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Bad Luck with Men?

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by Love4Ever, Jul 8, 2018.

  1. Love4Ever

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    So this is something that I have recently been dealing with and I guess I'm looking for someone who can relate? Basically, I'm sexually and romantically attracted to men. But in real life, with the VERY limited experience I have, I just can't seem to be emotionally attracted to them. I know I CAN have romantic feelings for men. I have fantasized all my life about meeting a guy who would sweep me off my feet. But in reality I feel nothing with any of the guys I have spent time with, even as friends. However, emotionally it's easy for me to get close to girls. I just feel like I have nothing in common with men at all. In fantasy and fiction I can fall for and relate to men no problem. I'm also sexually attracted to men, but when I'm hanging out with guys or when I went out with one I just felt so unfulfilled and, I hate to say it, bored. When I was with these guys I just wished I were elsewhere, and I would start thinking about how much more fun I'd be having if I was with a female friend instead. I also feel more relaxed around girls. I think this has a lot to do with the fact I only grew up having female friends. I also have a sister and no brothers as well as female cousins I'm close to. I have great relationships with my male relatives and I love them, but outside my family I just can't connect with a guy and it makes me sad and frustrated. For a very long time I was more attracted physically to men, now I'd say it's closer to even with women, but I just feel like the emotional attachment that I assumed would be there and fall into place has been absent for me. I'm just sad and frustrated and confused.
     
    #1 Love4Ever, Jul 8, 2018
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2018
  2. Meander

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    Part of me makes me think you should go with what feels right for now. It seems like you're in a period where it's not 50/50 and that women have started catching your fancy more. Does that still mean you're bisexual? Absolutely!

    However, I could be completely wrong about this.

    You say something about falling for men in fantasy and fiction. That makes me think "What do you want in a man?"
     
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  3. Love4Ever

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    Thank you for replying! I honestly don't know. I am looking for a level of emotional intimacy that I am just not finding and it breaks my heart. I guess I just want to be understood and that's a hard thing. I want complete emotional vulnerability and I can't find a man who can give that to me. I am a very sensitive person and my emotions rule my heart.
     
  4. Meander

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    I feel that a good chunk of men fail to be emotionally vulnerable. Probably fear it, too. I don't.
     
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  5. Nickw

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    Love4ever

    This can be really difficult to understand where ones feelings originate.

    I'm not discounting bisexuality when I say this...not at all because I am sort of a militant bisexual who is very sensitive about having bisexuality questioned.

    BUT. I think it is still important not to under estimate the importance that societal influences have in how we perceive the relationships we desire.

    Your wanting the physical and relationship aspects of love with a man MAY be bumped up some because you are supposed to want that...to some degree.

    I know that my desires for women are influenced by this. Having a female lover is SO much easier since it is what is expected. So, I sought women even though, on some level, most men were a better fit.

    I ended up marrying a woman who gave me both. Emotionally, she is strong, independent and physical...likes to be one of the guys. And, she satisfied my opposite sex desires.

    You may find that man. But, you may have more luck finding what you need with women.

    Now, the tough issue that some of us bi people face. Would you be fufulled with only a man or only a woman? Maybe you are wrestling with this as well.
     
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  6. Love4Ever

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    This is a real point of contention for me. I don't know if I would be. I know I will always crave sex with a man. I couldn't go my whole life without that, because, frankly, men are gorgeous creatures, and I long to be able to touch them, make love to them, have them make love to me. I just haven't found a guy that I want to do that with. But emotionally, women make SO much sense to me, and not having that kind of female companionship, that, feminine softness, that beauty women have, I couldn't live without that either. I also find lesbian sex to be very intuitive and appealing. I have strongly considered polyamory. I think I would do well in a relationship like that.
     
    #6 Love4Ever, Jul 8, 2018
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  7. Love4Ever

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    Right now I feel like I'm craving a woman, but I know at some point that will change and I will want men more again, the same way I did when I thought I was straight the majority of my life. It just, keeps changing, and I don't know what to do.
     
  8. Mihael

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    Maybe you should look for guys more. Join some hobby groups. Go out to people . You will meet lots of different people this way.

    What were the men like? Those who you did not feel a connection with. Why was that?

    I'm also not saying you shouldn't look for a woman too, anyway, if this is what you want.

    There is also a thing... men have problems with opening up emotionally. It is a thing. Maybe you need more patience. He will open up. Once he trusts you. Be warm and patient and he will. But he doesn't want to take his armour off and be a sissy when he is not sure he is not risking. It's easy to act strong... vulnerability is frigging hard.
     
  9. Love4Ever

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    You're right. I need to meet more types of guys. I just can't get to seem motivated to meet them.I just feel out of place surrounded by a bunch of guys. And the men who didn't work out for me were wrong for a variety of reasons. I think I maybe am just disillusioned by how real guys are. All the ones I've met are nothing like the kind of people I've dreamed up. Which I suppose is the problem. I am looking for a perfect guy and there is no such thing. It's weird because in a woman I am not nearly as picky. As long as she is kind and considerate I instantly feel 100% more comfortable around her. There could be two people, a guy and girl who were exactly similar in every way and I would bond with the woman way quicker. I don't know, I just feel safe around women. I feel relaxed and calm. I don't know, I am afraid I am just feeling more down on my luck with men because I kind of put women on a pedestal. Which obviously is not a good idea, because people are people and were all human, and god knows I am far from perfect. I guess I just kind of envisioned a sort of knight in shining armor, and since I didn't know a lot of men it was easy to think there were plenty of men out there like that and I would find them someday, and meanwhile all that time I wasn't getting to know any real guys and was busy bonding with women, so now around dudes I feel out of my depth and realize that I have fallen in love with a fantasy version of men that doesn't exist. I believe we're all the same on the inside, we're all as likely to be perfect and imperfect in the same ways, but sometimes I feel like I don't know men at all or what they're like. They feel foreign to me. I know this probably sounds crazy and like I should get out more which is probably true, but I don't know how else to explain it. I have always lived a pretty sheltered life and was basically raised in a giant cauldron of estrogen lol. Other than my relatives every other important person in my life, every friend, has been female. But I thought I could approach men the same way I did women and all would work out, but I keep feeling like I am failing.
     
    #9 Love4Ever, Jul 8, 2018
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  10. Cinnamon Bunny

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    You say you have a hard time finding something in common with men. Are you talking interests or hobbies? Are you talking about sharing life experiences? Are you talking about sharing feelings?

    I easily connect with women and feel that safety too. The vast majority of my relatives are women as well. I also been very close with men. I grew up with both male and female friends. Yet I relate to the struggle you're talking about in part.

    Men are socialized differently, as are women. If you only hang with women that will reinforce patterns too. You can't always approach men the same. I think it just takes more time, trust, and investment for men to be emotionally vulnerable. That's not inherit to being male though and varies from person to person too. With men, I tend to connect over similar interests, humor, and hobbies as a buddy. With time, I might earn their trust for them to open up. With some men they do have walls ups and you might be going after the wrong men. However, It's also not a flaw to have boundaries. It's good and healthy to not share till there's trust built. Trust takes time.

    I try to meet people where they are at. If they want to talk life, I talk life. If they want to talk movies, I talk movies. If they talk lgbt, I talk lgbt. It could be you just need to learn to connect with others in different ways or it's a matter of patience. Even with women, trust is built in time.

    At heart, men and women are honestly not that different. We both need connection and acceptance. We both love and have heart break. We both have dreams and fears. We both have likes and dislikes. In the deepest sense, we're the same. Yes, maybe it takes more time to see those things in some, but it's still there.

    I personally don't do well if men approach me romantically right off the bat. I think part of that is because I do need that emotional connection. There have been exceptions but those guys showed some form of vulnerability, like being unapologetically their goofy selves.

    NOT to say all men have trouble being open or vulnerable. Social conditioning is just a reality that effects us all.

    It's obvious you have no desire to treat anyone unequally and you believe we're all human. I say this as someone who gets the appeal of the white knight... If you relate to women at some level you see them as equals on the same playing field as you. If you can't relate to men at some level you aren't seeing your shared humanity and struggles and thus they aren't on the same playing field or your equals. Maybe you don't have women on pedestals, maybe it's men? Wanting men to be white knights may be leading you treat men with different expectations than women. Maybe you are allowing women to be flawed and beautiful, but if men are flawed you're dissapointed. That is holding someone to a higher standard, which is why they'd be on the pedestal instead. Being a white knight or the perfect guy means maintaining a mask, which kills vulnerability and connection. Maybe you are choosing men who wear masks, because part of you wants that. You want an "image". That image doesn't allow for vulnerablity or authenticity though so you're left unsatisfied. Or the mask slips... but you don't see how this makes them real, human, and relateable.

    If that's what is going on, change starts with you and being okay with men being flawed human beings.

    I don't know about you, but the men in my family are absent, meh, or abusive (so are many of the women to be fair). But growing up with the heteronormative belief that one day I'd spend my life with a MAN, probably has left me really guarded. It's not that I didn't know good guys or didn't like them, merely that I had more to lose if men were flawed. With my female friends, there was no threat of "marriage". For me, some of my own pickiness and harshness towards men stems from trying to protect myself. I didn't grow up with such guards around women. I didn't believe women were better than men, I believed in equality. I just believed I wasn't safe.

    In the end such guards don't protect. Healthy relationship skills, boundaries, self love, and compassion do.

    Perhaps you aren't like me though. If you're really uncomfortable around men merely due to lack of exposure, you still might just be anxious and trying to protect yourself from the unknown. Or you're not seeing the commonality we all have. You could really benefit spending time with men as friends where there is no end goal other than being a friend to them.
     
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  11. Mihael

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    But how do you approach women? We two seem to get along, and I have mostly male friends, really. If we had more specifics, we could fix it more easily, I think.
     
  12. Love4Ever

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    Thank you for such a detailed response. You're right about everything, I do think that you're correct in that it is men I expect to be perfect. In a sense maybe I always have? Ever since I was a little girl, and old habits die hard. I can see the reality of women next to their fantasy selves but since I know so few men I struggle. I agree. There is pressure to be more than friends with a guy and I hate to feel pressured. I get that pressure a lot because I've never had a boyfriend and so people expect me to start dating the first guy I meet. And it's frustrating explaining to them why the two guys I met in the last year are wrong for me. And this I don't think has anything to do with my troubles with men but more that these guys are truly just not for me. I rely on gut instinct a lot, and I can tell pretty quickly when it's telling me, "they're nice, but not for you." And once I hear that trying to force it afterwards is pointless. I do want to meet some men in a different setting. I would love to meet some guys who are active in the LGB community, that would be a shared commonality that is very important to me.
     
  13. Love4Ever

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    Well I don't really approach women per se. I'm not out so I only approach women openly as friends unless we're alone. I do flirt unconsciously with everyone, but since women are usually very flirty with their friends this goes undetected. I don't know. With women I don't really think about approaching them I just do. I just start talking to them and if we have things in common I start to like her pretty quickly. If she's also attractive to me then it's a double win. Interestingly though I have met few friends who I was attracted to which his sad because I would love to be best friends first. I do get along well with you. And I don't think you're having mostly male friends has been a barrier since you seem great about communicating with women.
     
    #13 Love4Ever, Jul 9, 2018
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  14. Mihael

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    Aha. But don't you appraoch guys as friends? That should happen first, before you date someone or flirt with them.
    So it's something those guys have and I don't. I understand.
     
  15. Love4Ever

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    Yes, definitely. I just feel a level of understanding with you that with a guy I just wouldn't. So it's easy for me to talk to you. I feel like you know where I'm coming from better idk.
     
  16. Mihael

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    You mention that you are emotionally sensitive. I am too. Despite being into football and programming and stuff like that. Maybe that is the difference? I notice a lot of guys are quite insensitive and I can't stand it them too. But there are guys who are more emotional out there too. You just have to look for them. Usually I can pick them out by asking who likes art or plays instruments. A friend of mine has a fiance with whom she played in a band. He's totally caring and sensitive, despite having a manly personality.
     
  17. Love4Ever

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    I agree. The artsy types do tend to be like that. I've always liked guys like that for this exact reason. I'm a humanities major so I'm hoping that I will be able to run into more likeminded men that way.
     
  18. Love4Ever

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    That's cool you like football. And I wouldn't say programming is nescessarily manly just anyaltical. I'll admit I know next to nothing about sports or tech stuff. A lot of guys seem to like those things though. I'm basically into fandoms, books, poetry, art, music, new age stuff, movies, and any European time period before the Second World War. To say it's difficult to find people who like that stuff is an understatement.
     
    #18 Love4Ever, Jul 9, 2018
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  19. Mihael

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    Yeah, this is why I have guy friends, they like the analytical stuff. Even sports are more feminised for some odd reason.

    You can look for hobbies groups too :slight_smile: If you are a humanities major, then I don't know, but I learn Japanese in the college and made a lot of like minded friends this way. Or I made friends through music, drawing club, sports... realy, whatever you like to do. Are there groups and activities like that on your campus? Or maybe local meetups? Will your university to which you are transferring have them?
     
  20. Love4Ever

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    The university I am transferring too has many clubs that look interesting to me. They have a film club, and other activities they do on campus that I would like to get involved in. That will be next year, but I figure if I can just tough this out I can get over there and start doing things.