoughts, as I did in the above):
“Hello. I’m a young woman in my late 20s and perhaps a bit uncommonly, my love and erotic life has been so far minimal“- no wonder that a child who didn’t get to be a care-free child (a child who didn’t get to be and play like other children) turns out to be a woman who.. does not get to be a care-free woman (a woman who gets to play/ engage in an erotic/ relationship-life, like other women).
“This comes with its intense own intense and negative feelings of frustration“- intense frustration of the woman-Elais who doesn’t get to play, intense frustration of the child-Elais who didn’t get to play.
“Where I live, in the west, is almost expected that if you aren’t already paired up at least you’re experimenting sexually and having fun… Society still agrees that romance and relationships should be my main object of interest“- society agrees that carefree playing should be a main interest of a child, but you didn’t get the opportunity to actualize this interest. You didn’t get to be a child. It is not fair to expect you to be a playful woman when you didn’t yet get to be a playful child!
“I see people from all walks of life loving and lusting and I never see it happen to me“- others are in the habit of playing: first as children, then as adults. But you (through no fault of your own) were not in the habit of playing then; you are not in the habit of playing now.
“Why something that comes to easy to others like breathing don’t come to me?“- humans (like other animals) are creatures of habits: it’s easy to do what we’re in the habit of doing. it is difficult to do what we’re not in the habit of doing.
“I recognize I am touch and love starved and I want it. I want it so bad, yet“- you want something that you are not in the habit of doing/ experiencing.
Your 2nd post: “My own shame over being unable to get a partner has contributed to a lot of my social distancing from others“- it’s not your fault at all that you have not been able to get a partner. If any person who now has a partner would have been born into your exact family, your exact circumstances, they too wouldn’t be able to get a partner as adults. If you explained this to others who are understanding and reasonable people, they wouldn’t shame you. Not at all.
“I always observe the world around me and see how you’re supposed to have been able to do x, y, z steps right by the time you are a certain age if you want to be considered a well adjusted adult. It’s a bit like ‘if you want to get this degree, you need to have finished this course and achieved this certificate first’. It feels a bit like this“- yes, it’s a lot like this: to be a playful woman (y), one has to be a playful child first (x). To be an adjusted adult (y), one has to be an adjusted child first (x).
“I tend to feel easily overwhelmed and want to maintain distances“- following decades-long adjustment to not playing, deadening the instinct to play, a moment of real-life playing feels like too much.
3rd post: “I definitely do feel touch and love starved sometimes“- a person who has been starving for food for too long, has very little tolerance for food. Starving people in concentration camps died when they finally got to eat. This is why a starving person should be re-introduced to food gradually: be given clear soup first (easier for the inactive, weak digestive system to tolerate), later: given solid food in small amounts, and so on.
So, starved for touch and love for too long, even a bit of touch and love in real-life is overwhelming. You’d need to be introduced to love and touch gradually, gently, patiently.
“I would rather fantasize about having sex or being in love… rather than engage in real life“- it’s not overwhelming in fantasy, similar to a starving person not getting sick or dying no matter how much food he/ she fantasizes about.
“None of my friends can relate to that so it feels very alienating“- I can very much relate. I am an older adult now, but it is only recently (and still ongoing) that I often feel and act like a happy, well-adjusted child (x). I am in the process of becoming a well adjusted, happy adult (y).
Before, my whole life, not having had the opportunity to be a care-free child, I didn’t feel like an adult. I felt like a very sad, deprived, ashamed and guilty, lonely child, and I acted in maladjusted ways. Now, I feel care-free at times, like a care-free child, what a feeling!!!
anita
August 20, 2024 at 10:47 am #436402Elais
ParticipantDear Anita
I’m so happy for you managing to heal your inner child after years of suffering. It made me hopeful as well!
Back to your questions:
1. You asked me if no one in my family knew how to check on me, well no, actually they didn’t and they don’t. I know that they love me but they are very emotionally immature at times, and come from emotionally immature background themselves. My own siblings are extremely emotionally constipated and have a hard time realising their own feelings, let alone mine.
And by the way yeah, some part of me feels like I have to join others in suffering. When I tell myself “i don’t care if they are in a bad mood, I’m having fun” I’m feeling selfish. And it happens a lot. Some part of me is like afraid that my friends or family will do some extreme action in pain, like suicide, if I don’t keep track on them. It’s extreme I now.
August 20, 2024 at 11:25 am #436404anita
ParticipantDear Elais:
Thank you! About your family checking on you, you wrote: “they didn’t and they don’t. I know that they love me“- they don’t love you enough to check on you 🥹
“And by the way yeah, some part of me feels like I have to join others in suffering.. Some part of me is like afraid that my friends or family will do some extreme action in pain, like suicide, if I don’t keep track on them. It’s extreme I know.”- it amazes me how much we have in common. I was terribly afraid as a child, a teenager, and onward that my mother will commit suicide (she said she will). I used to pray to the stars in the night sky: please keep my mother alive!
I believed that I was one of the people causing her so much pain, so much pain that she wanted to kill herself (well, she said it), so I felt that I had to suffer because I was a bad person (and maybe if I suffer enough.. I’ll become a good person..?)
I was always focused on her, my life taken hostage by the fear that she will die any day, any time. What a waste of my life!
These days, whenever I find myself suffering because someone else is suffering, I say to myself: (1) my suffering is not helping the other person, there’s no benefit to anyone that I suffer, and (2) I want the other person to not suffer: why not wanting myself to not suffer? I mean, I matter too, I am as important as the other person, not less!
anita
August 21, 2024 at 4:50 am #436431Helcat
ParticipantHi Elais
You sound very aware of your difficulties. As Anita said different styles of therapy are useful for different things.
You have tendencies of avoidance. I have them too. I learned in therapy that avoidance reinforces our fears. So the more we avoid, the worse we feel when we encounter situations that we are afraid of. But the more we fight against those feelings and push ourselves to not avoid. Whilst it is scary and hard, in time we can adjust and trust in our capabilities and be less afraid.
It sounds to me like working on your self-esteem and boundaries would be helpful. When you feel comfortable saying no to people. Then you won’t need to avoid. When you are confident in yourself you won’t need to shy away.
All therapy really does is teach you the tools to be your own therapist. Most of the battle is applying what is learned in therapy. A therapist cannot make the changes for us.
Perhaps the people who are heavily weighing on you shouldn’t be doing so as much. It is okay to take some space for yourself to take care of yourself when you need to. Putting so much into others can leave your life on hold.
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
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