Sooo hard to choose a girl to pursue

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Penance

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I need some serious help right now. I’m 26 years old right now. I work in a powerplant as an engineer. Been here for almost three years. The pay is good so i think that makes to have a solid income. What I’m struggling right now is i already have very good female friends and I think its time for me to start looking for a potential girlfriend but I cant seem to decide who to pursue. They’re all very good friends and I’m afraid to date everyone that i find to have a potential life partner for me. So many things and conditions seem to pop in my head.

I’m also afraid to date any potential partners knowing that if ever i decide that she’s not really for me, she might get upset for raising her hopes too high. 😦
 
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There is also the possibility that you might want to date some of those female friends and you will be the one that might get your hopes up too high and be disappointed.

You will never know until you try. You may be overthinking this.
 
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Would it be okay to date multiple girls to know the kind of partner you really want? As a practicing catholic, how should we date?
 
Penance said:
As a practicing catholic, how should we date?
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Just be respectful and honest…ie, if you are dating multiple women, don’t pretend you’re exclusive with any of them.

Also, you seem to be assuming that all these women will be into you. That may not be the case, Casanova.
 
If you don’t make a move soon, then all the girls you might potentially date will have paired off with somebody else. They’re not sitting there breathlessly waiting for you to choose your potential life partner.

I would suggest that you start just asking women out like guys generally do, with the understanding that most of the people you date are probably not going to end up being “The One”. Waiting to ask someone out on a date until you have some big certainty that they will be your “potential life partner” will likely ensure that you date almost nobody and might very well end up alone. I certainly wasn’t thinking of my husband being a “potential life partner” when I first met him. I didn’t even like him all that much, he was just another guy I liked well enough to go on dates with. It was only over time I realized that he had potential and even later when I realized he was The One.
 
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It’s not really that I’m assuming. I think I can handle a rejection. I just dont want to hurt them if ever I end up deciding not to continue pursuing them.
 
Penance said:
I just dont want to hurt them if ever I end up deciding not to continue pursuing them.
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Do you realize how patronizing this sounds?

If a guy had ever said something like this to me when I was 22 I would have laughed in his face for a solid 10 minutes.
 
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Really? Because it happened to me before and it end up my female friend hating me telling me that she thought that I was going to really court her. She told me that I should never dated her in the first place. 😦
 
Yeah, you can’t expect people to be happy about it when a relationship ends. And some, maybe most, of them won’t want to be friends with you after it ends.
That’s still not a good reason to hold off on dating.
I am sure your female friend didn’t lay down and die from the fact that you and she aren’t going to be an item.

Also, not all women will be angry if the dating relationship doesn’t work out. Or even if angry they may resume a friendship years later. I tried to date a guy when I was 18 and he decided he wanted to date another girl he met. I was sad and upset at the time, but later when we both had moved on to other relationships, and eventually married some other people we each met much later, we could be friendly again. We are still friendly today.
 
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Rejection hurts, especially when they make the first move. There is no easy way but just to be completely honest. You’re at a good age to find someone (if there is a good age). I still haven’t yet (in my 30s) and am beginning to resign myself to bachelorhood. Marriage is a privilege, not a right, and there is no guarantee we will find a spouse, but keep looking and be kind to the women you date. If you’re not fornicating with them (which is the norm in our culture) then you have nothing to feel guilty about for just wanting to spend time with her in a friendly way to see if there is long-term potential. Dating should be fun (and often is) but if someone expects you to fall in love with them because they feel strongly about you, that’s probably someone who needs to mature a little more and isn’t ready for a commitment that isn’t based entirely on emotions.
 
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If you’ve already imprinted on people as friends, you might have to look elsewhere for someone to be interested in romantically.

Rather than trying to force a romance, why not do casual stuff together? Do you ever get a group of people together to do stuff? That way, there’s no pressure or awkwardness. Do all/most of your friends know each other?

Figure out what you like to do. Is there a concert coming into town? A baseball game? A festival? “Hey, I saw ____ is happening at [date, time]. I thought it would be fun to put together a group of people to go see it together. Tickets are $x. Do you want to join in?”

You can invite a mix of guys and girls as well, so you don’t look like you’re trying to cultivate a harem. 😉 But rinse and repeat that a few times, and see how things go.
 
My advice, just ask out the one you find yourself most interested in.

I remember the first time I saw my wife. We were at a club meeting, it was her first week at college, and something just drew me to her. I was an officer in the club, and so up in front of the group, and she was sitting three rows back laughing with one of the other club members. I couldn’t have told you what it was, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I asked her out the next week, we got to know each other, and that was that.

Don’t push it, but also don’t wait around. If you feel a particular pull towards one of these women, ask her out. Just remember, you are not owed a date, and there is no guarantee that the person you ask out will be the one™.
 
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Penance said:
Really? Because it happened to me before and it end up my female friend hating me telling me that she thought that I was going to really court her. She told me that I should never dated her in the first place. 😦
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As someone else mentioned, you may be stuck in the friend zone with the women you are “very good friends with.” You may need to look elsewhere. It seems to me if any of these women were someone you would be interested in, they would stand out a bit to you, meaning, you wouldn’t have to decide which one to choose, or they would have let you known they were interested in you. You are not buying a car and making and weighing all of the options.😉

The fact that your friend ended up hating you and said you should never have dated her sounds like she may gave been too eager for things to work on her part. You can’t guard against how others feel.

And just on a side note, some people view the word “courting” as a sign of someone with a mission to find a spouse. If you use that word with some women, they are bound to get hurt feelings when they find they aren’t the one you were looking for. Yes, that may be the end goal of dating people, but you aren’t anywhere near that. You need to get some dating experience and be comfortable with it.
 
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Have you seen the documentary “The Dating Project”? It gives a really good overview on “how to date”. Might be helpful and is available to watch online for $4.
 
Penance said:
I’m also afraid
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Seriously @Penance , I don’t know you or what’s going on in your mind or how you think etc . , but don’t be like someone whom I think I know fairly well . I suspect he thought he had to be perfect before thinking of making a commitment to a lady , and so he waits for the impossible to happen , and it doesn’t , and it becomes too late .
 
Thank you very much for all the insights. I have truly gained a lot how to act on these things. I have come to realize that I am somewhat a people pleaser and I think it’s one of the few reasons being afraid for peoole to get hurt and not being able to form good relationships specially in dating.
 
If you know these female friends well, I’m surprised that you don’t have a sense yet of whether or not they are what you want in a partner.

Maybe try some casual one on one with a few of them. Hey, I am interested in this movie, wanna join me? The weather is great, wanna go on a hike?

If I don’t feel an attraction to someone simply by spending time with them and getting to know them, dating them isn’t going to alter that. For me there is no magical change that happens when we label something a date as far as feelings go, but it definitely changes expectations.

I prefer to hang out with a person and get to know them first.
 
Hmm. Depends on how you go about it. Do you usually hang out with them alone or in a group?
 
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