And I know self pity is not attractive. I just don't know how to stop that, except by not thinking about it. Which doesn't seem like it would help either.

...my first thought was: "liquor!"...but that's probably not very practical.

Nah, I got nothin'. Asking someone out in cold blood boggles my mind.

Well, you can't stop feeling it, but you might want to think about the fact that those feelings are lies. Things ended badly with S, but there was a relationship there to end. That proves you can be attractive to a woman right there. Feeling that you aren't is a real feeling, but i isn't TRUTH.

The only way to change your circumstances is to step out of your comfort zone. Make a vow to speak to every woman you find remotely interesting. Not asking them out, just chatting with them. Once you get to that point, one of them will flirt back and then...

I guess I just don't know how to take my defeats. On West Wing, Josh Lyman once said he never learned what to do after you tell a girl you like her. I never learned even that much.

And as far as S goes.... I wound up with her because she persued me. My first reaction was actually that I wasn't interested, because something seemed not right with her. A reaction I should have stuck with. The things setting off alarm bells back then turned out to be what helped drive us apart. Really there's a lot of details about that that only a small handful of people know about, and I won't go into here.

But ultimately, I went out with S because I was tired of being lonely, and was feeling like she was the best I was going to do in this life. The end of that relationship has left me feeling like that was the best I'm going to do in this life.

I'm pretty damned lonely, and I've been lonely for much longer than I've been single. And I feel like my idiotic mistake cost me the time period where I had the best chance of finding somebody. Also, that the only women who are attracted to me are dangerously crazy women I need to flee from as fast as possible.

And really, i am going to try and stop with the self pity now. Probably by pretending to be a completely sexless being.

Sorkin men are sort of uniformly known for their lack of game, aren't they? Unfortunately, I think his strategy for this is, like, mushrooms.Which I can't endorse.

Y'know. Not that it makes a damned bit of difference, but I've seen pictures of you, Sean. You're definitely not a troll. In fact, I'd venture to say you're darned cute. So that's not the issue as far as I can tell.

Like I said, not sure if it matters and it's most definitely not a pity sort of thing. I'm just relentlessly honest. (Ask the people who've known me longest around here-- they'll tell you.)

Sorkin men are sort of uniformly known for their lack of game, aren't they?

Writers have great ways of putting themselves onto the page in that way and/or getting revenge. Richard Curtis (Love Actually) always puts in a character named Bernard/Bernie and he's always a loser/dick sort of character because of a boy he knew in school named Bernard who was a total jackass.

I mean, they are smart and cute as hell, but the women have to spell out "FUCK ME," for these brainiacs to know that they like them.

And as far as S goes.... I wound up with her because she persued me. My first reaction was actually that I wasn't interested, because something seemed not right with her. A reaction I should have stuck with. The things setting off alarm bells back then turned out to be what helped drive us apart. Really there's a lot of details about that that only a small handful of people know about, and I won't go into here.

So find someone with less bells.

And I feel like my idiotic mistake cost me the time period where I had the best chance of finding somebody.

Look, as far as I am concerned best chance, worst chance, does not equal no chance.

As I said, find someone with less bells.

Several years ago I met someone online that I had some reservations about (Vastly less balls than you have mentioned with S), not the least of which was that we lived 1,500 miles apart, and why would she be flirting with me anyway? (A sure sign that something was wrong with her.) I took the advice of another couple of female confidants I had garnered in the group, one of whom finally convinced me that I would be better off flirting back. At the very least I would learn to flirt a bit better.

A couple years after that I flew down to visit her. Three months later I bought a minivan and drove to Arizona to move her to Minnesota.

On July 3rd, Windsparrow and I will have been living together 4 years.

Not that we are the perfect couple, but we do okay. After all this time, the only questions about bells are from friends and family asking when they will hear some.

Yeah, the women who don't set off alarm bells are usually busy shacking up with someone else.

Okay, really stepping away from the self pity now.

well, maybe you are more comfortable with them because there is less pressure. Signed, Married Guys Love Me(But Not Like That) also, lately I get chatted up by blind guys. Which is flattering, but also kind of a punchline, you know? And they're married, anyway.