G
Hello all, I'm new here. I was actually searching for some advice on the internet and I came upon this forum, so I figured I'd join to get some advice.
First, I'll start off with the basics. I'm a Christian who was saved in June 2005 at Hume Lake and I'm actively trying to grow towards God. I am a student at William Jessup University in Rocklin, CA, and I'm 23 (24 in a month) years old and in my Junior year of college (yes, I'm on a seven year plan, haha!). Only my 4th semester at Jessup though; I went to a junior college for my first four and a half years of college.
I strongly, strongly believe that God called me here and I have seen what seems to be evidence of this. I have grown in many ways, and when I've prayed faithfully for God to help me in a certain area, he has done so in better ways than I would have thought possible. However, there is one area in my life in which I am becoming increasingly frustrated.
You can probably guess what area of life I'm talking about based on the title of this thread: being single. For years now I've wanted a girlfriend. However, each and every time I've liked a girl and told her about it, they always want to just be friends, without fail. Now, I've gained some valuable friendships in most of these girls, and that's a blessing, but I'm so sick of being rejected. This will be a somewhat lengthy post, and I apologize in advance for the long read.
I will start by saying this: I have had two girls who I am pretty sure liked me. They never told me they did, but the signs were there. The first girl who liked me, to be honest, was a complete nightmare. Sorry if that sounds mean, but she was very rude, lacked any sense of personal boundaries, and she stalked people (one of these people was me). There were several different guys she liked, and none of them wanted anything to do with her. And I'll be honest, she was easily the least attractive-looking girl I've ever meant in my life. And this was only made worse by the fact that she had a terrible attitude. I can't stand people with bad attitudes, so that's a turn-off right there. And although I've become attracted to people who I initially did not find attractive, this doesn't happen with everybody. I'm sorry to sound mean, but she was also just that unattractive.
With the second girl, I was totally unaware that she even liked me at all. I met her in a class I took at junior college and we became friends. The first half of the year after I took this class was one of the darkest times in my life (more on this later), and I noticed she would come on facebook chat a lot and we'd talk about stuff, mostly spiritual. Well she said she wanted to hang out sometime. Although I didn't have any intentions of being anything more than friends, I'm pretty sure she had other things on her mind. I'm not going to go into detail, but the signs were there, even more so than with the first girl. To describe this girl, in case you couldn't figure it out already, she was fun to talk to and hang out with, and I do believe she was a Christian. And although she wasn't the best looking person in the world, I still found her attractive. However, her main problem is that she was WAY too into sex. She was almost causal about it and didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with sex outside of marriage. Although some people on her may disagree with me on this, I think that's a big red flag. For this reason, I chose not to ask her out, even though she said she would go out with someone like me. This girl is now married, so even if she changed her point of view, it's far too late now.
Also, as soon as I was in a position where I could have asked a girl out and she would have said yes, I figured out something about myself. Besides the fact that the second girl had some moral views which I felt were dishonoring to God, the more I thought about asking her out, I found out that I had a major ulterior motive in wanting a girlfriend. I'm sure some people on here have had this issue as well. Basically, that ulterior motive was this: I just wanted to know, in my head, that I was capable of having a fun, attractive, Christian girl like me as more than a friend. In other words, it was a pride issue.
I'm not a very self-confident person. I used to be, but back in 2008 I lost pretty much all my self-confidence due to reasons which I will not go into here (it's another LONG story). I've been starting to gain it back this semester through prayer and the help of family, friends, and teachers at school, but I still have a long way to go.
This problem with being under-confident and having ulterior motives goes WAY beyond just this area. For one prime example, I lost confidence in myself as far as having friends and being loved by other people went. So, in 2010, I decided to start hanging out with some people I knew and thought were cool. They are all people from my church, and we still hang out during summer and winter breaks when we can. However, at first I had a major ulterior motive with this area: to prove to myself that I could have friends. But no matter how much evidence I saw and no matter how much I prayed about it (and saw my prayers answered), I still felt like a loser at the end of the day.
Another example of being under-confident is with being a musician. I have played drums for 11 years now, and between 2008 and the beginning of this year, I had pretty much lost all my confidence. God has been answering my prayers in several ways. For one thing, I go to school with a lot of talented musicians. I've made close friends with a couple of them, too. I even got to talk to Mike Johns, the drummer for Lincoln Brewster (his church is VERY close to where I go to school), and he was a big help in giving advice. Through practicing over the summer and being on a drum forum, I have figured out and started correcting some of my bad habits. However, I figured out that no matter how much improvement I heard in my playing or how many times I listened to a recording of myself playing where I sounded good, no amount of evidence was enough.
This semester, I've figured out that the reasons I've lacked confidence in these areas is because of my feelings towards myself. God has put all the evidence I needed to see and more in my life, but the fact that I chose to continue to be skeptical of myself (and even dislike myself in the case of the area of having friends) was preventing me from feeling good about anything. I've begun to correct these things, and I can see God's hand working in my life every step of the way. I truly believe he is leading me in the right direction. I've even gained confidence in myself in a couple of other areas this semester.
However, I'm still feeling very down on myself about the "getting a girlfriend" thing. I have a constant, nagging fear that God doesn't want me to ever have a girlfriend or get married. I know I'm only 23, but I've seen so many people get married around or even before this age. Plus, I've seen A LOT of my friends get into relationships while I've been stuck single. I can't describe to you how discouraging this is. I'll be honest, I don't cry a lot, but I've felt so bad a couple of times that I've had to cry about it.
I know I've had at least those two girls like me, but I still am afraid this will never happen again. Or worse, I'm afraid another girl with attributes like the first one I mentioned will start to like me and it'll be another bad scenario. When it comes to being attracted to a girl, I can sum up the general traits I look for as them being attractive in these three areas: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Obviously, I listed those in order from least important to most important. I don't want to be with someone who I would not want to be friends with and I definitely don't want to be with someone who isn't a Christian (or has significant moral issues). And although this is the least important area of the three I listed, I still want some physical attraction to be there, whether it's instant or I come to be attracted to them over time.
Just to be clear, I'm definitely not looking for perfection, but I don't want someone who is anything even remotely like the first girl I mentioned. Again, there are some girls that I've thought were attractive in all of these ways almost immediately, while in other cases it has taken time for me to become attracted to them in the three areas I mentioned. I'm not too picky of a guy and I'm not trying to sound like it, but I do want someone who is emotionally and spiritually attractive on an obvious level and also physically attractive on at least a somewhat significant level. Pretty much everyone I've talked to (younger and older adults alike) agree with me on what I'm looking or. I'm just incredibly scared that I will never get into a relationship with someone like this.
To describe myself, I'm a pretty average looking person, although I think I'm above average when I get a haircut and/or dress more formally. I've gotten complements from people on how I look (from girls as well), too, and I'm pretty confident in this area. I'm also starting to realize that I'm not a guy who is totally off-putting to girls. This is one thing in which I have only lately started to improve. For a few years up until recently I kind of saw myself as a bit of a loser when it came to girls. I'm actually pretty good at having a conversation with most girls, and I have had (and currently have) many female friendships over the years. So in other words, my confidence has gotten better. However, I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder (GAD) in kindergarten, and it has taken a huge toll on my life at times. I feel that this has played a huge role in my lack of confidence.
This still doesn't make me feel any more secure about having a girlfriend and eventually getting married, though. I pray about this more than once every day, I've talked to friends and family about it on numerous occasions, but I'm still single and I still feel hopeless. Yes, I know I've had at least two girls like me before, but that doesn't help me feel much better, particularly since those two girls had their significant issues (ESPECIALLY the first one I mentioned). It's even gotten to the point where if I start to have feelings for a girl, I force myself not to because I feel like I have no chance with somebody like them.
I've come to realize that with a lot of the girls I've liked in the past, my feelings towards them came primarily from thinking about those girls too much. I've learned to control this, but I made a mistake recently. I've come to be friends with a girl I go to school with. Although I didn't think she was pleasant or attractive at first, I came to think she was through getting to know her. My goal at first was to just be friends, but this girl is EXTREMELY outgoing. The last time a girl was this outgoing with me, she happened to like me. So, with the girl I was becoming friends with, I got the impression that she might like me too, and I let my guard down with regards to having feelings towards her. Not too far into our friendship, I found out she liked another guy and that she is really outgoing with a lot of guys. I'm not sure if she still likes that guy or not (I don't think she does), but here's the thing: now I've started to develop feelings for her because I let my guard down for too long. Plus, I set myself up for disappointment by thinking that she might like me and for a while I felt lower than dirt because of it. She's also good friends with another guy (who I also happen to be friends with), and I'm afraid she's going to start liking him. Although I'm trying to get over my feelings towards her, it absolutely kills me to see a girl who I am friends with go after another guy and only like me as a friend. This has happened SEVERAL times before and I got sick of it a long time ago. Again, this has gotten to where I force myself to not have feelings towards girls because I just know they're gonna fall for a guy who is better than me in some way.
I'm almost 24 years old and I've never had a girlfriend. I feel totally pathetic when it comes to this. I want to have a girlfriend who I'm attracted to in the areas I mentioned earlier and I want to get married to someone like that as well. But it seems hopeless. I have seen God answer prayers in my life in extraordinary ways (like the two major areas I mentioned earlier), and it's almost never in my time, but on His time. I'm afraid the time for this will never come, though. I know every so often there are people who live their lives in celibacy and are single forever, but I don't want this, and I can't picture my life being without a spouse. I fear that's my destiny, though, because I've never dated. I know I'm not the only person in my position, but that doesn't encourage me at all.
Something worth noting is that with those two girls who liked me, I didn't try to go after them or get them to like me. I never considered them candidates for future girlfriends or spouses. I just acted towards them like I do towards friends. In other words, it seems to be that I am most attractive to girls when I'm just being myself.
But I can't help myself from having feelings towards girls, and I'm afraid I'll never get a girl who I have feelings for. This is why I've forced myself to not have feelings for girls. The other problem, as mentioned above, is that I'm looking for signals that girls like me on such a regular basis that I am quick to assume that a certain girl likes me if she treats me a certain way. This has just led to disappointment after disappointment. Worst of all, having these feelings causes me to want to chase after these girls, which I think puts them off because I'm not being myself.
Has anyone here ever been in the position I am? I've asked tons of my friends about this situation, and pretty much all of them have told me something along the lines of "You're trying too hard. It'll happen when you least expect it." It seems like this true being that I never expected certain girls to like me and yet they did. I'm just afraid that God doesn't want me to be happy in this way. Worse yet, I'm afraid he wants me to be with someone who I don't find attractive. I've been told that this is me having the wrong perception of God. I know I'm saved and as such, I'm his child and he wants what's best for me, but I'm still afraid and very doubtful.
How have some of you dealt with this? I'd especially love to hear from those of you who were in my situation and are now in a relationship or married. I just want to feel some hope for this. I don't want to be single and as such, I don't think God wants me to be single forever either. But as I said before, I've dealt with anxiety for 18 years now, and I always have that skeptical side of me that questions whether God wants me to be happy or to be with someone I am attracted to. Again, has anyone dealt with this, and how has it been resolved?
Thank you for your time!
First, I'll start off with the basics. I'm a Christian who was saved in June 2005 at Hume Lake and I'm actively trying to grow towards God. I am a student at William Jessup University in Rocklin, CA, and I'm 23 (24 in a month) years old and in my Junior year of college (yes, I'm on a seven year plan, haha!). Only my 4th semester at Jessup though; I went to a junior college for my first four and a half years of college.
I strongly, strongly believe that God called me here and I have seen what seems to be evidence of this. I have grown in many ways, and when I've prayed faithfully for God to help me in a certain area, he has done so in better ways than I would have thought possible. However, there is one area in my life in which I am becoming increasingly frustrated.
You can probably guess what area of life I'm talking about based on the title of this thread: being single. For years now I've wanted a girlfriend. However, each and every time I've liked a girl and told her about it, they always want to just be friends, without fail. Now, I've gained some valuable friendships in most of these girls, and that's a blessing, but I'm so sick of being rejected. This will be a somewhat lengthy post, and I apologize in advance for the long read.
I will start by saying this: I have had two girls who I am pretty sure liked me. They never told me they did, but the signs were there. The first girl who liked me, to be honest, was a complete nightmare. Sorry if that sounds mean, but she was very rude, lacked any sense of personal boundaries, and she stalked people (one of these people was me). There were several different guys she liked, and none of them wanted anything to do with her. And I'll be honest, she was easily the least attractive-looking girl I've ever meant in my life. And this was only made worse by the fact that she had a terrible attitude. I can't stand people with bad attitudes, so that's a turn-off right there. And although I've become attracted to people who I initially did not find attractive, this doesn't happen with everybody. I'm sorry to sound mean, but she was also just that unattractive.
With the second girl, I was totally unaware that she even liked me at all. I met her in a class I took at junior college and we became friends. The first half of the year after I took this class was one of the darkest times in my life (more on this later), and I noticed she would come on facebook chat a lot and we'd talk about stuff, mostly spiritual. Well she said she wanted to hang out sometime. Although I didn't have any intentions of being anything more than friends, I'm pretty sure she had other things on her mind. I'm not going to go into detail, but the signs were there, even more so than with the first girl. To describe this girl, in case you couldn't figure it out already, she was fun to talk to and hang out with, and I do believe she was a Christian. And although she wasn't the best looking person in the world, I still found her attractive. However, her main problem is that she was WAY too into sex. She was almost causal about it and didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with sex outside of marriage. Although some people on her may disagree with me on this, I think that's a big red flag. For this reason, I chose not to ask her out, even though she said she would go out with someone like me. This girl is now married, so even if she changed her point of view, it's far too late now.
Also, as soon as I was in a position where I could have asked a girl out and she would have said yes, I figured out something about myself. Besides the fact that the second girl had some moral views which I felt were dishonoring to God, the more I thought about asking her out, I found out that I had a major ulterior motive in wanting a girlfriend. I'm sure some people on here have had this issue as well. Basically, that ulterior motive was this: I just wanted to know, in my head, that I was capable of having a fun, attractive, Christian girl like me as more than a friend. In other words, it was a pride issue.
I'm not a very self-confident person. I used to be, but back in 2008 I lost pretty much all my self-confidence due to reasons which I will not go into here (it's another LONG story). I've been starting to gain it back this semester through prayer and the help of family, friends, and teachers at school, but I still have a long way to go.
This problem with being under-confident and having ulterior motives goes WAY beyond just this area. For one prime example, I lost confidence in myself as far as having friends and being loved by other people went. So, in 2010, I decided to start hanging out with some people I knew and thought were cool. They are all people from my church, and we still hang out during summer and winter breaks when we can. However, at first I had a major ulterior motive with this area: to prove to myself that I could have friends. But no matter how much evidence I saw and no matter how much I prayed about it (and saw my prayers answered), I still felt like a loser at the end of the day.
Another example of being under-confident is with being a musician. I have played drums for 11 years now, and between 2008 and the beginning of this year, I had pretty much lost all my confidence. God has been answering my prayers in several ways. For one thing, I go to school with a lot of talented musicians. I've made close friends with a couple of them, too. I even got to talk to Mike Johns, the drummer for Lincoln Brewster (his church is VERY close to where I go to school), and he was a big help in giving advice. Through practicing over the summer and being on a drum forum, I have figured out and started correcting some of my bad habits. However, I figured out that no matter how much improvement I heard in my playing or how many times I listened to a recording of myself playing where I sounded good, no amount of evidence was enough.
This semester, I've figured out that the reasons I've lacked confidence in these areas is because of my feelings towards myself. God has put all the evidence I needed to see and more in my life, but the fact that I chose to continue to be skeptical of myself (and even dislike myself in the case of the area of having friends) was preventing me from feeling good about anything. I've begun to correct these things, and I can see God's hand working in my life every step of the way. I truly believe he is leading me in the right direction. I've even gained confidence in myself in a couple of other areas this semester.
However, I'm still feeling very down on myself about the "getting a girlfriend" thing. I have a constant, nagging fear that God doesn't want me to ever have a girlfriend or get married. I know I'm only 23, but I've seen so many people get married around or even before this age. Plus, I've seen A LOT of my friends get into relationships while I've been stuck single. I can't describe to you how discouraging this is. I'll be honest, I don't cry a lot, but I've felt so bad a couple of times that I've had to cry about it.
I know I've had at least those two girls like me, but I still am afraid this will never happen again. Or worse, I'm afraid another girl with attributes like the first one I mentioned will start to like me and it'll be another bad scenario. When it comes to being attracted to a girl, I can sum up the general traits I look for as them being attractive in these three areas: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Obviously, I listed those in order from least important to most important. I don't want to be with someone who I would not want to be friends with and I definitely don't want to be with someone who isn't a Christian (or has significant moral issues). And although this is the least important area of the three I listed, I still want some physical attraction to be there, whether it's instant or I come to be attracted to them over time.
Just to be clear, I'm definitely not looking for perfection, but I don't want someone who is anything even remotely like the first girl I mentioned. Again, there are some girls that I've thought were attractive in all of these ways almost immediately, while in other cases it has taken time for me to become attracted to them in the three areas I mentioned. I'm not too picky of a guy and I'm not trying to sound like it, but I do want someone who is emotionally and spiritually attractive on an obvious level and also physically attractive on at least a somewhat significant level. Pretty much everyone I've talked to (younger and older adults alike) agree with me on what I'm looking or. I'm just incredibly scared that I will never get into a relationship with someone like this.
To describe myself, I'm a pretty average looking person, although I think I'm above average when I get a haircut and/or dress more formally. I've gotten complements from people on how I look (from girls as well), too, and I'm pretty confident in this area. I'm also starting to realize that I'm not a guy who is totally off-putting to girls. This is one thing in which I have only lately started to improve. For a few years up until recently I kind of saw myself as a bit of a loser when it came to girls. I'm actually pretty good at having a conversation with most girls, and I have had (and currently have) many female friendships over the years. So in other words, my confidence has gotten better. However, I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder (GAD) in kindergarten, and it has taken a huge toll on my life at times. I feel that this has played a huge role in my lack of confidence.
This still doesn't make me feel any more secure about having a girlfriend and eventually getting married, though. I pray about this more than once every day, I've talked to friends and family about it on numerous occasions, but I'm still single and I still feel hopeless. Yes, I know I've had at least two girls like me before, but that doesn't help me feel much better, particularly since those two girls had their significant issues (ESPECIALLY the first one I mentioned). It's even gotten to the point where if I start to have feelings for a girl, I force myself not to because I feel like I have no chance with somebody like them.
I've come to realize that with a lot of the girls I've liked in the past, my feelings towards them came primarily from thinking about those girls too much. I've learned to control this, but I made a mistake recently. I've come to be friends with a girl I go to school with. Although I didn't think she was pleasant or attractive at first, I came to think she was through getting to know her. My goal at first was to just be friends, but this girl is EXTREMELY outgoing. The last time a girl was this outgoing with me, she happened to like me. So, with the girl I was becoming friends with, I got the impression that she might like me too, and I let my guard down with regards to having feelings towards her. Not too far into our friendship, I found out she liked another guy and that she is really outgoing with a lot of guys. I'm not sure if she still likes that guy or not (I don't think she does), but here's the thing: now I've started to develop feelings for her because I let my guard down for too long. Plus, I set myself up for disappointment by thinking that she might like me and for a while I felt lower than dirt because of it. She's also good friends with another guy (who I also happen to be friends with), and I'm afraid she's going to start liking him. Although I'm trying to get over my feelings towards her, it absolutely kills me to see a girl who I am friends with go after another guy and only like me as a friend. This has happened SEVERAL times before and I got sick of it a long time ago. Again, this has gotten to where I force myself to not have feelings towards girls because I just know they're gonna fall for a guy who is better than me in some way.
I'm almost 24 years old and I've never had a girlfriend. I feel totally pathetic when it comes to this. I want to have a girlfriend who I'm attracted to in the areas I mentioned earlier and I want to get married to someone like that as well. But it seems hopeless. I have seen God answer prayers in my life in extraordinary ways (like the two major areas I mentioned earlier), and it's almost never in my time, but on His time. I'm afraid the time for this will never come, though. I know every so often there are people who live their lives in celibacy and are single forever, but I don't want this, and I can't picture my life being without a spouse. I fear that's my destiny, though, because I've never dated. I know I'm not the only person in my position, but that doesn't encourage me at all.
Something worth noting is that with those two girls who liked me, I didn't try to go after them or get them to like me. I never considered them candidates for future girlfriends or spouses. I just acted towards them like I do towards friends. In other words, it seems to be that I am most attractive to girls when I'm just being myself.
But I can't help myself from having feelings towards girls, and I'm afraid I'll never get a girl who I have feelings for. This is why I've forced myself to not have feelings for girls. The other problem, as mentioned above, is that I'm looking for signals that girls like me on such a regular basis that I am quick to assume that a certain girl likes me if she treats me a certain way. This has just led to disappointment after disappointment. Worst of all, having these feelings causes me to want to chase after these girls, which I think puts them off because I'm not being myself.
Has anyone here ever been in the position I am? I've asked tons of my friends about this situation, and pretty much all of them have told me something along the lines of "You're trying too hard. It'll happen when you least expect it." It seems like this true being that I never expected certain girls to like me and yet they did. I'm just afraid that God doesn't want me to be happy in this way. Worse yet, I'm afraid he wants me to be with someone who I don't find attractive. I've been told that this is me having the wrong perception of God. I know I'm saved and as such, I'm his child and he wants what's best for me, but I'm still afraid and very doubtful.
How have some of you dealt with this? I'd especially love to hear from those of you who were in my situation and are now in a relationship or married. I just want to feel some hope for this. I don't want to be single and as such, I don't think God wants me to be single forever either. But as I said before, I've dealt with anxiety for 18 years now, and I always have that skeptical side of me that questions whether God wants me to be happy or to be with someone I am attracted to. Again, has anyone dealt with this, and how has it been resolved?
Thank you for your time!
