At this point I dont know what to do

[Sadromantic]

Okay, so I am in dire need of serious advice. I have been a total failure at love all my life. Not only have I not had a good relationship before, I haven't really had a relationship or even a first date. All that has ever happened is I become interested in someone, take a couple weeks/months to be with them and get to know them, and confess just to get rejected on the spot. This same cycle must have repeated 3 times now, and I fear it is going to happen again. I try to learn from past failures but it isn't working. Now, here I am, in love again, and I just don't know if I can trust myself to do it right anymore. All I want is to finally love and be loved in return, to have someone who I can feel at peace with, someone who I can cuddle with and comfort, what could be so hard about that? What am I doing wrong!? Please, tell me what to do before I go and have my heart broken again!

(Okay, so I needed to take a chill pill while I was writing this and didn't take enough time to ask myself what I really should be asking. Not that this post doesn't have any value per se, you could call this an example of what I become during one of my unstable, fearful moments, and it also still pretty accurately describes my past rejections.)

(I suppose I should have provided a little more detail as well, now that I go back to read the Guidelines section. If it really helps, I'm a 17 year old male and a junior in high school. I currently think I'm beginning to fall in love with a 14-15 year old freshman girl from Marching Band. I've known her for a couple months now, but have only recently come to fully realize my true feelings. I'm falling in love with her because she is a fun person to be with and I generally feel carefree when I'm around her. The main problem is, I don't know whether she shares my feelings or not, how fast or slow I should go, and what "signs" are in my head or not. Therefore, I am not confident about just telling her how I feel because I have such an overwhelming fear of rejection after having to suffer through such hell three times before, and need a little bit of a confidence boost in that area. I hope this adds a little more to the mush I originally posted =/ )

[strbrght]

You must love who you are as a person before you can truely love someone else fully.

[Sadromantic]

Thanks for the comment. I took some time to reflect on it, but I hit a dead end. Currently as far as the rest of my life goes, I'm totally fine with how I stand. I have fun with friends and family a lot and am usually pretty stable and confident until love comes my way again. As far as my past goes, I easily had that problem a couple years back, and it may have been the cause of the first two, but then a series of events occurred that helped me gain a whole lot more faith in who I am and became confident that people loved me for who I am as a friend. I even had a slightly easier time with the third rejection and was able to find my light again a little more quickly. I guess you could say I'm fine with myself as a person but I hate the situation I always find myself in, even now. I just have this overwhelming fear of rejection, and, now that I'm falling in love again, I cant get those past rejections, and the feeling I had afterwards, out of my head and don't know what to do to keep this potential fourth one from occurring. Should I just go ahead and make my feelings clear and get it over with now while it wont hurt me as much in the event I am rejected, or should I try to take my time, and hint on my feelings? The only problem is, due to the mix of fear and love, I'm pretty emotionally unstable and at times I feel like just letting it out too abruptly and it is everything I can do to hold it back. I suppose what I really should be asking is, what can I do to decreace the chances of rejection, even if it's just in my head, to reduce this fear?

[strbrght]

I'm dealing with this same situation right now. He is dealing with a lot in his life and I just have to be patient as hard as it is and as much as I care for him. This is the first time in my life that I have really been alone, so its definately hard and different. I am also afraid of rejection. I try to keep things cooln and calm. He knows what I want, I told him when the time is right for him I wanted to pursue a relationship. This may not be right for you, just because I don't fully know every detail. It was good for me because the type of person he is he wants to hear those things. So I txt him on occasion but not too much.just enough to remind him that I still care. But not too much that it becomes almost obsessive. It is difficult for me because I don't want to push him awAy. But in the mean time I am learning patience and that its OK to be single. Anxiety is something you must conquer. If fearing of rejection every time you start to fall in love, then how can you love and see them for who they really are? Love is complicated enough. Keep it as simple as possible. Don't add extra stress. Easier said than done. Honestly, for you, I would probably say take it slow. Do nice things for her but not overbearing with them. You don't want to come across as creepy or desparate. Eventually the time will come when the subject will be brought up and not sooner. Let it happen on its own. No need to push the issue. *as I'm saying this, and its not whAt I did* but, you first need to love yourself like I said before, secondly understand that its OK to be single, third take things slow, and finally if she does reject you, its her loss not yours! There are SOO many wonderful women out there that are looking for a nice guy that in the past have chosen the wrong, bad guys and are now changing their lives around and need/want someone that truely cares! Don't give up sadromantic! I think you should change your name to something far less sad* lol. "Be optimistic, don't ya get grumpy, just smile, smile and be happy!'

[bulrush]

First, you are not "in love" with this person, it is more like "infatuation". But it can still be emotional and fun. You cannot love someone until you know them inside and out, and spend years living with them.

We cannot tell us what you did wrong (if anything) until you tell us how past relationships have ended. I'm looking for a pattern, or common denominator in how you act. Maybe your problem is you don't act, or communicate, enough with your girlfriends. Girls like when guys share secret, intimate things like feelings, with them. So, how much of yourself do you share?

Maybe the issue is you share too much too soon. Please give us more details on past relationships.

[Sadromantic]

You wanted the whole story, well, here it is. It's pretty long though.

As far as past relationships go, they have never really been relationships. More like infatuation that couldn't break beyond the barrier and into love as bulrush has said. If it helps Ill give you the full story though. My first "love" was was back in sixth grade. I was a year older than she was, and thought she was very pretty and even more nice. She would always go out of her way to make people happy. Of course this is what made me fall for her since I was certainly NOT a happy person at the time. My best friends where all moving away, and I was the subject of frequent bullying, to which I usually responded with my full wrath of my rhetoric. I have always been able to scare bullies away just by fighting them with my words and have never actually had to be in a physical fight, and nowadays I'm never bullied because they are all terrified of the things I have described I would do if they did. It's pretty funny actually. As far as a description of me goes, I'm currently 6'3'', about 250-60 pounds, most of which is muscle weight, but I am still a little fluffy (and proud of it). I even have football and basketball coaches ask me to try out, but I don't because I know I wouldn't be good at it. I can't run at half the speed of smell, and my hand eye coordination is a complete nightmare. Anyway, back to this girl. I was thirteen and she was about 5 months younger than me at the time. I had obviously not been in love before so I was a little awkward and didn't know what to do. I knew I should ask her out, but for the life of me I couldn't grit my teeth and do it. I eventually concluded she may not have reached the same stage and decided to wait a year before I try to pursue it. By 7th grade I tried to convey how I felt any way I could, but the minor conventions were not working, and I still wasn't brave enough to go faster. Eventually, her friends caught on before she did and where too direct with telling her I liked her. This, of course, scared her off. End of that story. Needless to say, after a full year of having to let it sit, I was totally devastated for a full year afterwards. By 8th grade I was finally over her and ready to move on with finding someone. I wanted to find someone fast because I had never felt so good before, and wanted to feel it again. Eventually I did find someone. She was about the same age as me, and had a fun personality. On top of that, we shared a lot in common, apart from an extreme height difference. Anyway, I had learned from the last time not to take it too slowly and to step further outside my comfort zone. She was never very responsive though. Towards the end of the year, I asked her out to the 8th grade formal, but she flatly refused, and there I was, rejected again. End of that story. I decided to wait a bit longer to try again at love until I had more confidence. By high school, it came when I joined the marching band and made a massive amount of new friends and had some confidence whipped into me by my section leader that year who graduated the same year. We won state that year and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I felt like I could tackle pretty much anything, so I went looking for love again. Who knew it would come from the same place I got my confidence boost? Yes, I fell in love with my new section leader the next year. I was a month older than she was even though she was a junior and I was a sophomore, and didn't really fully realize I loved her until a few weeks before state. I was beginning to see her in a new way. She had the best personality I could have dreamed about. She would always help out those who felt down and treated us all like we where family, to the point where some of the freshmen would call her "mom." And I always fall head over heels for the ones who are especially nice to me since I don't get it often. On top of that, she was very pretty. Fair skinned, bright blue eyes, almost as tall as me, you get the picture. Anyway, this time I really blew it. After state, the maelstrom of emotions shown in my first post got to be so bad that it sort of slipped out too fast. And when I say it slipped out, I mean I totally poured my heart out to her all in one go. Yes, I know you are shaking your heads right about now, I certainly am. Because of that mistake, I had missed out on the best girl I had ever met. She was still very nice about it though. After I told her she said she needed time to herself to figure out what to say. She took a full hour to ponder what she could say that would hurt me the least, and I still appreciate that very much. She really was "mom" right to the very end. I was still left devastated though, because I felt like I had just missed my chance on my soulmate. I was left mortally confused about love because no matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to screw up somehow in the end. I eventually came back to my senses though, and thought to myself that, if she wasn't my soulmate, there must be someone even better out there somewhere. By the time I got over her, I must have immediately crushed on at least three people but decided not to make a move unless they did. When they didn't, I would move on before I fell in love. After a while though, I eventually became confused as to just who I wanted. As marching season came along again I began to realize exactly who I wanted. Again, a girl who shows a lot of kindness towards me. I seem to have a soft spot for them, huh? This time, she is two or three years younger than me, but she is the funnest person to be with and I always have a blast when I'm with her. She goes out of her way to help me with little things, like if I left my music in the stands after a pep band performance, she would pick it up and hand it to me. I also catch the occasional stare, but not that often. No idea whether this means anything or not yet because it hasn't dawned on me until recently, and, at this point with how badly I want to love an be loved in return, I trust that it's likely all in my head. So far the only hint I've managed to give her is, after state (which was this weekend) I sent a message on facebook to her telling her that she was amazing and how great it was to hang out with her in marching band this year. She didn't reply, but I didn't think she would since it was pretty generic, and she probably got something like that from everyone in the section after such an amazing state performance this year. Anyway, there's the entire story from first love to the present, hope it helps.

[bulrush]

My best friends where all moving away, and I was the subject of frequent bullying, to which I usually responded with my full wrath of my rhetoric.
She would always go out of her way to make people happy.
She [band section leader] would always help out those who felt down and treated us all like we where family,...
She [current crush] goes out of her way to help me with little things, like if I left my music in the stands after a pep band performance, she would pick it up and hand it to me.

First, it seems like you are shy and lack confidence. Second, you are attracted to people who go out of their way to be nice to you. I wonder if you feel your parents ignored you growing up, or if they were downright controlling of you, or abusive (verbally or otherwise). Or were your parents distant? Did they ever give you hugs or tell you they love you?

I was left mortally confused about love because no matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to screw up somehow in the end.

Not your fault things didn't work out. Only about 10% of relationships will seem really good and have long-term potential. So expect 9 out of 10 to fail. You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find that princess.

I used to be very shy also. But I dated little not because I was shy, but because I did not find many compatible girls worth asking out. I did date a few girls in high school, but not many. Some people thought I was gay. I wasn't, I was just choosy. I already had a good idea of what worked in a relationship and these girls just weren't mature enough for me.

So at the college I went to, every student is forced to take a speech class where we speak in front of the class. Of course, everyone was nervous and hated it. Each student made, I think, 3 speeches in the semester. First was 2 minutes, then 3 minutes, then 5 minutes. The point was to show all the students, that everyone gets nervous. Seeing a 220lb football player start crying in front of everyone really drives that idea home. But he didn't give up. He pushed through it and got better at his speeches.

So I recommend you take a speech class. Maybe a debate class. But debate takes more critical thinking and preparation than a speech, so that may be too much for you right now.

The other thing is, you must take a risk. Most times when you ask out a girl, don't expect success. Don't put a lot of emotional investment into it. Teach yourself not to care. In fact, practice by asking out girls you have only a tiny interest in. Go out on a few dates, then find someone else. Just be nice when you break up, say "It just isn't working out for me. Good luck to you." Expect to fail, and get used to it. It's not the end of the world. People fail every day, and some even learn from their mistakes. It's not your fault, it's just the way life is: a bunch of misses, and a few hits.

The more your practice, the better you will get at this. I don't have a problem asking out a pretty girl, but usually they already have a boyfriend, or they are just too shallow for me. I am not a typical guy, I look for a good, solid personality in a woman.

Also, if you want to date someone, you do have to take clear action. Don't go too slow, or too fast. If you want to date someone, find out if she's single, maybe get to know her, then ask her out. My rule is to use the word "date", as in: "Want to go on a dinner date Friday?" That way she knows I want to be more than friends. At that point she can accept or decline.

During the date, master small talk. Plus talk about personal things about yourself, but don't reveal all your secrets on the first date. Just reveal one secret. Girls like that you can open up a bit.

[Sadromantic]

Well, you hit the nail on the head with the control part. I've been putting up a fuss at home about it for a while now, but no matter how much you argue, overbearing fathers never get it =/

Anyway, thanks for the post. This is all great advice that I've taken some notes from. Hope you have luck finding a woman who isn't too shallow for you!