Hi everyone,
My name’s Mark, I thought I’d introduce myself and explain my situation a little so you can get to know me and why I’m here. Maybe I’ll get some good advice, either way I think it’ll be good to get some stuff off my chest.

I’m almost 24, and I’ve only had one girlfriend. We met online, and were together for over three years, but it was a long-distance relationship and we only ever spent three two-week holidays together (I live in England, she was from Arizona). I had my first kiss, and I lost my virginity, so that relationship did help my self-esteem improve; it was catastrophically low when I left high school because of years with few friends and a lot of bullying. But I still am very much love-shy.

Away from Arizona, I have been on one date - a couple of years ago I received some interest from a girl on Match.com and we went out for drinks. It was a calm and dull failure. That didn’t bother me too much; the worst part about this for me is that I have NEVER asked a girl out on a date face-to-face, it has always been online. It scares the hell out of me, and I have never even come close to overcoming the anxiety. I also know that the chances of a girl approaching me are about the same as winning the lottery (hint – I don’t actually play the lottery), and I often feel very lonely and desperate, and severely depressed on bad days. Though, finding out about love-shyness has helped a bit, I didn’t realise that it’s as common as it is.

I have recently begun to wonder if I have Asperger’s Syndrome, I have a lot of the classic signs but surprisingly I’m not too bad at joining in conversations and talking to new people. It’s just when it comes to talking to girls I’m interested in that I turn mute. This leads me to my current situation: a very acute case of oneitis, with an extra complication thrown in. There is a girl in my college class that I am completely in love with, and have been since our course started. She is not totally out of my league, she’s not got the "classic hot girl" look, but when it comes to personal preference she fits the profile of my perfect woman about 95%. We are fairly good friends (is that a bad thing though?) and I can chat to her without any problems, but only in a platonic way. If I were to attempt any kind of flirting or suggestion that I like her, the love-shy part of my brain flicks a switch and my vocal chords lock down.

I go through phases of extreme optimism followed by terrible pessimism regarding whether she might like me, usually based on silly trivial things like if she puts an “x” at the end of a text. On one of my pessimistic days, I joined Plenty Of Fish, and to my amazement I got an email straight after joining. I got chatting to the girl, and our personalities match pretty well. We planned a date, but a couple of days beforehand a relative of hers died and she had to go back home for two weeks (she is at Uni near me, her family lives 200 miles away). Just before she was due to return, another one died, and she is stuck there for another two weeks (I know it sounds far-fetched, but on Facebook she is getting huge amounts of sympathy messages, so I’m certain it’s true).

Now I’m in this situation where I’ve been talking to this girl for a month already and I’ve never met her, it’s a bit weird to be honest, it feels like another long-distance relationship but we’re not actually a couple. And my mind has been screwing with me too, ever since I’ve had the revelation of “hey, I’m not doing too badly on the dating site, maybe I’m not quite as unattractive/uninteresting as I believed” I keep thinking about the girl in college, whether or not I could ever be with her. And I want her so badly it hurts.



OK, that has turned into one hell of a rant, so thank you and congratulations if you’ve read this far. Any comments or advice would be much appreciated.

Welcome among love-shies and incels.

Thanks =]

Welcome! (love your sig)

Sorry about your oneitis. I won't lie to you, if you've been friends for so long, the odds that she's interested in you are low. It's awesome when relationships do come out of solid friendships, but more often than not it leads to pain. Most relationships I see take an incredibly short time to develop, and an incredibly low amount of interaction - or at least it seems incredibly low to me.

But at least you have your new online prospect to take your mind off of the other girl.


Why did the relationship end, if you don't mind me asking?

It was just the distance. Being over five thousand miles apart is very tough, the time difference alone made it hard to talk to each other (Arizona is seven or eight hours behind the UK, depending on daylight savings). Visiting her was very expensive, and neither of us had the financial stability to choose to go and live on another continent, and it seemed like it could be many years before we did. It ended four years ago, and neither of us would've been able to afford it yet, so in the end I think we made the right choice.

Hey welcome Meerkat! Hope you find something good here, best wishes!

Welcome to our community, Meerkat. I'll warn you off the bat that there are many frustrated people here so be prepared to meet non-pc opinions. If you can stand political incorrectness, you'll be fine .

If you're afraid of approaching women, I'll give you the standard advice I give to both love-shies and incels: prostitutes and strippers. There's zero risk of rejection there, and many of them will approach you. Sure, it won't be real, but it will help desensitize you to approaching and demystify a lot. Seeing how you have been able to attract women before I guess you must me reasonably attractive and that you're only issue is this approach anxiety against which prostitution provides a safe environment.

I would never be comfortable using a prostitute or a stripper, I don't mean to be insulting but personally I've always thought of those "services" as being a bit.... sleazy maybe. Plus I think the risk of rejection is part of what causes my approach anxiety, especially since I tend to fall for girls that I already know at least a little bit.

First dates almost always suck, sorry! Really, the only thing you can do is go on a few more and get used to the pattern of exchange.

Online is fine! If you're worried about it you can always work your way up to making a pass in a bar or the like but its not high pressure. Online dating isn't considered weird anymore so you're fine doing that.

Hi Meerkat, welcome to the forum.

As a guy 10 years older than you, I'm afraid I would definitely try to do something about the college girl, or it will slowly eat at you year after year. :\ Even if your preparation and action take ages, you must do something. I know this sounds like anathema to you, and trust me, I know I would probably ignore it, but it is probably better to find out now how she feels about you, than never knowing, and having year after year go by corroding your sanity.

There are ways you can do it. Maybe it's a bit bold, but one could be finding out when her birthday is (as your oneitis, you should absolutely know this, right? ;p), and maybe like, drop something into her bag on that day. It could be a joke present to make her laugh, or a serious present - that one's down to you. The birthday idea is just off the top of my head.

It may sound crazy but.. just.. what if it works. Think about that. Search within you for that hidden courage, and do it.

The online dating girl is a bit more delicate I feel. Having two family members die within such a small space of time means you probably need to be very cautious and sympathetic. ;x You probably knew that already. Farfetched perhaps, but just roll with it. No reason not to believe it.

Hope some of that helps, it's just my interpretation of things.

Thanks for the advice =]
I'm generally ok with online dating, if I find a special someone that way then I'll be ecstatic. My problem though is that I often become very interested in girls that I meet in real life (this is actually my third case of oneitis), and it pains me that I have never been able to even come close to asking one of them out on a date, or even letting them know I'm at all interested.







Thanks, that seems like pretty useful advice. As I just mentioned to exxie, I have had two previous cases of oneitis and I wholly agree with you that doing nothing about it is the perfect recipe for regret. But for me, talking to this girl is like telling someone to saw off their own arm to save their life - you know you really need to do it, and ultimately you'd be better off, but is just so damned hard that it seems impossible.

Her birthday? - December 19th. With possibly my greatest act of bravery in the face of mortal danger (well, that's what it felt like at the time, lol) I pretty much did exactly what you suggested at the end of last year. We went to the same rock concert about a month earlier, and unbeknownst to her I managed to get hold of the plectrum that the guitarist used on the last song. She loves the band, so for her birthday I gave her the plectrum inside her card, which itself was a personalised one with her name on it. I also got her a woolly hat and scarf of a style that I know she likes.

Honestly, all joking apart it took a lot of effort for me to do that. On the last day I was going to see her before her birthday we spent over five hours in college, and all the time I was trying to build up the courage to give her the present. I finally had a "now or never" moment about thirty seconds before we all left, and gave it to her. I got a text on her birthday saying thanks, that she liked the card and loved the present, and I was chuffed to bits at the time, but ultimately nothing else became of it. I was trying to judge her reaction next time we met, but I'm not very good at that kinda thing anyway. I don't know if she realised that I was trying to impress her, I think she thought I was just being a good friend.

Hello! Always nice to see new people!. Just avoid the eccentrics and you'll probably be okay.

Your sig is awesome btw.

Thank you

Wow what a story, and wow what an anti climax. :\ Nice one for doing such an imaginative gesture! That was precisely what I was talking about hehe. She didn't seem to react as well as I hoped. She understood that the plectrum was from the guitarist himself? That would be pretty snazzy in my mind. Hmm. :\

I hate to say it, but it almost sounds like she's maybe not as interested as you hoped she would be. In the end would you actually really want something to happen? Or in some strange way, do you prefer your friendship with how it is currently? This may seem like a stupid question, but at the same time, maybe it isn't. I don't know, I guess you need to make another effort to do something. Maybe tell her how you feel (a big one). It sounds like you basically know what you're doing, so you're in the best position to decide. I guess just don't leave it for too long or she maybe too used to you as a friend in her mind, to fully appreciate other potentialities when you do finally say something. This may have occurred already (her reaction to your cool present could indicate that).

You could tell her about the before/during/after moments of that present you gave her. Explain how you had this great idea, the effort you went to, how incredibly nervous you were in the lead up to giving it to her, and then really hoping she liked it afterward. Then finally say, you explained all that because "I really like you", and don't break eye contact. ;o Just one idea I guess. There's going to be an inevitable "crunch" time if you ever want to tell her how you feel someday. The best you can do to preprare is just fully plan it out in your head - but understand that plans don't always unfold how you want them to. But the more you run it through your head, the more it eliminates the stress I think.

And after you said you really like her, and maintained that eye contact, hold up your hand for her to see how much it's trembling, and then smile. That's what I'd do.

Yea, she knew where the plectrum came from, it has the band name on one side and the guitarist's signature on the other, and I also wrote in the card that he used it for the final song.

It was about two weeks after her birthday before I saw her again (because of the Christmas break from college), I don't know whether I'd have been better off trying to talk to her by text or on Facebook or something during the holiday, maybe her gratitude from the presents had worn off by the end of it.

I would love to be able to tell her how I feel. When I daydream I fantasise a lot more often about bearing my feelings to her than anything sexual. But I really, really can't do it. It would need an exceptional set of circumstances and the perfect moment for me to ever manage it. Notwithstanding all that, it would be a big risk because we are going to be in the same college class for another year and a half, and there is a chance we both might be going to the same University afterwards which would mean another two years on top of that. If she says no, that is a lot of awkwardness to live with.

I have considered that maybe if she and I are both still single at the end of our college course, then that could be my best chance to minimise the risk and therefore maximise my chances of actually telling her how I feel. But like you say, that carries its own danger that I could have settled permanently into the "friend zone" by that point, or there is the chance that she might have a boyfriend by then.


One thing has just popped into my mind; she is coming along with most of my friends to a go-karting race I'm organising for my birthday in April. Do you think that her thoughts towards me can be judged based on whether or not she gets me a present, and if so, what she gets me?