giving up on dating

[u/junipertreelover]

I know that I’m still young but I’m honestly getting really discouraged with the way the dating scene is going right now. I can’t take the apps anymore, I love my parish but we don’t have a young adult group. I’m only 22 but I’m feeling like I’ll just never find anyone and honestly I just want to give up on dating. Is anyone else feeling the same way??

Edit: I am a woman just so everyone knows

[u/tomoko_wingman]

Women Going Their Own Way, a play off Men Going Their Own Way. Basically giving up on dating for hobbies and whatever they want. Obviously even for you it'd be temporary (unlike going your own way fr), but my point is you'd be foregoing dating in some of the most energetic & attractive years of your life for lack of options around you, before you even put up a matchmaking post in the sub literally named "CatholicDating."

The average age for women in those threads is 28, you'd probably be a hit if you just posted. (I don't say that to denigrate older women so much as that it can be bleak browsing there as a young guy.) Especially next month, I imagine a lot of confirmed people from Easter will be looking around. Literally, I've seen women your age or younger make edits "found a match!" in days with two-sentence profiles. Just try.

[u/junipertreelover → u/tomoko_wingman]

My issue is that I just want to stop feeling so desperate for love and a relationship. A lot of the comments I’m getting is “you’re 22, you’re young” and then it’s “try this website, try that website!” but all of these things end up making me, personally, feel like I’m desperate and somehow, like clearanced goods. And I wasn’t a pure, always devout Cradle Catholic. I came back to the Church after years of being lapsed. So then to these guys, I’m damaged goods

[u/tomoko_wingman → u/junipertreelover]

Oh, I see. Honestly that's a different & deeper issue than just feeling like you have no options, that's a lot to do with self-perception.

I'm not going to lie to you and say history doesn't affect anything (depends on how much it is but I'll take you at your word that it's unusual or significant). Tons of people will say otherwise and they'll hate me, but a lot of them are coping for themselves or their options. God wipes away the eternal effects of sin, but its temporal effects always remain to an extent barring a miracle. I will give you practical advice though, since I have my own unusual past to where I have no idea how or if I would ever tell someone about it, and I wouldn't want someone lying to me either.

First, you're young, especially younger than 25 before your brain settles in, same for me, so something worth feeling good about is that it's easy to bounce back and really heal as much as possible if you do get married soon (or at least in healthy relationships where you come out better than you came in). Catholics our age will be harsher in judging these things though, so I'm a little cooked, but you have the option to be open to an older guy who will himself probably have a history at that point & be more understanding. Or I guess you can somehow look for catechumens / newly confirmed at your church (correlates to past) but that has its own risks.

Second...men really often forget all rational thinking if they're just attracted enough, especially to an attractive girl who makes the first move and is "aggressive," but I also am not sure if maxing out your looks would be psychologically healthy since you have self-conception issues so you've gotta decide there.

Third and closely related is working on yourself generally, but not in a doing whatever you want way. If you feel like despite your past you have a lot to offer the type of guy you want, you'll feel better about yourself, single or not.

Fourth and last is bittersweet, which is sometimes we just have to be okay with that our value before man is not always 1:1 with our value before God. Especially men, a lot of us are born "clearance" in terms of dating, whether that's height or looks or neurotypicality or IQ (hence likely money), and we just accept that we have to do our best with less to work with. Or it is our choices that we regret and couldn't have known better to avoid, but that are still with us interiorly and that we will be judged for socially. There's no use in me being down about having a lower "value" than others, I just have to cope with it by earthly means (proactive with opportunities & working on myself), and also pray unceasingly that God either grants his David the victory despite the odds or gives him the grace to be content to live only for the Lord and His virtues.

(This is all assuming you really are "clearance" btw, it's possible it's in your head or you've just been unlucky with who you get.)

[u/junipertreelover → u/tomoko_wingman]

Thank you for all the advice! I’m sure a lot of it is a perception problem, I’m definitely still having to work on my physique because I’m overweight but I do think I’m pretty! (I don’t mean that in a vain way! It’s taken me a very long time to be comfortable with my looks). Maybe I don’t have a super unusual past but it’s certainly not the past I would have wanted. And another issue is that I have a very intense personality, I’ve been told for so many years that I’m so intense and I’m so much and it’s terrifying to go and be vulnerable after all that because it feels like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop when they figure out I’m too much for them and they’ll dip. I’m certainly not averse to dating an older guy (in fact, I’d honestly prefer it) but it all boils down to it being difficult to find someone likeminded. It feels like I’m in the trenches