Putting myself out there...

EANx

silver said:

Is "being a prize" a sheer inner confidence thing or if it's a magic combo of being interesting, hot, sweet, fun, flirty, etc? I do laugh and smile very easily Men have told me that my smile is fantastic.

Much of being "a prize" is internal confidence. Take a critical look at the people you know, how do they talk and act? Do the ones who you know are confident walk, talk or act different than the ones that express a lot of self doubt? I'd bet that you can tell the people who are confident vs. those who aren't just by watching people walk around.

A while back, I decided that the core of being awesome is overconfidence and in my sillier moment, I start acting a bit like DuffMan from The Simpson's. My GF will ask if something is okay for dinner and my response will be "Mr. Awesome gives it three thumbs up." "What do you need three hands for?" "You'll find out, tonight."

It's easy to find something about anyone that someone will judge harshly. It's also easy to find something about anyone that someone else will judge favorably. The key to recognizing that you are a prize is not letting judgmental people decide who you are as a person. Take away self-blame and self-doubt; focus on your good qualities, be silly and have fun.

silver

@generalzod, you are absolutely right  

@HildaCorners, I read that blog all the time, he's great! I've focused reading his appearance advice, so I'll give some more time to his game advice 

@EANx, that is an awesome way of looking at things.

@Mongrel, I know what you mean by the resting bitch face, some chicks have scary scowls. 

@OneEyedDrunk, I think you're right about my location *nods*

@dalef, I will put your advice to good use   

This has been an amazing pep talk, I've been applying your guys' advice and I feel more optimistic and confident already. I feel like Peter Pan, finally catching my shadow. Thanks for all of your time, peeps!

MissMissy

How are things going @silver?

silver

Hi @MissMissy! Things are going all right... working on eye-contact, friendliness - I'd say it's a success in that area, people are more receptive to me. I'm an (strong) introvert and social interaction with strangers is not natural to me (on the flip side, men love chatting with me because I'm a "great conversationalist" (their words, not mine )) - as an extrovert yourself, would you have any advice for me?

I've cooled the online-dating because of burn-out. I'm struggling to keep optimistic and see myself as a success despite feeling like a failure. It's easy to internalise my lack of a love life as my fault (I've been doing that for quite a while). I'm winning the battle so far, but a mentality shift is pretty difficult when I've got a lot of grad stress already. I come back here to read this thread when I'm feeling down I guess once I passed 25 or so I started to feel stressed about "running out of time" and it's been hard to shake that anxiety.

To treat myself, I bought some sexy hosiery (for everyday) and new dresses. Girl talk here, but my fashion is pretty important to me, and I've gone back to wearing styles that I love, instead of purely what looks good on me and I feel like I'm finding my own "cool" again. (I've been getting more IOIs lately from men and snarls from their girlfriends ).

I've been attending a variety of social events to meet people but so far they haven't been what I've expected, so I'm shifting my focus. Meetups around here tend to skew older folks so I'm being very selective with them. I'll be taking a look at wine tasting and shooting ranges, and my university is offering a dance class this quarter that I am interested in.

Thanks for checking up on me. I've read through your thread. Major kudos for taking charge of your love life and knowing what you want!

dalef

A word of warning, university dance classes tend to skew female, and will be mainly undergrads. {And despite that as a male grad student, I learned a lot about dancing, but didn't go out with any of my classmates; did meet women at other dances, though.) Check into contradances at or near your school though.

silver

Thanks for the heads up, @dalef. I have a feeling you're right about this, I might try looking at local dance schools. There are a lot nearby!

MissMissy

Thanks @Silver!! The encouragement and support of this place is awesome. 

Good work on the eye contact and friendliness! People really do like to talk with others, even strangers, but oftentimes we just don't want to put the energy in. So if you put in some positive energy to stimulate a connection with a stranger (even just eye contact), they often respond positively as well! (This is, of course, what Athol is talking about with injecting positive energy into relationships)

Hm, advice... If your goal is to have more social interaction with strangers, there are multiple parts to that. Initiating a connection/conversation, and then maintaining it. So it depends on what you're asking. For the former, I try to make little comments based on the present environment that people can choose to latch onto if they are in the mood for further conversation. E.g. standing in line at a cafe, saying something like, Wow it's busy here today!" Then it can turn into a longer conversation about if they go there often, do they like the coffee there, etc.

For maintaining a conversation, I find the best thing to do is just to be curious about the other person. What brings them to where you guys are talking? If you're doing an activity together, how long have they been doing it, what do they like about, etc. E.g. if at the gym, you can ask to work in with someone, and ask them what routine they're doing, if they come often, etc. And SMILING above all else is the biggest thing! People will almost always return a smile. It's the positive energy thing again.

And yes, please don't let your love life define how you think about yourself! It's shaped by so many factors out of your control. And if it IS due to something you're doing sub-optimally, you can focus on changing the behavior, which you're doing here, and realize it doesn't reflect who you are at your core. I TOTALLY understand it's hard to do that, especially with other stressors. Keep coming back here and we'll help

Sounds great about discovering your own style again! It helps so much to feel comfortable and true to yourself in what you wear! 

Awesome to hear about the possible activities! I of course will recommend the dance class, but I'm biased, haha. I would disagree with @dalef in that the classes I took skewed excessively male (there were two guys for every girl in the intro salsa class I took), but most people there are definitely younger, so probably not too many romantic prospects. If it's a question between that and no classes, though, definitely take one, especially a social dance. Once you learn it enough to go social dancing that will be a gateway to meet many more people/guys by going out dancing! For followers, even 2-3 months of one class a week is sufficient to start social dancing.

dalef

I recommend the dance class as well; but look at it as a place to learn to dance, not a meat market.

silver

@MissMissy and @dalef, thanks for your feedback! I'm attending a local tango group dance class tonight (SO EXCITED) and maybe Latin on Thursday night. I might still check out the university class just to learn, but shucks, I wanted a meat market  

I do believe that my dating pool lies outside of school - too young, married, too beta, or too awkward.

I don't often meet new people, working with a small group, and it's easy to get comfortable with being my usual self - I need to step it up a bit! Your advice on engaging people is exactly what I need to do. Sometimes you need to hear it from someone else to reinforce it.  

MissMissy

Oooh, tango looks like so much fun! Hope you had a great time Are these dance classes offered through a non-university company, then? I would definitely say those would be more likely to have prospective guys than the university classes, for the reasons that you mentioned. 

silver said:

I don't often meet new people, working with a small group, and it's easy to get comfortable with being my usual self - I need to step it up a bit! Your advice on engaging people is exactly what I need to do. Sometimes you need to hear it from someone else to reinforce it.  

Glad to help! I think it's so great that you're working on this aspect of your MAP. Engaging with people more is very helpful in all areas of life!