Should I stay away from dating?

[PursuerofPeace]

Weird that I've used this app since Highschool lol (mainly on different accounts). 25 now and haven't had success in dating at all.

I've always ran into a pattern where it may take me months to gain the girls interest to the point where we may make plans, but in a way shorter amount of time she might fall in love with someone else and ghost me last minute. Sometimes I can feel when that person loses interest by how they text and it might hurt to the point where I isolate/ feel heavy depression and anxiety/ intense thoughts (In therapy for all of it). Its a very physically and mentally soul crushing feeling that hits me every time I take a chance with someone I like.

I don't know, its been the same experience with different people for so many years. I cope with it all and hide my thoughts to myself but its hard seeing how my life is going relationshipwise despite my efforts.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I got totally burnt out on dating in my early 20s. I never tried online dating but back then, my main way to get dates was through bars and nightclubs, and generally with the weakened judgments and inhibitions of intoxication. After a bunch of flimsy relationships and a broken heart and engagement to be married, I just wanted to give up on dating entirely like you.

So I did and gave up entirely on dating but I still wanted to socialize and talk to people a lot. So I started making a whole bunch of friends. Then I wanted to meet my friends' friends and networked like crazy, merging friend groups and introducing new people into the group and encouraging everyone to do the same.

Soon our group exploded in size. It got to the point where we were renting out entirely nightclubs and restaurants all to ourselves for dirt cheap (when we split the bill evenly among us) while often having a birthday party or two almost every single weekend. That was a blast and I didn't feel lonely a single time.

Then met my wife at a picnic. She was one of the new members introduced into our community of friends. We ended up getting so drawn to each other hanging out at the edge of our parties that we'd often talk all night long while our friends would shout, "You two are missing the party!" Then we'd return to the party but often find ourselves back at the edge of it.

We hung out like this for almost a year until I finally decided I want to try dating again. I couldn't resist and asked her out. Then we started dating and ended up being getting married. On our wedding, all these mutual friends we made showed up and celebrated our union together with our mutual families. We've been married 14 years now.

I think this might be the best way for you. The mistake I made in my early 20s is that I was looking for love over community. My way of changing things for the better was when I reversed those priorities. I started to search for and build a community of my own of good, like-minded people. Then when I started to get a big community of my own of people I could see all the time, I found my wife through them.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Also "community" will probably look different for everyone. I'm an extreme extrovert so I went a bit over-the-top building a massive community of friends back then. Yet for other people it might be like members of a book club, or church for the religious, or like some geeky convention for people into that sort of stuff, or whatever floats your boat: ultimately just people who share your interests and ultimately values to hang out with all the time.