Pandemic Dating Sucks

There’s an upscale fast casual restaurant that I frequent. One of those “I’m too tired to cook, but I need to give my family a decent meal” type of chains. Let’s say KFC, even though it isn’t. At this particular KFC, there’s a woman that manages it who is pretty damn cute.

I usually don’t approach women when they’re working; I feel like it's not fair to put someone on the spot while they’re just trying to earn a living. On that particular night, though, she just seemed really attractive to me and I decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a shot.

After my order was completed, I asked to talk to the manager. She came up and I said something along the lines of “I think you’re gorgeous and I’d love to get to know you. But, I don’t want to put you on the spot, so if you’d like to get in touch, here’s my number.” She said thanks, and I went home.

She never contacted me, which to be honest I was expecting. Women don’t typically seem to be interested in me, so the lack of response here was not a huge surprise. This meant that on future visits to KFC, it would have the potential to be awkward.

So I stayed away for a few months. When I went back, the manager and I studiously avoided eye contact and everything was fine.

A few weeks ago, though, I returned to KFC and she waved at me when I walked in the door. I was surprised, and confused, but I waved back. When it was time for me to check out, she rung me up and commented to another customer that I was a great customer with an awesome voice. I didn’t really know what that was all about, and it was super confusing.

I spoke about it with a female friend, and she said that perhaps this woman felt awkward, and was waving to me and talking to me in a pre-emptive attempt to make things less awkward. She probably wasn’t interested, she was probably just flustered.

I went back to KFC yesterday, and the manager waved at me yet again. I decided to talk to her and see what was going on. After I got my food, I noticed she had moved out to a table in the restaurant, so I stopped by and said hello. I said I was a bit confused about what was going on since she had never contact ed me.

She explained that when I gave her my card, she was in a relationship. She wasn’t in the relationship anymore, so she was interested, but didn’t have my card.

This put an entirely different spin on things. So I asked for her number. While she was putting her info into my phone, she said she wasn’t looking for a relationship.

I definitely am looking for a relationship, but I’m also okay with sleeping with someone relatively stable until a decent relationship comes along.

After I got home, I texted her and we set up plans to get together for drinks next week. If she doesn’t want a relationship, then she’s okay with just fucking around for a bit. With me...which I find kind of unbelievable. I perceive myself as someone that other people don’t really find attractive. I know I’m a decent-enough looking person, objectively speaking, but I’m used to the back-and-forth rigamarole of starting a relationship. Every step is a huge uphill battle. First you convince them to meet you for coffee. Then you have to be sure you’re not too weird. Then you have to slowly escalate what you’re doing. You meet in public places until she’s comfortable, then you can meet one on one a couple of times. Then maybe you talk about spending more time together. It’s exhausting.

KFC girl doesn’t want a relationship. She’s down to fuck. I can manage that fairly easily. Knowing that she’s already into me makes it easier to act like the suave, confident person I believe myself to be. This is probably why the pickup artist crowd says to assume attraction.

Also important to note is that the reason she didn’t message me originally is because she was in a relationship. When I fail at getting a woman’s interest, I usually assume that it’s somehow my fault, and try to figure out what I was doing wrong so I can improve for next time.

This time, though, it had nothing at all to do with me. The lesson: you never know what’s going on in someone else’s head, so if I fail to connect with someone it doesn’t necessarily mean that I fucked up.

Something is different, and I’m not sure what.

In March I briefly dated a woman I met on a dating app. It was an out-and-out disaster. She was weird, but I persevered because I enjoyed spending time with her. Then she caught feelings after a week and I was forced to end it because I didn’t want to lead her on.

Since then, though, it’s been apparent that something is different. I find that I’m acting more assertive. I’m asking women I like for their phone numbers, and they usually give them to me. I’ve been on a lunch date and a few hangouts.

When I find myself interested in a woman, I go up and speak with her. My normal MO is to just pine away in the corner and hope we magically end up in bed together.

I asked one woman for her number, and after I asked her out for coffee she gave me the whole “just got out of a relationship” thing and she wasn’t interested. I offered friendship as an alternative, and she seemed fine with it. We got together this weekend, and the whole time she was giving indicators of interest. Playing with hair, body leaning into mine, etc. No physical touch, but body language was there.

It confused the hell out of me. I was genuinely okay with the prospect of friendship.

I mean, she hasn’t confessed her undying love for me or anything. We just had coffee. It was a lot of fun, though. A friend of mine suggested that this woman might be interested in something down the line once she gets to know me. I was skeptical; that typically doesn’t work for me. I usually become best friends with them and they marry someone else.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a bitter neckbeard. I am mostly confused about how all of this shit is supposed to work.

I have a hard time meeting attractive women, but when I do meet them everything goes to hell quickly because I get nervous.

I was at the bar with some friends tonight when this really attractive woman came up to one of my friends and gave him a hug. After they talked for a few minutes I walked behind him and waved, letting him know I thought his friend was hot and he should introduce me.

My friend, who’s married, understood what I was going for and introduced me a few moments later. 

And I choked.

My friend, let’s call him Travis, called me over and talked me up to the woman, like a good friend should. The woman was giving a good indicator of interest; she kept playing with her hair. It made me nervous. When he stopped introducing me the conversation turned to how this woman had a dog.

I asked questions about her dog, but dogs are really not a conversational strong suit of mine since I don’t like them very much. I’m definitely a cat person.

I felt like I was drowning in conversational inanity and there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn’t charming. I wasn’t witty. I wasn’t flirting.

I felt kind of lame.

She would say something, and I’d politely respond. It wasn’t an interesting conversation. I don’t think I made a good impression. At some point the hair twirling stopped. I feel like I blew it.

What could I have done differently?

I could have steered the conversation towards something I was more comfortable talking about.

I could have responded to her IOI and said something that made it clear I was interested in her. What, exactly, I have no idea. I feel like complimenting a woman on her appearance right away can make you seem too desperate.

At any rate, I feel like I blew the first impression. I excused myself after a little while and moved to other conversations. Later in the night I came back to talk with her, and it was a better interaction. I didn’t flirt this time, either, but I feel like I did manage to come across as a nice person, even if I didn’t come across as an attractive one.

I rarely have wet dreams. I masturbate pretty regularly, and in my experience as long as I’m getting some type of sexual release, wet dreams don’t happen. In the event that I do have a sexual dream, it’s typically weird fucked up shit like incest or cannibalism. After those sorts of dreams I wake up feeling super disturbed.

When I was younger, I was super religious. My wet dreams as a teenager would take the form of some girl begging me to sleep with her, and me turning her down because we weren’t married. I’d wake up super frustrated.

Last night was nice, though. I dreamt that there was this gorgeous blonde who wanted to get fucked, and I was just the guy for the job. She was younger than me, like college age, so I wanted to be sure she was having a good time. I reached down to finger her and she was already wet. Like, super wet. I didn’t need any further invitation, so I pulled out my dick and we started to fuck.

I’m really bad at flirting. If I like a girl, I’ll go right up to her and talk about anything in the world except that I’m attracted to her. Since I didn’t have a whole lot of social interaction growing up, I was heavily influenced by what I saw in movies and television. I fully bought into the trope that if you’re just a really, really good friend to a girl that one day the stars will align and the lights will dim and she will realize that you were there for her all along.

And then she’ll want to fuck you.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. I was a Nice Guy. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a Nice Guy is a man whose entire approach to dating and flirting is being ‘nice’, in hopes that the woman he shows ‘respect’ to will see that he is the most harmless person in the world, and they are safe with him, and in return for being nice, they will want to be in a relationship. The problem with that approach is that being nice isn’t anything special; it’s the baseline for human interaction.

For a woman to realize that you’re interested in her, you need to communicate that in some way. Flirting can take a ton of different forms, but if a woman is interested in you she’ll flirt right back. I never really understood how to do that. My assumption was that I couldn’t flirt without being labeled creepy or weird, so I never tried to do it.

Over the years, I’ve overcome a lot of my Nice Guy tendencies and have become slightly more overt with my attempts at flirting. I can do it on occasion, but usually by accident.

I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago. I was out at a bar with some friends with work, and a friend of a friend stopped by. We talked for a few minutes about inconsequential stuff, and she told me that she was attracted to me.

I wasn’t terribly attracted to her, but I was pretty horny. It had been a few months since I’ve slept with anyone, and I knew that if I played my cards right I could probably get her to come home with me.

So I flirted. I made sure I touched her. I teased her. Since I knew she liked me, I didn’t have to spend the entire interaction wondering what she thought of me. I wasn’t so caught up in what I thought she thought of me that I became paralyzed. I was, in a word, confident. In the end she did wind up coming home with me.

It was incredibly easy. All it took was 1) knowing she was attracted to me and 2) getting out of my own head. I stopped overanalyzing everything about the situation and just enjoyed the moment.

The takeaway is to stop being so worried about what the other person is thinking of me. If I assume attraction, which is one of the core pieces of seduction advice, I will naturally act more confident, which is one of the most attractive things a person can do.

I’m in my upper 30s and I’m absolutely terrible at meeting women and convincing them to date me. This blog is going to be a place where I can work out some thoughts and realizations I’ve had about dating.

On paper, I’m a great catch. 6 figure income. Intelligent. Master’s degree. I live on my own. I’m in the process of starting my own business. I have a high degree of emotional intelligence. I’m thoughtful. In the right circumstances, I’m even charming.

My main issues come down to not being attractive enough and issues with understanding how to flirt.

The attractiveness issue is simple enough (on paper) to fix. I think I’m a good looking guy, but I’m 20 lbs too heavy. I need to drop the weight and maintain it. I’ve been working on the weight issue for the past year and haven’t made any lasting progress because of a lifetime’s worth of bad nutrition habits. It’s taken time to understand where I’m going wrong and make changes, but I do think I’m making progress. I’m continually looking for things to improve. My diet is overall better, but I’m struggling to eat healthy (and less!) on a consistent basis.

I’m handicapped when it comes to flirting because of my upbringing. My parents were (and are) super religious, and decided to homeschool me. This cut me off from being around my peer group and learning how to interact with others. I was awkward and didn’t know how to make friends consistently until my mid-20s.

Now I’m a bit less awkward and fresh out of a 5-year relationship. I landed the woman I had because we both had the same emotional issues. She decided to marry someone else, and I’m back to square one.

I’ve frequented /r/seduction, a dating community on reddit, for a few years now, and overall I like the message they have. That message? Make your life so awesome that other people want to be part of it. There’s a lot of bullshit mixed in, too, but that’s what you get when you have the blind leading the blind.