Lost it, getting it back, slowly

[sense]

Hi all.

So, when I was a teenager all my mates were getting laid but I was always getting friendzoned. There was no pickup back then, no game, no Internet -- but somehow I managed to work out what was going on and transformed myself into a bit of a challenge. I realised that I had to become distant, and so applied the good old "fake it to make it" approach and it worked.

That was in the late 1980s -- I started getting girlfriends and lays, gained confidence and then after a few years, the Internet came along and I became a master of Internet hookups -- lots of them -- I got lazy with my game as hooking up on line back then was so niche it was hardly a challenge.

A couple of long term relationships ruined my confidence, and there I was in my late forties, wondering what the **** happened - and now I'm 50!

So here I am, trying to get back in the game.

Thing is, I've noticed myself getting friendzoned again -- it's like I've reverted back to that teenager with none of the confidence I had before. I realised this needed to change recently when I made a pass at a younger girl, told her I was getting feelings, only to be hit with the "I'm really not in that place" response. I didn't think I sounded that needy, but I clearly made myself too available.

However, she's part of my general friend circle, so I can't just avoid her -- the question is, how do I behave with this minor "oneitis" now the "cat is out of the bag"?

When I say minor I'm not devastated in the same way I would be as a teenager, but it has hit me more than I'd like and I'd still like to turn the tables.

As much as I want to, I don't think vanishing is going to help matters -- but how to remain aloof and distant without being obvious?

Anyway, that's why I'm here.

 

[sense]

Thanks for the reply.

Don't tell them how you feel. Cut that out completely for a start.

Well I managed to swerve the temptation to blurt out any pathetic "I'm in love with you" nonsense ... but I did tell her that I was "beginning to have feelings". So not completely pathetic, but still not as skillful as I could.

Took a lot of nerve to say anything though, but her over-familiarity and the way she was starting to use me as her emotional tampon, well I knew it was getting a bit much and had to be addressed. I knew I was being too available - but it became like a drug.

I've known her about a year and a half, but been spending more time over the last three or four months - there is a connection, and we have got close, but not so close that I'm ignoring all her faults -- she has plenty of them too.

News from friends is that she's "really saddened" by the loss of our friendship, whatever value that has I have no idea.

Meanwhile I need to work on my confidence so I don't fall in this trap again.

 

[wifehunter]

50 and a frame made of jello? Shame on you.

 

[sense]

50 and a frame made of jello? Shame on you.

I know right!

I'm here because I've seen the other side and allowed myself to lose it again -- I've had sex with 200+ women and 4 long term relationships where I had all the power, and yet here I am having given it away and needing to learn it all again!

 

[sense]

Most guys settle for the first attractive bird that reciprocates interest.

Guilty as charged -- although there is a recurring theme of never being attracted to women who like me, and vice versa. This needs to change.