Tried to give up but I just can’t

[Markness]

I’ve actually have tried to give up on ever having a relationship and just accepting that I will go through the rest of my life without a partner. But whenever I see my siblings and their families as well as their friends who have the same things interacting positively, it brings back the same desires.

 

[tree]

This is a re-wording of a topic of a previous thread you started.

Thread 'Reasons why I can’t let go of wanting a relationship'

Jan 3, 2025

1) The isolation I have to go through long periods of time is often unbearable and I can’t share any experiences. I feel like I am missing out and that my past has defined how I will be for the remainder of my life.

2) People outside my immediate and extended families who have known me for decades knew I didn’t have a girlfriend in my teens and I still have nothing to show for my efforts when I encounter them now.

3) My siblings are all married and have their own families. The family group text on my phone messages is constantly showing photos and even videos of what they are getting...

• Markness
• Replies: 176
• Forum: Love, Relationships and Dating

• 
• 

 

[Markness]

I thought I hadn’t mentioned how I have tried giving up.

 

[tree]

You go at the idea in a variety of ways.
You don't want to give up/ You think you ought to give up (because somebody said to)...

I think the phrase "giving up" may not be useful.
The overtone is that of *failing* rather than acceptance.

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

sometimes it makes me angry that humans have not invented drugs or modern medicine that kill and remove ones desire for wanting relationships, love and sex, intimacy, its another reminder of how cruel nature and reality is.

 

[Markness]

You go at the idea in a variety of ways.
You don't want to give up/ You think you ought to give up (because somebody said to)...

I think the phrase "giving up" may not be useful.
The overtone is that of *failing* rather than acceptance.

I just don’t know how to accept things without hearing those who told me to give up in my head saying they were right.

 

[Judge]

I just don’t know how to accept things without hearing those who told me to give up in my head saying they were right.

That's a common theme with you. Putting far too much weight over the toxic opinion of others in your immediate social orbit. Think of it not in terms of dealing with them, but rather to prioritize ignoring them instead. Better yet, if and when possible to simply remove them from your social orbit altogether, if possible.

Family is important, but not if or when they negatively impact your mental well being. A dynamic that a number of us here have to deal with, and in some cases we simply have to remove them from our lives to move on and live in a more positive environment. Even if it means being alone.

Persons in your social orbit who may be more toxic to you than how you perceive not having found a relationship just yet. That removing them from your heart and mind may help you to a better understanding of your own self-worth. Which just may increase your chances of finding that one special person out there.

 

[thejuice]

They maybe asking you repeatedly because they know it's like pushing a button to control your emotional state.

My friends used to ask me every time they met me, "have you got a girlfriend yet?". They were too interested really, did they want to date me or what?

Take away the reaction and you take away their fun.

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

yeah, i remember getting angry at my friend/classmate from middle school asking me about my dating life

 

[Jonn]

sometimes it makes me angry that humans have not invented drugs or modern medicine that kill and remove ones desire for wanting relationships, love and sex, intimacy, its another reminder of how cruel nature and reality is.

The sex drive has an enormous influence on the desire to find a partner.
It is a biological reality/necessity for the continuation of the species.
Chemical castration does reduce the sex drive significantly, but it is hardly something most would embrace.

Now, this is coming from an older man whose libido isn't in its prime, to say the least.
While my sex drive may be low, there is still the desire to be nurturing and appreciated; the want of a significant other is multifaceted.

Perhaps one avenue of relief might be through forming a loving platonic relationship.
I experienced this later in life, and it was very powerful and satisfying.

 

[BewilderedPerson]

Keep going, man. You can do this.

 

[Matthias]

sometimes it makes me angry that humans have not invented drugs or modern medicine that kill and remove ones desire for wanting relationships, love and sex, intimacy, its another reminder of how cruel nature and reality is.

Humans invented drugs that help with this decades ago. SSRIs, a common class of anti-depressants that affect serotonin levels in the brain, can kill or greatly reduce sex drive and help people feel calmer and more content being alone. Some people who take these drugs lose interest in relationships because they no longer need them to cope with the distressing emotions they used to experience when they were alone.

While drugs, such as SSRIs, help in the short-term, it's not healthy to avoid people over the long-term because you'll miss out on the numerous benefits good relationships provide. It's kind of like taking drugs to suppress hunger caused by a lack of food. You'll feel better (less or no hunger) but suffer from a lack of nutrients and calories that eating more food would provide, which would adversely affect your health.

Fortunately, if you're not ready for a relationship, there are therapists that can help you improve your character and mental health to help prepare you for a relationship (make you relationship material) or help you find others who are in a similar situation as yourself.

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

Humans invented drugs that help with this decades ago. SSRIs, a common class of anti-depressants that affect serotonin levels in the brain, can kill or greatly reduce sex drive and help people feel calmer and more content being alone. Some people who take these drugs lose interest in relationships because they no longer need them to cope with the distressing emotions they used to experience when they were alone.

While drugs, such as SSRIs, help in the short-term, it's not healthy to avoid people over the long-term because you'll miss out on the numerous benefits good relationships provide. It's kind of like taking drugs to suppress hunger caused by a lack of food. You'll feel better (less or no hunger) but suffer from a lack of nutrients and calories that eating more food would provide, which would adversely affect your health.

Fortunately, if you're not ready for a relationship, there are therapists that can help you improve your character and mental health to help prepare you for a relationship (make you relationship material) or help you find others who are in a similar situation as yourself.

yeah, i remember reading somewhere: "you don’t get love as a reward for existing".

thats definetley true for guys, men, but for women, they are guaranteed it for just existing.

 

[Markness]

What should I tell myself when I see my siblings with their spouses and their friends who have spouses?

 

[Hypnalis]

What should I tell myself when I see my siblings with their spouses and their friends who have spouses?

You should tell yourself daily, including days when you interact with family, that the way you frame this entire topic is self-harming.

If you must allow jealousy into your life (perhaps to displace the "unhealthy family relationship" issue) perhaps you should direct it towards USD billionaires.
That would put you in good company, and plenty of it: around 8 000 000 000 other people would also prefer to be billionaires.

 

[Matthias]

yeah, i remember reading somewhere: "you don’t get love as a reward for existing".

thats definetley true for guys, men, but for women, they are guaranteed it for just existing.

In cultures where men make the first move, women tend to develop a good idea of the kind of men they're able to attract. For example, women who are are obese, disabled, and mentally ill know they are only able to attract men that are much less desirable than average. Men, due to not having women approach them, are sometimes completely clueless about the kind of women they are able to attract. This can result in men with major character flaws, mental illness, and other undesirable traits pursuing women with average or better attractiveness, good personalities, or successful careers without realizing these women are so far out of their league that they will never be interested in a relationship with them no matter how hard they try. It's the equivalent of pursuing a job as a doctor or lawyer when you never went to school.

In reality, I think it is just as easy for men as it is for women to find someone. Since there is an equal percentage of men and women in most countries, men just have to realistically asses themselves and pursue women who are more suitable for them (meaning women who are in a similar situation as themselves). This might mean pursuing women who are obese, mentally ill, or disabled instead of women with above-average looks, great personalities, and successful careers that most men would prefer.

An important lesson in life to learn is "You can't always get what you want." Sometimes you have to settle for things that are more appropriate given what you have to offer or put in the hard work improving your character, personality, and appearance to help get what you want.

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

In cultures where men make the first move, women tend to develop a good idea of the kind of men they're able to attract. For example, women who are are obese, disabled, and mentally ill know they are only able to attract men that are much less desirable than average. Men, due to not having women approach them, are sometimes completely clueless about the kind of women they are able to attract. This can result in men with major character flaws, mental illness, and other undesirable traits pursuing women with average or better attractiveness, good personalities, or successful careers without realizing these women are so far out of their league that they will never be interested in a relationship with them no matter how hard they try. It's the equivalent of pursuing a job as a doctor or lawyer when you never went to school.

In reality, I think it is just as easy for men as it is for women to find someone. Since there is an equal percentage of men and women in most countries, men just have to realistically asses themselves and pursue women who are more suitable for them (meaning women who are in a similar situation as themselves). This might mean pursuing women who are obese, mentally ill, or disabled instead of women with above-average looks, great personalities, and successful careers that most men would prefer.

An important lesson in life to learn is "You can't always get what you want." Sometimes you have to settle for things that are more appropriate given what you have to offer or put in the hard work improving your character, personality, and appearance to help get what you want.

well that gender dynamic, more than likely i see men forever stuck with that, and hence why the FA community is male dominated

 

[Matthias]

well that gender dynamic, more than likely i see men forever stuck with that, and hence why the FA community is male dominated

If there's an equal number of men and women in a community, the number of men who are alone generally has to be equal to the number of women who are alone. The only way I can see that not being true is if there's a much higher number of women who are only interested in woman or a significant percentage of men are dating more than one woman at a time, both of which seem unlikely to me.

 

[Wizardry]

This is a take that I think a lot of people aren't ready to hear yet, but for some people, permanent romantic absence manifests not as depression, not as entitlement, and not merely as longing, but as chronic grief. It's not just the absence of a positive, but the presence of a negative.

Grief is often defined as coming from loss or bereavement, but that is only the most visible and socially validated way that a grief state can occur. Relational grief is not fundamentally about loss. It is about the sustained absence of an expected, meaningful relationship or role. People experience childless/infertility grief when they really want children but aren't able to have them. People who grow up without a father can retrospectively grieve a paternal figure when they realise the developmental cost of fatherlessness. Some people grieve not being able to experience being and having a romantic partner when the desire for that kind of relationship is salient and there's no grounding reason to expect it's going to happen.

We acknowledge that spousal bereavement is emotionally difficult because a spouse is an important part of their partner's life. We validate break-up grief as being real because the benefits of being in a relationship and an imagined future with a significant other were lost. If romance was really as trivial and substitutable as some people like to pretend when confronted with someone experiencing permanent romantic absence, losing a partner should be as trivial as never getting to have one, but nobody thinks about it that way because getting to experience romantic relationships is important for most people.

The logic being used is like saying a rich person who becomes poor feels economically disenfranchised, but a person who's been poor their whole life doesn't feel that way, never did, and wouldn't be validated if they claimed they ever felt that way. Loss-based grief makes it so that somebody with a higher emotional baseline falls to a lower emotional baseline. Absence-based grief often results in a stably low emotional baseline, so it's less visible and commonly minimised.

People who are asking you to accept not having a romantic partner are unknowingly asking you to embrace grief as your permanent emotional baseline. Acceptance-based framing in the context of bereavement is only humane because there is no intervention that can revive the dead, so acceptance is tragically necessary. In the case of grief based on romantic absence, it may be difficult, but there is a way to resolve that grief, so acceptance-based prescriptions are lazy and unethical.

Also, your family members and others in relationships being a trigger for you is what I call Normative Exposure Injury. It is the equivalent emotional trigger of having recently experienced a breakup, still experiencing acute breakup grief and seeing your ex start dating someone else. The difference is, for you, the equivalent to that ex is not just one person, but everyone experiencing romantic relationships.

 

[Wizardry]

If there's an equal number of men and women in a community, the number of men who are alone generally has to be equal to the number of women who are alone. The only way I can see that not being true is if there's a much higher number of women who are only interested in woman or a significant percentage of men are dating more than one woman at a time, both of which seem unlikely to me.

There are more men who have never dated or had romantic relationships than women, though women who haven't dated or had romantic relationships certainly exist as well. What this likely implies is not that women are dating multiple men at one time, but say that the amount of heterosexual men who have dated and had relationships is 90% and the amount of heterosexual women in the same position is 97%, all of those 97% of women dated somebody in that pool of 90% of men when they did date.

There may be a roughly even number of single men and single women at any given time, but that doesn't mean that there's an even number of men and women who have never dated at all.