Tom's Love Quest

So here I am some four decades into my love quest.

I’ve dated some women; some very sexy women at that. In all those relationships, except where the ladies were mostly unavailable, my sexual interest disappeared quickly; too quickly. Sometimes, it went immediately after the first encounter.  The faster I was able to get her where I wanted her, the faster went my desire.

Initially, I thought I was just picking the wrong women. At other times, at least at first, I believed I had chosen correctly. Yet the closer I got, the more I saw about the women that I didn’t like, and this turned me off rapidly. This fading eroticism happened in every case in which the woman made herself completely available to me. Even my current girlfriend [Emmy] is not immune. I care about her welfare and I’d be utterly devastated if something was to happen to her. Indeed, I would marry her tomorrow except for this one “small” detail: I’m just not physically attracted to her anymore.

It’s not her. She’s still as pretty as ever. She’s 5’6’’ tall and slender, weighing in at 115 pounds. She has long legs, dark brown hair to her waist, and olive skin. She’s beautiful. She cares, and her love is pure; with no hidden agendas. She hasn’t changed much either since we met except that she has long hair now. I guess I just don’t’ see her the same way I did when we first met in 2003. Or put more precisely, I see her he same way but no longer feel interested in playing in the bedroom with her. Her beauty, though she still has it, does not impress me that way anymore.

Yes, we had a truly lustful period during our first five months together.  Indeed during our first time in bed five years ago, I was so pleased that I gave thanks to the universe, promising that I’d never ask for anyone else.  I didn’t need anyone else since it had finally granted me the ultimate prize; my dream girl. At that time, I believed with all my heart that my love quest had been won. Yet a few months later, all sexual desire for [Emmy] was gone.  Other ladies looked so much more desirable, and I was once again begging the universe for answers, apologizing for my short-sightedness, and hoping for a chance at one or more of those beautiful strangers as well.

[Emmy] and I have been to couples therapy for this without success. We read Esther Perel’s book, Mating in Captivity. Perel eloquently describes the problem. But after reading that book and talking to many a couple, I’m convinced that this is a very widespread issue. It’s normal that libido declines for a couple over time. But with me, it happens way too fast – within months if I’m lucky; within hours if I’m not.

This isn’t how I dreamed it would be. I thought I’d desire my dream girl forever. She’d keep me pleased forever by forever quenching that thirst, a sexual thirst that would always come back. Like with water, I’d enjoy each icy cold cup of her love, be satisfied for a time, and then get thirsty again the next day, ready once more to slurp in another wonderful dose of her. But, given a particular lady, my lust lasts not long at all, and when it goes away, it almost never returns. If it does come back, it does so only after a year or two since our last encounter. Then, if we love again, after one or two nights together, it’s gone again, for another year or two.

Is this just the nature of the beast? If I’m to commit to one woman, must I live without sexual interest in her once that early lust vanishes? If so, then I don’t want commitment! I’ve spent so much time fantasizing about a healthy, long-lived, and erotic relationship. So it’s sad to realize that my fantasy might be impossible to achieve long term, with only one woman.  if I date just one, then I’ll have to live virtually without my dreams ever coming true; dreams where I have that eternal supply of pleasure that happens when eternal desire colides with eternal gratification.   Unfortunately, experience shows that once the romance grows old, then the beloved becomes the plain. She becomes more like a sister or a daughter rather than a princess or a goddess. That scares me, and is why I’m afraid to commit to [Emmy], or to anyone else for that matter.

To my readers I ask: What’s your answer? Was my fantasy wrong? Must I just accept the notion that good sex is vey rare and so give up trying to find more of it from multiple partners? Is it possible to restore those lost feelings for a particular woman? Or, must I seek them from several women at once if I want to keep them alive in my life?

Tom Hesley

Dear [Ballerina],

Hi. How are you? I hope you’re well and that you remember me, because it’s been five years since we last spoke. You remember that summer of 2004 when I winked at you on the web. I wanted you from the first time I glimpsed the pictures you put up there. I figured that you wouldn’t respond because women who look like you most often do not respond to me. Your face reminded me of Helen of Troy because, in another time, just like hers did, yours would have launched a thousand ships as well. So I was not surprised that you didn’t respond right away. In fact when you did, a month and a half later, I’d all but forgotten who you were, but was pleased that you wrote nonetheless. Right away, we began emailing and swapping pictures, and talking on the phone a couple weeks later. I tell you that you made September of 2004 one of the most romantic months of my life, for I’ve never felt the passion for a woman more strongly, than I did for you back then. Your memory to this day in 2009 fills my heart with joy as well as my eyes with tears.

Yours is a great memory. But it’s a sad one too. I never got over how things so abruptly ended, and what’s more, I never understood it. I never had closure. You just stopped communicating one day without any explanation, and that was that. Our relationship was suddenly through, though in my view, we were just getting started on the most wonderful journey of my life.

I still wonder what drove you away, and since I never had anything from you afterwards to go on, I can only guess at what it was. I suspect that was several factors. But I’ll only talk about one in this letter.

You remember in early October I came to Pittsburgh to see you? You’d just visited me a week earlier and you spent one night here. I remember that you sure liked TV, as you watched mine all night long. We had such a good time then, that we decided that I’d visit you this time. So I came out and you picked me up at the train station, and drove us to your apartment in South Hills. I met your son and daughter then, and your son and I helped your daughter with her math homework. That was so much fun.

Well, during the second afternoon of my visit, I walked into your kitchen to find you cooking our supper. I stood in the doorway watching you for what could have been an hour, but what only felt like a few seconds. Your hair was just the right length. Your skin was fair and healthy. Your east European accent was so cute as you called out orders to your kids to help with the meal. Your legs were strong yet long and intensely sexy, and nowhere on your person was there even one extra ounce of fat. You were the healthy woman I’d been seeking for decades, and with more people in the US obese today than not, believe me I considered you quite the find. In old Europe, you could have been a queen, and I’d have gladly worshipped you too because everything about you, and I mean everything, was perfect. The way you walked, the way you talked, the way you smiled and watched me as I spoke; it was all so wonderful. The way you cooked, the way you cared, the way you wanted to serve was so very charming and disarming.

I fell in love with you then, standing in that doorway, and I didn’t just suspect that I’d fallen. I knew it in no uncertain terms. These indescribably sweet feelings of pleasure and peace swirled in my mind and brought me close to fainting. The sense that my decades-long search for my dream girl was finally over flooded my entire being, and if I was a believer in God, I might describe this moment as Him, making a miracle. With one loud snap of his fingers, he drove any doubts I had about you and how quickly things were moving between us, away from my heart. In that instant, I would have married you. I would have thrown all caution to the wind and had no misgivings about doing so either. What I was feeling then, was precisely opposite to the pains of loneliness and missing fulfillment that I’d come to know so well in my life. But all that had changed this weekend as I watched you cooking that meal. Every last painful emotion from past relationships disappeared. Not one voice in my head said that you might be wrong for me. In fact, they all argued profusely that you were so, so right.

I was certain that our sex had been, and would continue to be phenomenal. This was important to me because I’d always wanted good sex but never found it consistently; at least, not until you. So this was another reason I valued you so much. I’d been looking for someone like you for so long and was desperate to end the search, and here you were, the embodiment of my salvation. You were the first woman in 25 years who could make me hard with but a single look or one kiss, or a brief but tender caress with your beautiful index finger. Unlike with all my other women prior, with you I didn’t have to fantasize or concentrate in order to warm my loins. With you, it happened automatically and naturally, without any forcing whatsoever. It was as though my body had been waiting for you to unlock its deep vaults of sexual and romantic passion, that had been filling up for years. By the time I met you for the first time, I was convinced that I had none of this to offer any woman and was also frustrated that I couldn’t find someone who could please me this way. But oh my, you sure proved me wrong. My body responded to you like a thirsty cactus does to water. It drank you in, loving the sensations, but never quite getting enough. I was convinced that there would always be more pleasure to be had and to give to you.

I don’t know exactly what it was about you that revved up my romantic interest so. But I do know that that lust resulted from the confluence of many factors that both you and I brought to the table. It was much more than just “your body,” and it wasn’t just me. It was you too, though not just you. It was the circumstance of our lives at that time; how each of us was raised, the values with which we’ve been instilled, our particular experiences, and so on. It was not a desire I chose to have. Never did I decide on the sorts of women who excite me. Those ladies, whoever they are, just do, perhaps due to natural selection or some other big forces that dwarf my puny will. As I see it, we don’t voluntarily decide when and where or for whom our bells of lust ring. Put simply: We don’t control who turns us on. That’s determined by many forces beyond our control at very young ages; probably before we’re born or even conceived in fact.

You caught me looking then, and threw back a big smile for a few seconds, then returned to the meal without a word. I wanted to kiss you and to thank you for being my dream girl. I wanted to compliment you too on your charms, and I figured that some of this feeling, but not all of it mind you, came from how physically fit and trim you were. I was glad that keeping yourself healthy was very important to you and I admired your ability to do that well. In our phone talks, you revealed that you spent many hours each day exercising and dancing, and as I saw it, that work paid off for you. Though in your mid-forties and now an ex-ballerina, you still looked great; just as good as you did a decade earlier in those pictures you’d shown me the previous night, of you twirling and dancing joyfully around the stages of the most exclusive theaters in Pittsburgh. I revered your discipline that allowed you to stay as thin at 47 as you were when you were 17. So as you cooked on, I walked over to and stood at your back, putting my hands under your arms and around your waist to cup your flat stomach. Then I said, “You’ll never know how glad I am that you’re thin.”

You grew angry. This one statement of mine would put up a wall between us that never came down again. “What do you mean?” you snapped, clasping each of my wrists in your hands and throwing them away from your ribs. “You know,” you argued, “I used to be just like you. I hated fat people, and always avoided them. But I’ve learned! I’ve learned that they can’t help the way they are, and that it’s wrong for people like us to hold their weight against them. But you don’t care that they’re human beings. It seems like all you care about is a woman’s body, and if she happens to be too fat, then you ignore the person inside and just throw her away. But they have feelings too. Don’t their minds and hearts mean anything to you? How can you be so cruel? That’s mean and crazy, and you really ought to grow up!”

I was so shocked and dismayed at the abruptness and degree of your hostility that I said nothing back. I just walked into the living room without another word, and we didn’t speak of this again for the remaining two days of my visit. But oh, how cold and distant we became. You stopped sleeping with me that very night, instead choosing to stay on the couch in the living room. You gave short, yes-no answers whenever I’d ask you anything. The morning you drove me to the train, you were cordial but I know that once we said good-bye and you kissed me on the cheek, that I’d never hear from you again. And I haven’t. Not even to this day in 2009.

When I got home that afternoon, I called you only to get your voice mail. I left several messages during the following week, inviting you to call me back. But you never did. I sent you email too, but to no avail. You totally ignored me and I had no way to discuss it with you.

I was crushed. For months afterward, I frequently awoke in tears. What we had seemed so right. So how could it have turned out so wrong. It profoundly saddened me. What’s more, you allowed me no say, preventing any way to explain what I meant when I said that I was so thankful that you were so thin. But I want you to know. So I’ll write it here and maybe someday you’ll find it. Maybe someday, you’ll understand. Maybe someday you’ll call me again. Maybe someday we could be friends. Maybe, maybe, maybe,… Maybe not. But I hope you’ll at least read the rest of this, even if you do nothing more.

First off, I do not hate fat people. I maintain good friendships with lots of them, and I’ve worked productively with many more. I enjoy their company, value their opinions, and respect their judgments. I also empathize with their difficulties in losing weight because I’ve struggled myself to stay thin. So I get that trimming down and keeping the pounds off is hard. It’s a never-ending battle, to be sure. But I believe nonetheless, that it can be done. In fact, it has been done by millions. So I disagree with your passionate claim that the heavy cannot help that they’re heavy. While a small percentage of them do have medical problems that prevent them from losing, this is not true for the vast majority; as proved by the masses who lose weight all the time.

I do care about these humans. Perhaps you didn’t know that before you came along, I dated mostly the heavy. So you don’t have to convince me that there are some heavy, yet very wonderful people out there who’d give everything to make their lovers happy. I dated several such women and those relationships lasted the longest of all, at least until I met my current girlfriend. These women were very caring, understanding, and thoughtful. I could not leave them for months sometimes, because I couldn’t bare the thought of jilting them. Believe me, I cared about them.

I knew that losing weight was a life challenge for them and felt mighty sorry for them because of it. But I also realized that I couldn’t be the superman who would save them; who would carry them away from a life of solitude, brought on because others avoided them for being so big. I wanted to be the hero though. I wanted to be the bigger man, and I cried for many an hour, once I understood that I couldn’t. Why couldn’t I? Because my strongest, most profound desire beyond good food, clothing, and a warm and quiet place to live, has always been to enjoy lots of erotic quality time with beautiful women. It’s a thirst that only women like you can quench. For whatever reason, I just don’t feel erotic when lying with heavy women. Before you, I struggled to reshape what I wanted in women many times; but never succeeded. Indeed, I wanted to love the fat ladies. After all, there were so many more of those types around than the skinny ones, and usually whenever I managed to attract someone, she was big. So changing for whom my heart beats seemed like a good pursuit since I was way more likely to attract a fat lady than a thin one. I longed to somehow learn to get off on the weighty. I prayed to God to make me lust after them. I spent hundreds of hours meditating; trying to convince myself that I physically enjoyed the big and beautiful just as much as the petite and trim. I dated heavy women lots of times and took them to bed often as well, though, truth be told, I found the encounters unfulfilling. In the worst cases, they disgusted me. So after five or six failed attempts at dating the heavy and close to two years in therapy, I realized that I can’t help that I want certain things in certain ways. I can’t help who I desire, and I desired you in a big way. So please don’t blame me for wanting you but avoiding them. I am a good man, and my aversion to fat ladies comes not from prejudice or shallow thinking or an unwillingness to get to know them, but rather from years of failed efforts to see them more favorably. I can’t help that I found you irresistible but not them, and found it strange that you would hold this biological nature of mine against me. Well, I hope you understand me better now and that you realize that my desire for you was a valuable thing that you discarded without taking the time to understand it.

So how would you have me handle this? Should I have continued dating the heavy while passing up chances to spend time with the thin that I so dreamed of? I couldn’t do that. If that makes me an uncaring person in your eyes, then I’ll just have to live with that judgment, because I cannot change. I can no longer lay with the Rubenesque while my heart longs for the slender.

Sure. I care that they’re human beings. I care about them a lot, as human beings. But I’m not willing to forego my dreams by staying with them, while they fulfill theirs by being with me. Yes, it’s a sad thing that so many guys pass by the pleasantly plump and that as a result, these women are often left alone. But that’s not my problem, for I cannot solve it unless I deny my own needs. Now honestly: Do you really think that a man should give up his dreams in order to make a woman happy that he does not desire? I do not.

Besides, even if I withhold from them what they want, others will love them. Lots of guys adore frumpy females, and I’d be doing a disservice to those fellows by clinging to one despite my true feelings against that. I’d be keeping a lady that I really don’t desire anyway, from men who do want her. That seems wrong to me. Just because I reject her doesn’t mean that she’s doomed to a life a rejections from all other men. So don’t blame me for the loneliness often felt by the heavy.

To me, the only way a person can ever achieve complete happiness is to know and accept his set of preferences for women unconditionally, and then spend his time seeking to fulfill them, as they are. He’s merely spinning his wheels if he wastes valuable time trying to change what he wants. My experience shows that such efforts are doomed to fail, and result in lower self esteem and much frustration. Why? Because instead of going after what we really want, we second-guess our desires when we believe that they can be changed, and then we never get around to actually fulfilling them. We question whether they are morally straight or unselfish enough to pursue. So the result is that we end up going without what we want because we think it lame or immoral. Thus, we’re left perpetually unsure of ourselves and sadly, unfulfilled to boot. So it makes little sense to think of me as shallow or selfish, for I am what I am, and I desire what I desire. I can’t change that, and if you thought about this at any length, you’d probably discover that you can’t change your desires either.

When we met, I knew what I wanted, and accepted that as unchangeable as my fingerprints. Whatever made you the goddess I saw working the stove that day, though I didn’t fully understand it, I cherished it. I was so thankful to have stumbled across our situation, where everything aligned perfectly. I was thankful for you. For the first time ever, I had this strong sense that I’d found a relationship that was as good as they get; I felt that I would never find another one better than ours. Even if ours would have gotten tough at times (which it didn’t), I would have stayed with it because I had this strong idea that no relationship would ever be better. Now I understand why people hold on to what, to the outside word, looks like a doomed love affair. Perhaps they feel about their lovers as I felt about you; that no other person could make them feel as wonderful. The good times, if they’re really good, make it possible to weather the bad times. We had good times like those, and if you hadn’t so completely cut me off, I would to this day, still be loving you.

You mentioned their minds. You seemed to be saying that while we might not be able to pleasure ourselves from a person’s outsides, then we should be able to do so with what’s on the inside. But I wonder: Does it really make sense to split humans apart in this way? Mind Vs. body, physical appearance Vs. personality, Inner beauty Vs. outer beauty, and body Vs. soul. I don’t think so.

When judging a person, people often place more value on his mental attractiveness than his physical. Their reasons are varied and go something like the following:
1. Beauty fades over time but personality is more permanent.
2. People who are attracted to bodies don’t care about what’s in the mind.
3. A man who is physically unattractive will probably have a much more attractive mind; so we should learn to ignore his outsides and focus more on his insides.
4. A person’s mind (personality) is more under his control than is the state of his body. In this vein, his character should mean more to others than his physical health.
5. People who reject another because of his appearance all have the same beauty standards, meaning that the rejected ones, by one, will also be the rejected ones,   by all.
6. Judging and scrutinizing based on looks is a bad thing because it ignores that better part of a whole person – his personality.
7. There’s an expectation that people should be able to love someone regardless of how pretty or ugly.
8. People can choose who they desire, and so can be blamed if they don’t happen to like someone who is unattractive to them.

Well, I’m not convinced that someone’s mental powers are any less susceptible to the effects of aging than their physical powers of attraction. The brain (mind) I would argue is subject to the same forces of aging that the rest of the body is. Why would it not be? It draws energy from the same blood supply that other body parts normally associated with physical beauty do. The brain grows tired when pushed too hard just as do the legs. The brain functions erratically, or stops functioning altogether when deprived of oxygen, calories, and nutrients; just as do breasts, arms, and feet. Aside from being the place where a person’s higher mental functions are carried out, the brain is no different than the rest of the body in terms of what can happen to it over time. Damage to the brain such as found in head injuries, may do more harm to a person’s mental being than say, a blow to a leg would. The brain therefore, is perhaps the most fragile organ in the body because it does so much, and can thus be damaged very easily. The body may grow old. But the brain can grow skeptical too. It can become too rigid in its thinking and can be irreversibly altered by traumatic experiences; experiences that leave the rest of the body unharmed so long as there’s no direct physical trauma applied. Does the brain’s susceptibility to more catastrophic injuries make it less of a good measure of a man? Certainly not. But nor does this make the body less of a measure. A person’s rationale may escape him eventually through the use of alcohol or from his chronically poor choices of foods. Perhaps dumb is forever but smartness is certainly not. One may be smart in her twenties but quite dumb in her sixties just as one may be thin in his thirties but quite obese in his seventies. People once considered very intelligent often lose their mental faculties over time; they lose their memories and cognitive abilities as diseases like atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s run their courses. The brain is no less a part of the aging body than any other part, and so the qualities that it supplies about the person, can be just as temporary as that sexy set of six-pack abs or those wonderfully proportioned curves. Exercise the body and it thrives and looks nice. Exercise the brain, and it too thrives and produces an attractive personality. But allow either of these to go limp for too long and both will wither. Thus in my view, the brain is no more impervious to the ravages of living than is the rest of the body. So why would the personality, which emanates from the brain, be any greater a measure of a person’s attractiveness than any other physical part? In the end, every part of a person dies, including the brain. There’s nothing about the brain that makes it any more permanent than any other part of the body. So I don’t get why people judge fellows for liking other body parts. I’m sorry that my interest in your thinness bothered you so. It was not intended as an insult; but rather, it was a compliment, an expression of my admiration of you and how healthy you’d managed to keep your mind as well as your body through the years.

Perhaps you were upset because you thought I was placing too much value on your body and not enough on your mind. This idea is wrong because it’s not true that people who express interest in a person’s physical attributes have no regard for the person’s mind. I say that they can’t help but regard the mind since it’s the mind that animates an otherwise lifeless body. A body can’t very well be sexy without a mind controlling it in sexy ways. The mind and the body are fused into one in such extensive and broad-sweeping ways that it’s impossible to tell where the body ends and the mind begins when discussing sexual attraction. The ways in which the mind controls the body, along with the body’s shape work together to make the body sexy. You can’t have sexy without both of these working in harmony. So even when someone says that they like your sexy legs, they’re in fact saying so much more. Not only are they complimenting you on the shape of your legs, but they’re also admiring how you move them when you walk, or cross them when you sit down, and so on. They’re admiring your mind as well, just as I was admiring yours when I complimented you on your thinness. Again, I’m sorry you didn’t see my point of view more clearly. I would have gladly explained it to you if you hadn’t severed communications with me so abruptly and so completely.

The mind is certainly not always the better part of the person. Some out there have some pretty simplistic or ugly minds; whether they’re physically beautiful or ugly. There are some women whose minds are such that, rather than getting into deep conversations with them, I’d just as soon have sex and not talk at all. I appreciate a good mind when there’s one around. But if it’s not there, it’s not fair for you to expect me to relish it. Your mind however, was there and I enjoyed your stories of how you escaped from behind the iron curtain to come here to America. They demonstrated how smart and savvy you are, and showed how much you’ve mastered the art of self control. Again it was this part of you that I was complimenting as well as your shape.

If your anger at me stemmed from your pity for the heavy, then I think you underestimate how attractive some guys find them. Not everyone thinks them ugly. What about you? Do you think they’re ugly? Do you think you need to defend them because you seem them as ugly? Is this why you rose to their defense with such intensity and sharpness when I commented on how thankful I was that you were thin? If so, then perhaps you’re shallower than I. You did say that you were like me once. Perhaps you still are. The fact is that people’s tastes are not universal. Though admittedly, many prefer a healthy and thin mate, many choose the chubby. Some enjoy the pleasantly plump, and they worry about crushing someone who has too little meat on her bones. There are lots of married heavy folks. So they do a better job at mating than you give them credit for. Perhaps?

In light of the above, why do people expect others to love with a blind eye toward a person’s physical attributes? Do you expect this? Is this why you snapped at me, because I do not love with this blind eye? You know, it’s been said that you can tell a great deal about a person just from one drop of his blood. So if that’s true, then would not his appearance tell us so much more? After all, there’s much more of it than that drop of blood. At a glance we can deduce his general health and make some pretty good guesses about his life style and preferences. By listening to his cough, we’d know if he smokes or not, or has some lung disease that perhaps we should avoid. By smelling his scent over time, we can tell if he values cleanliness or if he is taking some medicines that alter his scent. A foul odor generally means poor health or at least, poor health practices on his part. By listening to his speech, we can learn much about his education level and the culture in which he was raised. By observing how heavy he is, we can figure out how much he likes to eat and what sorts of food. From his weight, we can also predict how healthy he’ll likely be in the future and how much he values good health besides. You’d agree I think, that a relationship with someone who does not value good health as we do would be difficult. So I say that with all this data, we can make wiser choices about whether this person would be a good mate. By paying attention to this data, we can avoid lots of wasted time by steering clear of relationships that would not be (could not be) what we want. Sometimes, you don’t need to actually get into a relationship with some to know that it would be bad if you did. I’ve learned over the years that relationships with the heavy don’t make me happy. So I hope you’ll forgive me when I turn away from them these days, without even giving them a try.

We don’t control who turns us on. Do you think I do, and because of this, do you think I can decide to be attracted to the heavy? Let me assure you. I don’t, and I can’t. Since I can’t control this, you’re wrong to judge me harshly for it. It was wrong of you to end our relationship without as little a single discussion. The reality is: What turns us on is a complex convergence of hundreds or thousands of variables that involve ourselves, our lovers, the genetics and upbringings of each, and the circumstances surrounding them. Perhaps a small number of these variables we control. But most we do not. Further, it’s usually not just one of these variables that makes us desire or not. This is why desire is so hard to manipulate. You’ve either got it by default or you don’t, and not all the makeup, hair color, fancy clothes, or perfume in the world will change that.

You had it with me and you didn’t have to try at all.

You know if I thought about you enough right now, I could bring a tear to my eye. Your sudden departure five years ago left a wound in my psyche that has not yet healed. Oh I don’t think of you very often. But when I do, there are still some strong emotions there and I always wish that things had worked out better. But I don’t regret complimenting you on your thinness; I’d do it over the exact same way. What I’d do differently though, would be to talk more to you before you sent me home. I’m sorry that I didn’t have the wherewithal back then to say what I’ve said in this letter. Let me ask you: Would this have made any difference? It seemed like you had made up your mind and that no amount of talking would have changed it.

Does it change anything now? I shouldn’t ask that because if you showed up in my life again tomorrow, I’m not in a position to respond to you. I have a wonderful girlfriend. [Emmy] never bolted on me and she always takes the time to listen to me. You didn’t do that. You handled the situation poorly and because you were so reckless with my heart, I don’t think I could ever fall in love with you again. Still though, when I look at the pictures you gave me, I wonder at what could have been, and regret that we didn’t get further than we did.

Well, thanks for listening. I needed to get this out. I hope that you’re doing well and that you’re not given to the sorts of too-quick reactions these days that drove us apart back then. I’ll just have faith that the experience grew you as well as it did me. Do take care and perhaps in the next life, we can try it again.

With love,
Tom Hesley

PS: For other posts that make similar arguments, see the following:

• Would You Leave Me Because I Like Thin?

Hello.

It’s Tom here again with some background about me to help put this whole love quest thing into context.

Let’s see. I’m a 48 year old single white male. I never married, never had children, nor do I want to. I’m 5’ 8’’ tall at 179 pounds. Currently, I live where I grew up, in central, PA. However, in my working life of nearly 20 years, I’ve lived in Dayton, OH, Pittsburgh, PA, and Philadelphia, PA.

I began my education in public school. At that time, I lived at home with my parents and sisters, like most kids. But in third grade, I switched to a special needs school in Pittsburgh due to weak eyesight, which affected me since birth.

Well, if I had it my whole life you may ask, then why didn’t I switch schools sooner? Because the low vision did not lower my grades in the early years, and I liked being close to my family. The teachers in kindergarten through second grade accommodated me lovingly. They liked me and were eager to help. So my grades stayed very good, my self-confidence kept pretty high, and I got along well with the other kids.

But it got harder to keep up as the lessons grew more complicated, as they had in third grade. Kids teased me then about my thick glasses, threw rocks at me, and beat me up in the school yard at recess. I grew frustrated since I could no longer follow the training, and teachers grew impatient as I got angrier. I missed more and more of the lessons, as teachers taught more with chalk boards, overheads, and copies of their handwritten notes; which I could not read well without getting very close. If I was going to have any chance at a good education, I needed a different school; one equipped to handle low-vision kids like me. So, in February, 1970, I left the school across the street for, hopefully, a more positive learning experience in Pittsburgh.

Of course, this meant living much of the school year away from home since each way to Pittsburgh took more than two hours. So with the new school over a hundred miles away, I stayed there overnight during the week. The only times I saw my family were the weekends and on summer breaks. Initially, this adjustment hurt all of the family, and my Mom agonized for years over whether she should have sent me away. In the end though, we all agree that she chose wisely, and I’m grateful to her for sticking to it though she missed me and cried over it often. I cried too, especially on Sunday nights, for the first couple years. But I’m glad we all stuck with the new school, as it did what we’d hoped it would by giving me a second, much better chance at a decent education.

Though my vision is low, it’s always been stable, thank goodness. I have enough to be productive in many “sighted” activities. I read large print, take buses, and watch TV. I know what colors are. My favorite is a deep yet vibrant blue. I maintain the house, doing most repairs and enhancements myself. I fix computers, mow the lawn, do light construction, perform plumbing and electrical repairs, and I paint. I know how to use power tools like drills, saws, sanders, and heat guns. That great school in Pittsburgh taught me well how to better apply the vision I had to maximize my independence and productivity.

However, the biggest drawback of my reduced sight is that I cannot drive. This fact has complicated my love quest greatly since good old sweet sixteen. In fact, many women who’ve rejected me confirmed this. “I can’t date you,” they’d say with a tone that challenged my audacity to ask them out in the first place. “You don’t drive,” as though I should have known better than to seek their affections. Nonetheless, finding sustained pleasure in love remains my top priority. Though my eyes are weak, everything else is strong; including a desire to enjoy fulfilling erotic relationships.

The search has been hard for different reasons at different times. During high school, I struggled because there weren’t many girls there that I wanted. Why? The high school was small, with less than 150 boys and girls combined, and of all the girls, only four to six interested me romantically. Of these, three were too old. Plus, the remaining three were quite popular with the other boys. Thus, competition was fierce, leaving the pickings quite slim. So I had few dates in high school, and no one ever asked me out first.

I was also quite shy. The prettiest girls scared me most. The more I wanted them, the more I feared approaching them. This meant that the girls I desired most were the least likely to know that I wanted them. I never quenched my teenage thirst for great sex. Not until well after finishing high school (which, in retrospect, was probably a good thing), did I ever score. Looking back on that time from here in 2009, I’m glad I didn’t have sex and am thankful that I never got anyone pregnant. But in the 70s, I hated this abstinence forced on me as it was by the circumstances at the school, by what some described as my average looks, and my own fears.

My fear seemed my worst enemy. So, I spent the first decade or two of my love quest, trying to rid myself of it; striving first to understand it, then learning how to beat it, and finally, once I realized that I couldn’t beat it, learning to happily live with it. I’ll share how this came about in upcoming episodes.

Fear turned out to be quite the foe. I could neither silence it with alcohol, nor marijuana, nor a hundred self-help books, nor direct confrontation, and not with years of psychotherapy. Fear has been such an encompassing and basic part of my conscience that eliminating it completely proved impossible. So I’ve not destroyed it. However, I do go after what I want, even though the fear accompanies me everywhere. I negotiate with it and sometimes, it allows me to speak.

I’ve made peace with fear, and learned to tell my desires to women, not so much in spite of it, but rather through working with it. What do I mean by that? Well nowadays, I see fear as a protective parent or older brother, watching over and guiding me, using its strong but gentle hand to steer me away from situations likely to be fruitless. But I didn’t discover until well into adulthood that fear almost never the bad guy, and there are times when it does not restrain me, even around the tallest, thinnest, most attractive women. Sometimes, it allows me to approach. And those situations were the most likely to turn into full-blown, happy relationships; more so than when I chose to ignore it and press on without considering its counsel. Few (if any) times where I defied my fear ever turned out good. In retrospect, I should have listened to it more that I did. It has wisdom and so it knows when the women like me and when they don’t, and it permits me to approach those that do and pushes me away from those who’d rather I fly a kite. I’ve come to understand how that works and I hope you’ll check out future episodes for more details.

Though in my teens, fear kept me away from almost every pretty girl, at times I rose above it and made my interest known. However, usually the very thing happened that I feared: They rejected me and threw in some distain and jeers for good measure. My fear knew what it was talking about when it said, “Stay clear of this one.” Nonetheless, I enjoyed some potent romantic times. A few girls said yes. A few girls, my fear permitted me to seek out.

One case was our tenth grade prom. That date turned out to be perhaps the best romantic date I ever had before or since. I asked this female employee if she’d go with me. When she agreed, I almost fainted with thrill. The date turned out well and even today, I remember most every minute of it. But because I was a minor (sixteen at the time), she wouldn’t go out with me again. And by the time I came of age, she had left the school and I, in this pre-Internet era, could not locate her though I tried.

Besides the prom date, I had a “first love” and it was in eleventh grade that my passion for her really ignited. But for various reasons, anxiety tainted that association because her first love was someone other than me, and, I knew it. Plus, she and I had very different values. I was too young to understand that intellectually, although my conscience got it loud and clear. And so, at least during high school, we never connected romantically; although I daydreamed about her often during class, as I watched her much more than I paid attention to the teacher. She was just so beautiful, and I’m certain I failed a few exams due to focusing too much on her.

She and I had a few encounters. But she’d never come as my date to school activities. True, we’d dance sometimes and she’d let me hold her hand once every several blue moons, though she never squeezed back. She’d allow me to nuzzle her shoulder during a slow dance. But her arms only rested on my shoulders; never drawing me closer. Not in high school anyhow. Once in a while, she’d even come out with me for pizza or movie, at my prompting of course. But she never invited me to go with her anywhere. Any activity where we’d be announced as a couple, she rejected. In fact, I had asked her to our tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade proms as well as numerous dances and field trips. But she always said no, though she said yes to others. This hurt, and the pains of her repeated rejections followed me though many of the early years of my love quest. Let’s just call her   [First Love].   She really was that and to me, because   [First Love]   always came first. I would have taken her to the tenth grade prom. But I took the employee instead, since   [First Love]   rejected me. Nowadays, I don’t see the employee lady as second best even though she was not my first choice, because I ended up falling in love with her afterwards, once I realized just how memorable that prom date was. Still though, my feelings for   [First Love]   never wavered and I would continue chasing her for many years; long after the employee departed, and long after high school ended.

Of course I did more than just quest for a girlfriend as a student. I enjoyed repairing electronic devices and dabbling in amateur radio; I loved anything electronic. Additionally, I worked several little jobs as a teen, which included a kitchen helper, a telephone switchboard operator, and receptionist. I sold Christmas trees each December to raise funds for the school, and I played music at our dances. I also managed the school radio station and interned at KDKA radio in 12th grade. These jobs made me feel important and confident, and this I thought, gave me a leg up on the competition for girls. Though I loved the fun of this work, I did it to attract more girls as well. The jobs paid money and as I saw it, girls liked money and guys who had it. So anything I could do to make more of it, I did.

Electronics, specifically radio, fascinated me. This was a good thing too because aside from a few friendships, it was the only pursuit that distracted me from feeling sad for not having a girlfriend. I cried often after seeing girls I wanted hanging out with men I deemed beneath me. Yet those girls avoided me like I was beneath them! They seemed to view me as badly as I did their loser boyfriends. They saw me as the loser, and those losers as winners. Go figure. I didn’t get it. How they could want those cads and not me? I thought this was because I appeared ugly to them. Indeed, some of them said this to me. But over all, I didn’t believe them. So, I kept pressing for a good date. True, I got frustrated often for not finding good ones. But never did I consider my looks a curse, nor did I obsess over them.

I rarely used cologne or dressed up, and did little to enhance my appearance beyond the daily bathing, shaving, nail cutting, hair grooming, teeth brushing, and wearing clean clothes and deodorant. I was secure about my looks even though some said I was plain and unappealing. I never wore designer clothes, gold necklaces, or name brand shoes because I was fine and whole without them. Indeed, as I looked in the mirror to straighten my hair, I liked the guy looking back. He was reasonably handsome with much going for him, and he should be able to attract the girls he liked. Yet in high school, no girl ever desired him back. They laughed as he passed or scurried away on the street as they walked arm-in-arm with their thuggish boyfriends; those guys with the rap sheets that terrorized us civilized folk. The girls preferred these “bad boys” to him. To me: me who never had a police record; me, who got drunk only seven times in high school; me, who never beat up anyone; me, who had better grades; and me who had the promise of a good career in electronics. All these good things that I had, those losers did not. So what did they have that drove the girls wild? With all the jobs and good performing I was doing, I thought I should have been more attractive than the losers. But the girls disagreed. The fact that I wasn’t confounded and confused me, and I’d spend many an hour pondering why this was so through the rest of my love quest.

My powerlessness to answer led me through years of depression, which stretched way beyond high school, and sometimes, affects me to this very day. But as I entered adulthood, electronics kept me sane and made all this bearable. It gave me something besides dating to focus on. While studying, I could forget the nasty looks and words from pretty girls. So, I continued studying radio and TV repair into the mid 80s.

In fact, upon my 1979 graduation, I attended trade school for two years. There as well as at the school for blind children, I only saw a few ladies at Connelley that I liked, but more than in high school. There weren’t many female students in the electronics classes, although the school taught other subjects that drew more just down the hall. Still, I was too scared to approach any ladies. I liked one woman in my advanced electronics class. As usual though, I was too afraid to tell her. But she figured it out after catching me watching her a few times. Flattered she was, but not interested in dating me. So while I did well in trade school scholastically, I had still made no love connections. No matter though because two months after graduation in 1981, I was onto my next adventure; my first full-time job.

In August, I got a temporary job as an electronics technician, also in Pittsburgh. The first few months were hectic because I had no direct supervisor to teach me about the equipment I’d be repairing. There was no senior technician because that fellow had taken ill some months earlier. With him gone, his office soon filed up with hundreds of broken audio visual devices. So once that pile got real big, they felt compelled to bring in someone temporary to repair some it. So they hired me.

I was all alone with this mountain of malfunctioning projectors, TV monitors, and video cassette recorders. My mission: To fix it all. It was nice though, because no one pressured me. They understood that I, fresh from trade school and the only technician there, was in way over my head. Soon however, I could repair three to six items per day once I learned how things worked and how to order parts. Fortunately, most projects were simple — such as frayed power cords, broken belts, missing knobs, and burned out lights. Yet, there was much to do, simple though it was.

As in trade school, again I feared failing and so, spent many extra hours at the office and took home manuals to read over the weekends. I so wanted not to screw it up. Thus until the senior technician returned, I didn’t have time to think about women. I was all about the job at that point.

But ten weeks after I started, the boss man returned. I thought that I’d be laid off. However, the directors liked my work so much that they voted to keep me on to assist, until we finished fixing that massive pile of equipment. With two guys working, it soon disappeared. Then, they asked me to stay for over a year more, and I soon realized that I didn’t have to work so hard to please them. So I had time to resume my love quest, and resume it I did.

Four ladies at work caught my eye. I was still too afraid to say to ladies that I liked them directly. So I’d let them know by just hanging around them until they got it. Then, either they’d pull me aside and say that they knew I was interested and that they’d love to go out (which never happened at that job). Or they’d say sadly that they already had boyfriends and that, while they’d love to go out, they couldn’t. This always happened. I wrung out all four ladies this way, and you guessed it. None were available. So, with no one there left to pursue, that familiar ache of loneliness soon came back again. The excitement of the new job along with the hope of meeting a special lady there was gone.

To cope, I sought religion. Perhaps while following this story, you’ve wondered about my religious background. So let me say that I am neither religious nor spiritual these days. Though raised Catholic, as I matured, believing in things through sheer faith became impossible; especially once my beloved and devout grandmother passed away in 1980. I’ve always been a terrible follower, and so believed in nothing in my early twenties, simply because another said I should. I’m a concrete guy, and so, must sense it for myself to believe it with conviction. However, all of that notwithstanding, as a young adult I attended church often. In 1982, church was good. The people welcomed me and that felt nice. But it was just a distraction, for it left my heart still empty once the services were over. I enjoyed that temporary respite though, because anything (even church) was better than sitting at home on a pretty Sunday morning, alone, with nothing to do. With each passing year, I grew less and less spiritual. But it would be fourteen more years until I completely dismissed the church as a useful means to feel less lonely for having no lovers.

My interest in church came in spits and spurts. So after several months, church lost its appeal as this particular spurt came to an end. I knew that I’d probably not meet my lady there because all of them seemed to believe more strongly than I in God. The whole speaking-in-tongues thing and the faith-healing was just plain crazy to me, and so I could not respect women who believed so strongly without proof. Blind Faith and I never got along, and so I felt guilty attending. Parishioners questioned me about why I was going and suggested I stop until I “saw the light.” So I did stop going regularly in late 1982 once I realized that love questing in church would probably be a fruitless endeavor.

Currently, I’m agnostic – neither believing nor disbelieving in God. He may be out there. He may not. I can’t prove it either way; nor can anyone else for that matter. That’s good enough for me, but not so for women at large who generally believe in a greater entity that regulates their lives and helps them succeed when they follow his rules. They call me a humanist and one even said that I was a son of the devil and kept her children away from me, fearing that I’d corrupt their views about heaven and hell and how God wants us to serve him. I fear not the possibility of no life after death as they do. I’m fully prepared to embrace this if it turns out that way. But without strong faith and hope in a life hereafter, the love quest got harder; not because God was thwarting me, but because the women I encountered looked down on me for questioning. Staying true to my beliefs has cost me dearly in my love quest.

Long ago, I stopped arguing religion. Nonetheless, when I was a stronger believer in the 70s and early 80s, I spent hours a week praying to God, asking him to brighten my dark heart, and bring the woman of my dreams to me. Well, he never did, even after two decades of praying. Indeed I’ve done better in my search by myself, once I stopped believing that he’d do it for me. God was not going to win my love quest for me. No, if this would ever happen, I’d have to do it myself.

But I digress. So let me get back to my job.

Eighteen months into the job, in the spring of 1983, I realized that I could not earn the money I wanted fixing home entertainment devices. Nor had I found a true love at Pitt. It didn’t look like I would either, for I had quickly run through all the women in mine and surrounding departments. Like I said, none would date me. Though I made my own money, aloneness still followed me everywhere. Thus far, the women weren’t impressed with my achievements, hard to achieve as they were, and successful as I was at achieving them.

So when that tech position ended, I went in a new direction; to college for computer programming, a career that promised a higher wage, and would bring more desirable ladies to me, which it eventually did. But during the first two years, I made only three new friends because I was a bookworm. As usual, I was terribly afraid of failing, and since I’d been out of high school for nearly five years, rusty in my reading and writing skills too. So, besides the usual college level work, I also had to relearn many of those forgotten skills. This left little time for socializing between 1984 and 1986, as I spent most every hour outside of class studying. Even the summers were full in those days, as I took my Calculus courses during the first two summers, computer classes in 1986, and a writing class in 1987. Actually, I’m glad I didn’t meet a lady then, because I’d have surely flunked out. There wouldn’t have been time for managing both an education and a relationship although occasional sex without strings was nice.

I longed for my dream girl just the same. So much so, that I visited my first psychotherapist in the fall of 1986. For nine months, we met each week, and though I couldn’t put my finger on any particular insights I got, I did start feeling better about being alone, and less afraid to talk to college women. At times in therapy, I just wanted to get rid of the desire for women rather than satisfy it. No doubt you’re wondering, “How could you want something, and then wish that you didn’t?” Well, at this time the rewards in my love quest were so few, and the disappointment so great, that the longing had become painful, leading me into many humiliating situations and leaving me feeling ashamed. Often women reacted so negatively when I showed them interest that I began feeling that my desires were wrong. At 25 years of age, I believed that though the world was full of beautiful women, none would ever think me beautiful.

Now a few women agreed to date me. So I could attract some, but not those I really desired. I was so disenchanted with the love quest by then, that I’d have been relieved to find that why hadn’t yet found Her was simply because no such person existed. At least that way, my aloneness could not be my fault. That would have been easier to swallow than the idea that there might be some correctable thing wrong with me that was keeping them away.

The therapist listened patiently, offering a consoling voice. I liked discussing the love quest with someone who understood my pains of loneliness and the dilemmas of how to satisfy it. But he refused to assure me that She was just a figment of my imagination. He also assured me profusely that I was not defective in any way, even with my low vision. He thought that She was out there and that I just had to find her. He thought I was fine and that if I was going to ever find Her, I’d have to search harder and smarter. I’ll tell you how I did these things in upcoming episodes.

Therapy encouraged me to intensify my love quest efforts, though I left it with more questions than I had going in. I don’t know how. But even with those questions unanswered, I was, while not cured, markedly better. Maybe it was the therapist’s cheering me on or his unwavering confidence in me. I’m not sure. But I felt more confident asking ladies out. I had achieved the objective of that therapy, which was to get more women into my life. That therapy gave me a big push that got me very far along the journey of my love quest.

Meanwhile back at college, I also improved at the coursework, which meant that I could study less. So in the fall of 1986, I joined a computer users group of sixty students. We sent email back and fourth, and met each other for meals between classes. At night we partied, and so I drank back then, quite a bit. I was known for carrying this round black bottle that had the words “Get Bombed” printed in white letters on the side. I’d fill it with a quart of Jim Beam whiskey and take to many a gathering. In fact, this flask looked like a bomb and the girls seemed charmed by my tipsy displays as I held onto it. I did make a couple close female friends from all that. Yet this life style was not quite what I was after. I wanted them to like me for the sober me; not the intoxicated version. But thinking that I’d have to sacrifice my values a little to get what I wanted, I went along with the drinking for a good while. I attended all sorts of college parties, visited bars, dances, festivals, and hung around the student union, looking for ladies who would come to my bed and please me.

But, with my collegiate education nearly complete, I thought I might have to leave Pittsburgh for a job. So, I avoided serious relationships, though I ached for one. I knew that if I found it, that it would only be temporary. But I didn’t care. Anything would be better than nothing, even a one-night stand. Also, the ladies I met, while very nice, either did not attract me or vice versa. Yes, that same problem once more. I always seemed to interest the ones I didn’t care about. Nonetheless, I made lots of lady friends; a real change from life before college. So while college didn’t drop a dream girl in my lap, it, along with therapy, moved me closer to Her, for I had more female friends and was asking more of them out than ever before. The odds of finding Her thus, had improved much.

While I asked more for dates than ever before in a given year, I also got more rejections. In a way, this was also rewarding. Rejections were better than nothing at all, as they proved that I had begun to master my fear of approaching ladies. The more rejections I got I reasoned the less afraid of ladies I must be. So the rejections themselves became a measure of success in my love quest. At least now, I was hunting, trying different approaches, and acquiring the emotional scars to show it. So at last, in college, I finally managed to break out of my shell.

I finished school in 1988, with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science along with a minor in mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh; the same place I’d worked some five years earlier. From there, I went on to spend fifteen years, working as a software engineer for a fortune 500 company.

My hope that the computer field would bring more women into my life came true. Indeed, during my first two years, I met hundreds of women; more than in my entire adult life prior. Now that I had more money than ever, I could afford to try dating services, attend weekend-getaways, and go to dances and meetings with singles groups. I signed up for my first dating service immediately after cashing my first big paycheck. I then applied for a second one a year later.

Then in 1992, I bought a nice home after a few sweet raises. This, I thought, would surely impress the ladies and I was certain that only a little more time stood between me and my dream girl, who would, at any moment, waltz right in and complete my life. In fact, I bought an extra-large refrigerator, reserved space for her things in my bedroom alongside my king sized waterbed, and saved a spot in the garage for her car.

One day in 1994, a neighbor called as I was sealing my back deck, and invited me to his church. Eager to bond with my new neighbors, I forgot about why I had abandoned church in 1982, and I went with him, just to check it out. To my surprise, I found lots of eligible women. But soon, just as had happened some twelve years earlier, II quickly grew bored with it. I was no more a believer in 1994 than I had been in 1982. The truth was, I wasn’t there to worship. Instead, I went to meet women. That was it, and they knew it quickly. Once again, none would go out with me. Another strategy tried in the love quest, and another one failed.

Meanwhile, at work, I asked over a hundred ladies for dates, hoping that now that I was in my own home, they’d surely say yes. I invited them for lunch and hosted a couple team-building sessions and parties, so that all would see how well I was doing and appreciate how good a provider I could be. They came, they complimented me, and some stayed a couple hours. They liked my house and how well I kept it. But in the end, like my latest church stint, the big house and good salary never won any hearts. So no one ever parked her car in my garage. No one ever put her underwear in those empty drawers in my bedroom. No one ever brought any food to keep in my refrigerator for her next visit. I had instead, this cold draft that I felt against my face every night I ascended the steps to the second-floor master bedroom; a daily reminder that no one was up there waiting for me, and that no one I’d met so far wanted to be up there. So, after four years, with my dressers, garage, refrigerator, and heart still empty, I came to the conclusion that once again, a big change would be necessary to move me ahead in my love quest. I could not turn that great house into a wonderful home full of love thought I put every spare hour I had into the quest. I began feeling tethered to that house and soon, came to hate it there.

So in 1996, in that final year in the house, I came to look forward to Mondays and dread Fridays while my coworkers felt the opposite. They couldn’t wait for Fridays but hated Mondays. Why was I so different? Because I knew that come Friday, I’d likely spend the entire weekend alone, and that come Monday, I’d at least have people around me again when the new work week began. The loneliness burned in my heart. Career-wise I’d come so far. But socially, I ached as much as ever for sustained eroticism, and love.

As fate had it, I discovered Philadelphia, a city with way more single women. Some friends from there invited me to visit. So in December, 1996 I went, and loved it from the minute I arrived. Pretty ladies adorned every city block downtown. Plus, with the extensive public transportation, I could get to the social spots much easier than where I was currently living in Ohio. So, it didn’t take long to decide to sell my house and move there.

The Philly move turned out to be another big step forward in the love quest. For the first time, I could access thousands of women easily, without transportation worries. So I made friends, went to bars, boat trips, restaurants, skating parties, a trip to New York City, and any event I could to place myself among potential mates. One day even, I had two dates; one in the afternoon, and one that night. Each weekend, I’d pick a spot in the city, and then learn how to get there on the bus or train, and then go there, striking up conversations with beautiful strangers along the way. The thrill of learning a new city kept me from feeling too lonely, for the first year at least.

But after three plus years there, and only a few delightful but short-lived relationships (Cathy, Violet, Carol, Joyce, Karen, [Vee],   [Lynn],   [Tina],   Joanna), I was still alone. Now I did meet more women per year in Philly than in any other place prior, and I did have a few wonderful erotic encounters. During my last year there in 2001, I asked at least a thousand women to dance, and also launched numerous campaigns on the online and telephone dating services, where I contacted thousands more. I approached more women than ever that year. However, all but ten rejected me flat. And of those that agreed to meet me, only four wanted a second date. And of those romances, none lasted longer than a few months and all but one fizzled after just a few weeks. So while the move to Philly provided the target-rich environments I sought to move further in my quest, I left there in December of 2001 empty-handed, unfulfilled, and extremely disappointed. I was fresh out of ideas of what to try next and didn’t even want to try anymore.

This love quest had by this time cost me lots of money too! There was the move from Ohio, the loss of money when I sold the house, and all the household stuff I had to just about give away so I could downsize from that four-bedroom, two-story house with a double garage, to a two-bedroom apartment in a high rise building. Also in Philadelphia, the quest cost the most as I paid for most all my dates as well as my own drinks and transportation to the various hot spots around town. My desire for companionship was strong as ever, but after three decades, I still had no idea how to get it. I felt I had to do something radical but wasn’t sure what. But then, fate laid another clue in my path.

During my last year in Philly, I started having problems at work. The job was getting harder, I received no raises my last two years there. To add insult to injury, I still had not found my dream girl after thirteen years of building that career and the wealth that went with it. That’s when I surmised that corporate life was not for me anymore. All the hard work and extra hours to build a happy, successful life had not paid off though I had done everything a fellow was supposed to do to succeed. I got educated, held a good job for a long time, and set up several great living quarters. Unfortunately, ladies never lingered, if they even came at all.

I grew weary of the increasing pressures to step up my work performance. While I liked the raises and promotions which were more plentiful during the 90s, I found the rewards emptier and harder to get, the higher in the company I got. Working harder just didn’t make sense eventually, since all I had when I turned off the computer was an empty, cold dwelling. My place.

So the question occurred: Why fight so for a career whenever only cold rooms, a quiet kitchen, and an empty bed were my reward each night? I couldn’t answer this except to say that I shouldn’t. I understood that I couldn’t fix whatever was keeping her away, while working myself to death as a senior software engineer. I also knew that finding her was more important than anything, including making lots of money as a corporate big shot. Life was marching on too, as I was already well into my forties without having solved my happiness problem. So I promised myself in the summer of 2001 to either find my dream girl or die trying. If that meant devoting full time to the quest, then that’s what I would do.

It would be some months before I appreciated fully what that promise meant. But I knew right off that I’d have to free up lots of time to work on me. I would need to quit my job and learn once more how to live cheaply, at least until I found Her. But I agonized over doing this because the job treated me better financially than I could do on my own; guaranteeing me a spot among the middle class as long as I kept working. Plus, after reading hundreds of thousands of ladies’ profiles on the dating sites, it was clear that lots of women find richer men more attractive than those with modest incomes. So quitting would exclude me from consideration by many attractive women and thus, set me way back in my love quest. These and other truths made leaving one of the toughest choices I’ve ever made.

I suspected that I’d never find another position that paid as well; at least not initially. But so what? What good was the money if I wasn’t happy? Money had not made me happy to date. In fact, the joy of having it did not counterbalance the hardship of earning it. In the end, I was indeed worse for the wear.

True. The job qualified me for, and surrounded me with, lots of women. But simply being among ladies and having lots of money in my pocket and a nice suburban home was not enough. While the job exposed me to more women, the fact that I had it did not interest the ladies, any more than did my previous endeavors. They still saw me as, at best, too plain, and at worst, too ugly to date. The job with all its trimmings therefore, did not end this now-monotonous love quest.

Plus, and most sadly, women still looked down their noses at me, the same as they had twenty-five years earlier in high school. The fact that I was now earning close to ninety thousand dollars a year didn’t matter. The results of my approaches had remained essentially the same as it was in my teens. Zilch. I was still as lonely as I’d been in the 70s, yet still just as eager to win at love. Working so hard at a career just hadn’t gotten me where I thought it should, and I was ready to give it up in order to try something different.

So, in late 2001 I began preparing to resign: I saved money, moved back home with Mom, fixed up her house while I still had my software engineer’s salary, and spent thousands of hours journaling and mentally turning myself inside out. I looked for ways to change for the better, all the while seeking tools I could use to finally end my love quest victoriously.

This effort became my full-time job. Everything else, including my real job became a distraction. I substituted self-help books about relationships and dating for computer and software manuals. In the evening, time that I’d normally spend working extra hours on some programming project, I instead spent trolling the Internet for ideas and dates. My day job had become second priority, especially after business hours. Imagine that!

Now I’d planned to keep working for three years once I knew that I’d be leaving. But as the first of those years progressed, the job changed into an irritating distraction from my true purpose. That purpose, which I now understood since making the promise to myself in 2001, was to finally win the love quest. I wanted to really give the quest my all.

Though I had given up the extra hours, I was still putting too much time into the job, and too little into finding fulfillment in love. Not only did I wish to spend my evenings and weekends working the quest, but wanted to throw in the forty regular weekly work hours as well. As usual, the loneliness which had been with me since the age of twelve continued pounding at my soul, and I was getting really tired of it, and more eager than ever to find relief. From my history of many things tried and many things failed, I figured that I wouldn’t silence its doleful voice unless I could fully focus on it – something I’d never really done before. What else could I do?
It seemed like I’d done everything else. Let’s see. As I mentioned earlier, I:
• Acquired a good self image,
• Reduced my teenage fears of talking to women.
• Held jobs all through grade school and high school,
• Stayed out of serious trouble,
• Successfully completed high school and trade school,
• Held an electronics technician job for nearly two years,
• Completed psychotherapy,
• Joined the computer users group in college,
• Successfully completed college,
• Got a good job,
• Owned a nice home,
• Learned how to maintain a home,
• Attended singles groups and churches,
• Approached more than ten thousand women,
• Achieved a respected status at work,
• Earned close to ninety thousand dollars a year at the end,
• Which enabled me to give a lady a very good time,
• I avoided drugs and immoral behavior,
• I was stable and kind,
• Threw myself into lots of new environments and cultures throughout the quest so I might find the best areas in which to search.

But the one thing I hadn’t done so far was to completely devote my entire life to the pursuit. Up to this point, the love quest had always been more of a hobby; one that I worked during weekends and sometimes on weeknights. I’d never really gone at it full tilt before. Yet I knew that I would never be as happy as I could be unless I could find Her, and I was convinced that the way to do that the most effectively, was to sink every last waking hour into the search and into fixing myself.

So it came about some fifteen months after I began executing my plan to resign, that I did indeed quit. Was this too early? Perhaps. True. I didn’t make it to the end of 2004 as in the plan. I actually resigned in March of 2003. Nonetheless, I managed to pay off all debts and finish all the maintenance projects on Mom’s home too. I cancelled any magazine and music subscriptions I no longer needed, hauled away a ton of junk, and began saving coupons. This resignation was a pivotal moment in my love quest, and I’ll discuss more about this difficult choice in future episodes as well as what happened subsequently.

An all-time approach to this problem (as opposed to a full-time or part-time approach) proved to be grueling. So I devised a few diversions. One was part time DJing. Others included writing, computer repair, reading a lot, buying and selling on eBay, and watching classic movies. I enjoy watching Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Joy Browne as well, as my philosophies generally align with theirs. I’ve written numerous articles and stories which are, as of yet, unpublished. But they will be, in this blog and podcast. I’ll share some of my best works, which center on the quest. In fact, most of them do actually. Also, as in high school, I still enjoy ham radio, and hold an extra class Amateur Radio license (my call sign is N8UBU). Also, I got certified by Microsoft as an expert on various versions of their Windows operating system. Nowadays, I’m butler and caregiver for my Mom, who is recovering from open-heart surgery. I just finished re-plumbing her house last March and installing a wooden banister alongside the bridge from the parking lot into the side walk, so she has something to hold on to when entering. I do keep busy, which is one way of reducing the feelings of emptiness I discussed earlier. It’s not a cure. But it is good, temporary relief.

Perhaps my love quest talks will sound humanist or Buddhist in that they encourage us to tap our own inner strengths rather than looking to greater, outside, and improvable forces. This is my mantra now and it is an essential premise in my philosophy throughout the love quest. This should help clarify why I chose as I have as well as why I’ve tried doing much of it myself.

Through no other force than my own hard work and lady luck, I think I’ve found Her. But I’m not sure. I’ve enjoyed a wonderful relationship with [Emmy] for going on six years now, and prefer this association far over being alone. We get along quite well; we’re lucky if we fight once a year, and even then, we never yell at each other. We always maintain respect for each other and never go to bed mad. Although we have problems sexually that we’re working on currently, [Emmy] is among the most caring and understanding woman I’ve known. I have 95% of the relationship I’ve sought, and feel that once we work out the issues of eroticism, I’ll officially be able to end my love quest.

So since I’ve not yet actually won the love quest, I admit that I’m no expert. So while you’ll see many success stories here, you’ll see much sadness and despair as well. Indeed, the bulk of my experiences have been sad, sorry to say. For every one hour of joy I’ve experienced in my quest, I’ve probably had a hundred hours of pain and disappointment. In my search, sorrow has been a big part of the reality. Many have suggested that I express more of the joys than the sorrows. But to preserve the truest essence of my quest, I must relate completely my sad times because as painful as they were, they made it possible for me to have the good times that I do now. So I’d trade none of those sorrowful years away.

Not all the stories are sad. There are many pleasant ones. I’ll tell you about my introspections and the changes to my philosophy and approach to the problem that enabled me to reduce depression. In short, I’ll let you know how I learned to cope with being alone. Merely coping however is not ideal. So I’ve not given up. I hope through this blogcast that I can persuade those of you who have abandoned your search, to keep trying. In 2001, I declared that I would either win at this game, or die trying. You’ll need this same resolve if you’re ever going to experience true happiness, and I hope that through sharing my experiences and insights, that they’ll help you find the resolve to press on yourself.

I am no psychologist and have little formal training in this subject. My writings come not from any large-scale clinical studies or other systemic techniques for deducing human behavior. They come however, from my own three plus decades of experience chasing “the perfect woman”. So any advice I give should be considered no more than inspirational, and is not intended to replace bona fide professional help. This blog is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as anything other than me, telling my story of my love quest.

What is “the perfect woman,” you ask? Well, stick around and I’ll tell you about my vision of her. But not now. However, I will tease you and say that the word “perfect” here does not mean absolutely without flaws. More on that in future episodes, along with much more about the struggle to find perfection and the many strategies I’ve tried, to get it.

So thanks very much for stopping by and I hope you’ll visit again soon. There’s lots more to say.

Tom Hesley
http://tomhesley.com/

I want good sex but don’t have it.

Is getting it worth the fight anymore? I know how short-lived it usually is after all.

The fantasy is so much better than the reality. But it’s hard to give up this dream and accept that I’ll just never duplicate for real, what I’ve enjoyed in my fantasies. So how does one happily resign himself? How does one make peace with the idea that a major, life-long dream just isn’t going to come true? Maybe I should just cut my losses and learn to be happy with what I’ve got.

Online dating profile has been updated per therapist’s instructions a few weeks ago. Still, no positive responses.

Perhaps building a harem is unrealistic. That is to say, creating and maintaining a list of at least several women to play with may be impossible for me, given my near-zero success rate on online and other dating services. Plus, doing this would hurt [Emmy].

It’s difficult to believe that anything I do anymore is going to get me the lasting good eroticism I’m seeking. I’ve tried so many things without success that I’m starting to sense that this dream might be unreachable. Can I live happily in an environment where good sex is likely to happen only a few times in a ten year period?

Therapist book recommendation: The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

Also, investigate Sensate Focus exercises. They may trigger some eroticism with [Emmy] if we do them together.

Tom Hesley

Notes for Today’s Therapy Session
Activities
• I made suggested changes to my web profile.
• I then blinked at 50 to 75 ladies after the new profile was approved.
• One was interested, several said no, and the rest gave no response.
• The one who answered positively insisted too fast on having my email address. So I pulled away.
• [Emmy] and I tried being physical again. No improvement. I still can’t get interested.
• I have not ordered the “Guide to Getting it On” book yet, because I believe my issues stop me way before the bedroom. If I manage to get that far with someone I desire, I’m fine, at least until that desire goes away. It’s getting them there in the first place that’s the real challenge. Will this book help with those pre-bedroom courtship rituals?

At the session, we discussed the following:
• The web profile changes I made did not improve the response rates.
• Suggestion: Post a better, more casual picture of myself, and get rid of the one from 1999 that has boxes in the background.
• Suggestion: Avoid direct admission of sexual interest in the web profile.
• Thought: Perhaps I see [Emmy] more as the daughter I never had than the lover I always wanted. This may contribute to our sexual problems.
• Question: Am I prepared to leave [Emmy] should I realize that we’ll never enjoy the sort of sustained erotic sex I want? Probably not. But I would, if I thought that being alone again would solve this problem.
• The thing is that I don’t believe that, given that I’ve experienced this same rapid decline of sexual desire with several other women; some older, some younger, and some my age. In any relationship I enter, I lose that interest, just weeks later, and it never comes back.
• I’m afraid to give up [Emmy] because then I’d have to once more troll the Internet and other places, seeking babes to date. I’d have to again face relentless rejections, and I don’t know if I want to weather that any more.
• Thought: My fantasy world and the real world of women diverged long ago. That is: Not since my teens have real-life sexual encounters produced as much excitement and pleasure as they do in my daydreams. They did once; but not lately.
• Question: Sex in the real world has consistently left me wanting. It’s never been as pleasing as the fantasy. So why do I seek real sex so?
• I was wrong to predict good real-world sex just because it went so well in my fantasies. It’s almost never been so.
• Suggested reading: Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Perhaps [Emmy] and I speak different ‘love languages’ and the thought is that this book might help us to discover that, if it is the case.
• Recommendation: I get off of my current dating web site, since that place is more geared to long-term relationships than the casual, no-strings-attached sexual flings that I need right now.
• Question: Is it realistic to try to create a steady stream of beautiful strangers in my life, so that the highly erotic pleasures of young romance never fade? Perhaps it isn’t given women’s tendency to think me unattractive. I’m lucky if I get one lady interested that way every few years, much less a steady stream of them every month. I want good sex a few times a month, and for that, I figure I’d need several different women, since novelty seems to be an essential component of strong sexual desire for me. I’d preserve the novelty by always having a few new women each month to date. However, since I can only attract one every few years, how likely is it that I’ll ever lure in enough to build a sustainable monthly supply of fresh blood? Not very, to be sure. But what else am I to do? I love that feeling and I’ve experienced it way too little. But if I admit that my reach exceeds my grasp here, then I must also give up that hope of ever experiencing that feeling again. I’m neither ready nor willing to do that. So I guess I’ll keep dreaming, hoping, and trying new things. I suppose I’ll keep going at my love quest.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Coping With The Ultimate Rejection
• Last Time In Bed With Emeebee 

A while back, I recorded an introduction for a chat line in Philadelphia. I described myself and listed my favorite activities — reading, programming, watching Star Trek, and the like. I said I wanted to meet tall thin women, and it didn’t take long for the hate messages to come. You’d think I’d threatened the pope! They called me shallow, superficial, and lame, and these are the nicest words. Even some thin women complained.

But what they didn’t get is that I can’t help what I like, and I like thin. Real thin. I learned this the hard way over two decades of dating the heavy. So I never want to try that again. I’m no bigot, but do wish to avoid any more disappointing experiences like those I’ve had already, dating “big and beautiful” ladies.

I’ve tried to see beauty where I wouldn’t find it. Often I dated the frumpy, the stocky, the plump, and the obese, only to find no excitement when they finally reached my bed. In all cases, I suspected at the instant we met that this would be the outcome. But I didn’t trust my opinion as a young adult and didn’t want anyone to say that I hadn’t given the relationship a fair chance. So against my better judgment, I waded into these murky waters. Then I struggled to get back out, because I felt guilty over hurting the women. I’d take months to work up the courage to say good-bye, feeling lousy about them and myself all the while. A couple times, I had to seek professional help to break away. What a waste of time, and money!

Though I found the Rubenesque unattractive, I had compassion for them nonetheless. Seeing them cry as I jilted them really tugged at my heart strings. But ultimately, it came down to either their happiness or mine, and though I struggled with this often, eventually therapy helped me to chose mine and make a break.

I’ve always been more attracted to the petite. Even as a boy of five or six, my eyes followed the lanky lady teachers around the classroom as my ears savored their every word. I wanted to hear what they had to say, and I got better grades as a result. I listened more to those with the ostrich legs, but slept more in buxom teachers’ classes. Or I’d peer out the windows, bored to tears. I didn’t choose to feel as I did. I just did.

There’s nothing immoral about a desire particularly when it’s the product of evolution and, not chosen. So please! Don’t punish me for my wants. They are after all, my nature.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Water Park Musings: 2010-06-02

Before this session, I brainstormed to come up with items to discuss as follows:

While I believe that my fear of rejection is rational given my experiences, I deem it too overpowering and strong-armed.  Why?  This fear largely prevents me from approaching women even though a loss of friendship or a potential friendship would not be devastating.  I wish to be able to contact women in places convenient to me; like the corner grocery store, but stops, on the train, and so on. 

The loss of [Carlene J]; no big deal.  I took the risk and lost her as a friend.  But while this was not what I’d hoped would happen, the fact that she’s not in my life in any way today is of little significance. 

I’ve imagined fear in many forms:

• It’s been a tall, cement block wall with lots of small windows, that let me see into heaven.  These portals look onto a beach full of beautiful women, and every one of them is waving at me, becoming me to join them.  But I cannot because of this confounded wall. 
• It’s also been a roaring tiger that snarls and shows his teeth every time I try to scurry around him to reach my dream of oneness with beautiful women.
• But then, at times, fear is not my foe; but rather a consoling force like a knowing father or a helpful older brother that gently yet firmly insists that I steer clear of the gorgeous ladies I so desire.

I’m afraid that the only ladies who turn me on, are those that are way out of my league.  Perhaps I’m a two who insists on a perfect ten.  How futile is that hope?  I feel that this fear is seriously hampering my efforts at securing happiness and that I’ll never be able to get through it.  I’m stuck at level three in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs triangle, and as long as I’m there, I’ll never realize my fullest potential in the esteem and self actualization levels (levels four and five respectively). 

There is an irrational part of fear, for while I know that rejection isn’t too bad, I fear it so nonetheless.  I’m afraid of screwing up the approach, and blowing my chances with the lady; now and forever to come. I’ve seen guys relentlessly hit on ladies on the Philadelphia busses.  The women obviously wished they’d get lost.  But they didn’t, and the more they pushed, the more foolish they appeared.  It was clear that their pushing did not endear them to the ladies.  In fact, it compelled the ladies to like them even less than when they started; not more.    I fear the same thing would happen to me if I express my interest in ladies; though I would not push as hard or as long as the bus fellows did. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• I Understand, Carlene J
• Tom’s Diary –> Today’s Business: 2009-02-21
• Tom’s Diary –> Today’s Business: 2010-06-23

Dear [Mentat],

Yes, I did, and still do believe that the more we approach, the greater our chances of finding a true love are. However, when I adopted this overly simple strategy in 1990, I wasn’t expecting that I’d encounter such a high percentage of rejections. I mean, many dating books advise men to expect just one out of every one-hundred women to respond favorably. But with me, that hits-to-misses ratio was more like one out of every fifteen hundred. No joke.

Plus, I’d underestimated the cumulative negative impacts of too frequent rejection on my psyche, and came to understand that I was taking them too personally. Back then, rejection affected me as would a punch in the face, sending me reeling for weeks sometimes. I came to detest it and the women who would issue it. The more rejection I received, the angrier I got.

So I had to bow out of the game for a year or so in the mid 90s to learn to desensitize myself. To that end, I entered therapy, read several books on coping with rejection, and tried to savor life without women for a while. The therapy proved a success, though of course, I still don’t like rejection. But today, the female utterance of the word No, doesn’t produce the searing anxiety it used to. I don’t feel as slighted anymore, because I understand that ladies are as powerless to control who turns them on as I, and so could not be rightly blamed for finding me wanting.

While I came to take rejection less to heart and to stay calm when it happens, I also learned to stop underestimating its potential for triggering numerous other harmful effects. Even to the most self-assured person, romantic rejection has clear costs. It can:

• Counteract confidence,
• Promote neurosis, depression, and psychosis,
• Interfere with ability to concentrate,
• Sap motivation – even in unrelated areas of life such as work,
• Aggravate food, drug, and alcohol addictions,
• Create a false sense of futility regarding the achievability of one’s Big Dream,
• Encourage withdrawal from social circles – isolation,
• Lower immune system function,
• Increase at-rest stress levels, and
• Promote obsessive behaviors such as trying more than once to date a girl who’s already rejected us.

In short, too much rejection without sufficient time between each occurrence for healing jeopardizes one’s physical as well as mental well-being. So, while encountering rejection while pursuing a dream cannot be avoided, we should not subject ourselves to it needlessly since it is potentially harmful.

Some schools of thought equate rejection with progress, in the sense that the more ladies who turn us down, the closer we are to finding one who will at last accept us. “Let’s say you have a pool of 10,000 women,” my therapist said. “Your goal is to quickly rule out as many of those as you can so that you’ll reach the ones who like you faster.” The underlying assumption is that at least   someone   in that pool of 10,000 will in fact find us attractive. In this light, rejection appears as a holly grail, to be sought out rather than avoided. But as mentioned, it also stifles motivation to keep trying, which may in the end prove more debilitating than avoiding it in the first place.

As a means to the desired end of acceptance, we can easily abuse rejection by seeking it indiscriminately, just as we might overindulge in exercise on the way to a healthy, fit body. Work the body too hard without enough rest in between each workout, and you’ll wear out your joints, promote arthritis, and reduce the long-term benefits of training. That is, should you become arthritic, you’d not be able to continue to work out as vigorously, and some of the routines you simply would not be able to do, period. Clearly, the future effects of overdoing it in the present would limit the benefits you could gain in later years. And over the course of a lifetime, exercise improperly managed as a youth can actually cause reduced average fitness, just as the chronic dieter can wind up heavier than those who never dieted at all. Likewise, subject yourself to too many rapid-fire rejections without allowing sufficient time for reflection and mental repair, and you’ll probably experience some of the symptoms I’ve listed above. Too much rejection can exacerbate the very condition (loneliness) that you’re trying to eliminate. So at times, it’s wise to avoid it rather than repeatedly confronting it.

Plus, when meeting a number quota became the sole object, I found I was approaching too many of the wrong women. I suspected that they were wrong. But I approached them anyway, thinking that they’d eventually warm up. I tried ignoring body language. No matter if she turned away as I walked closer. I’d strike up a conversation anyhow. Why not? I’d seen so many men do this with eventual success that it seemed a prudent behavior, even though invariably it was received badly on the first attempt. One man described a woman’s protective shell that he said, must be penetrated. It really is a war, these pesky men say, because ladies intentionally play hard to get in order to test the man’s resolve. (Obviously, these men have little faith in her sincerity). Give up when she appears uninterested they caution, and you lose the battle because she’ll deem you of faint heart, and as such, undeserving of her trust. Take no as her final answer, and you’ll never enjoy a lovely beauty in your bed. Nonsense!

Yet for a time, I believed them and attempted to mimic the proverbial pit-bull that just doesn’t let go. Sometimes I talked to their backs, hoping that [the women would] eventually face me with intrigue. But that never happened. In fact, I felt all the more foolish, when they’d get up and leave, for having failed to pay head to their non verbally communicated wishes. [Ignoring their initial body language] made rejection a more shameful experience than it needed to be, and that made me come to fear it all the more.

Perhaps this technique works for some men, but not for me. What’s the point of approaching at all, if all you’re after is rejection? I came to expect rejection so much that a woman agreeing to dance with me left me stunned, as I was unprepared for a Yes response.

It’s bad to seek rejection just for rejection’s sake because one needs to have an eye toward any wisdom the experience might contain; wisdom that’s easy to miss if all you’re worried out is bumping the numbers. At times, I lost sight of the real goal (a beautiful lady saying yes), and actually felt a sense of accomplishment when I got a no. I reasoned that the rejections were evidence that at least I was getting out and trying, rather than sitting on my butt at home doing nothing. This was certainly true enough. After all, I wouldn’t have accrued the rejections by sitting around at home. In a sense, the rejections were indeed strong evidence that I was at least playing the game. No, I wasn’t   winning   the game. But since one must   play   the game in order to win, I found comfort in knowing that I was one step closer to winning by playing, and accruing the rejections.

This worked for a year or two. My pride in my monumental efforts to defy my fear helped offset the humiliations I encountered. It didn’t matter whether she said no or yes. Success at that point I measured by how often I could bring myself to ask, irrespective of how she responded. But soon, that sweet part of the bitter-sweet taste of rejection disappeared. No longer was it good enough just to get out there. No longer was I proud of being able to work up the courage to ask a woman to dance. And finally, no longer did I feel any sense of accomplishment by having gotten far enough to be told No. Getting rejections thus became child’s play. And then, once the thrill of victory over successfully making the attempt faded, only the humiliation remained. Thus, sustaining the motivation [to keep trying] grew difficult, particularly once I moved here to Altoona in late 2001. Even today, it’s not [so much] the fear of being rejected that keeps me from approaching more women. Rather, it’s the resignation that they’ll just say no anyway, so why bother?

Rejection is all the more embarrassing when one realizes that he could have gotten the same information without risking so much. Why jump head first into a pond to see how warm it is, when you could have just stuck your toe in and learned the same? Throughout the 1990s, I dismissed the validity of non verbal communication. For me, the toe test was insufficient and potentially inaccurate. It wasn’t good enough thus, for a woman to just give me a dirty look as I walked toward her. Simply looking at her and observing her reaction did not absolve my responsibility to genuinely move past my fear. Just reading body language didn’t count. No. I expected myself to actually   ask   her if she’d care to get acquainted. Of course, by this time in the typical scenario, she had already answered that several times with dirty looks, by moving away, and such, and was clearly frustrated that I paid no mind. So, not only did I get rejected, I also got many judgmental stares along with disparaging comments and unfavorable epithets. In this way, the bite of rejection felt much more painful than it might have, had I acted smarter and with more sensitivity.

To wrap this up then, the costs of focusing only on increasing the numbers of women approached, and not enough on improving the approach techniques, would be:

1. Pointless risk taking.
2. Needlessly frequent and severe rejections.   It’s one thing to simply be told no. But it’s quite another (and more painful thing) to be told no with the added message that she thinks you’re a fool, particularly when you have indeed acted as a fool.
3. Too many repeat rejections from the same woman.   When numbers are the only game, we often forget who we’ve already approached, particularly when approaching hundreds of women in a night like I used to do in Philly back in 2000. Sometimes, I’d ask the same woman three or four times a week for a dance, totally forgetting that she’d already turned me down. As I learned, this can lead to humiliating repeat rejections because women generally don’t forget a man who hits on them – at least not for several weeks anyhow. She’ll remember that she said no before, and wonder why he’s come back to try again so soon. Again, this can heighten the humiliation of a rejection, because she’ll surely regard him a fool hitting repeatedly. Genuine attraction doesn’t change much from week to week or year to year. That is, who we find utterly and completely enthralling today, we’ll also find that way tomorrow, next week, next year, or even next decade (unless of course, the person gets fat in the meantime). Likewise, he who turns a woman off today will do so, probably forever. So it makes no sense to repeatedly “check back” with her, hoping that her feelings have changed. To engage in this absurdity sends the message loud and clear, “Yes, I’m a big fat fool.”
4. Reputation. Women talk crassly about insensitive men, who appear to be on the make.
5. Missed opportunities to learn from rejection. If you don’t consider what happened and learn from it, you’ll be no more likely to get a Yes the next time. And who wants to keep repeating the same mistake? Take gamblers for example. They’re never content to just sit back and play the game. They’re constantly looking for ways to improve their odds of winning. The man seeking a mate should also be forever on the look-out for new angles.
6. Wasted resources   such as needless money spending. Often, guys buy ladies drinks and other gifts, even when they strongly suspect that she doesn’t like them. Yet they do so hoping to   melt her heart.   What a waste however. While such strategies might work on the so-called gold-digging lady, they will not on any woman whose only agenda item is to exchange love with a desirable man.
7. Less time for other pursuits. If one’s constantly out in the bars working the numbers, he’ll miss out on other, perhaps more enjoyable pastimes. To me in the 1990s, bars were a necessary evil one had to endure in order to meet women. I didn’t like them, but couldn’t think of any other places where so many available and desirable women congregated, and thus where my chances of finding a lover would be higher. I would have much rather spent that time attending ham radio club meetings, shopping for CDs and books, and tinkering with computers. However, these activities weren’t often frequented by sought-after women. Yet now that I’m aware of the futility of meeting someone in a bar, not to mention the fact that I don’t drink anymore, I find these days that I make very much more time for hobbies than ten years ago.
8. Too many dead-end relationships. When all we care about are the numbers, it’s easy to become entangled in a relationship with a lady who isn’t   the best.   That is to say, that without careful prior consideration of the woman’s desirability, we can end up approaching ladies who look great from afar but cease looking so good as we move closer. I’ve on occasion glanced women across the room that seemed perfect. Then I rushed over (before someone else would snag them) for a dance. Sometimes they’d say yes and next thing I knew, I’d be on the dance floor looking at her before me and wondering where her charm had gone that had been so plain but a few moments ago.

From the preceding list, it’s easy to glean the many practical advantages of working smarter while targeting more than just raising the sheer numbers of approaches:

1. Better Overall Mood. Less shame, less depression, less wasted time chasing relationships doomed to failure from the start, more liked in one’s social group, and more time to pursue fun hobbies.
2. Less Need for Therapy. This grows from item 1.
3. Improved Self Confidence and Self Esteem   due to less squandering of the self on needless rejections.
4. Improved chances of finding Miss Right. If one is not consumed in the wasteful efforts of needless repeated rejections and dead-end relationships, he can aim his resources where they’ll count more, and only subject himself to rejection from truly eligible women.
5. Fewer Wasted Resources. Follows from item 4 above.
6. Better Reputation. With a better ability to   read the situation,   a man is less likely to make unwelcome advances in which he goes needlessly too far. Women like knowing a guy is sensitive to their wishes, and will talk well of he who heeds them to others, even if they don’t consider him attractive.
7. More Time and Energy For Other Pursuits.   Questing for the right relationship can be exhausting because not only does it take considerable time and effort to troll for girls, but the rejections make the search doubly taxing. If a man is working smarter, and is thus presumably getting fewer rejections, this would seem to bias his overall experience in the quest to the positive and thus make it less draining on his psyche.
8. Better Effectiveness in Work and Career.  With fewer rejections, and a resulting better overall mood as mentioned in item 1, the man would concentrate better, be less irritable, and thus, do a better job at work. As a result, his coworkers would like and respect him more and likely push for promotions for him where applicable. This in turn would give him more resources (buying power), and as you know, women prefer richer men, even the ones who can’t accurately be typed as gold diggers.
9. Longer Lasting, Happier Relationships. If a man selects more eligible mates to begin with, he’ll be happier with his choices for longer periods. While it’s true that he won’t have as many dates since he’s choosier, those that do present themselves will be more completely fulfilling. As a result, he’ll
   A. Treat them better,
   B. Respect them more,
   C. Be less given to abusing them, and
   D. Be better able to accommodate any unusual proclivities in them.
   In short, he’ll be better equipped to accept them as they are and thus, won’t as likely seek to change them. Potential friction shrinks therefore, and the lady will feel more genuinely loved (because she would in fact be).
10. Enhanced Desirability. Given items 1, 3, 6, and 8 above, the man would be deemed more attractive, and so his chances of attracting the lady of his dreams would go up.

There, does that answer your question?

Tom Hesley

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• Combating The Shame Of Rejection

Dear [Mentat],

Well, you need not be “ON” all the time because you can parley with your lady about the amount of time you’d spend together and apart. True, in such negotiations, we rarely get   exactly   what we want. But this is one good reason to date only   real   dream girls as discussed in my last post: It’s easier to   give a little   (or even a lot) when we’re completely in love. So perhaps you’ve underestimated just how much of your old self you could retain in a relationship through cooperation. Thus, a relationship may not drain you much as you think.

On your super sensitivity: I bet your REBT studies have desensitized you in that others’ negative emotions would impress you less,   particularly   when directed at you. A few bouts with Ellis’ books makes one a trifle suspicious toward negative emotions in ourselves and others, because he shows so well just how manageable they can be, and how easily this can be done with his intuitive mind tools. Then he offers hundreds of examples that prove that his tools work well in many cases.

Once we learn how to manage anger ourselves, people who still cannot control it, somehow lose their bite. The child fears the bully for example, trembling at his mere approach. But if that child grows into healthy adulthood, and sees the tormenter once again, the bully doesn’t seem much like a bully anymore. While once upon a time in the child’s eyes the bully wielded, intimidating, respectable, almost supernatural powers, the rationale and maturity that follow emergence into adulthood reshapes perceptions. To the man, the bully appears dumb, pathetic, and a fool. The once enviable, large, and imposing tyrant is now a pitiable, little, and ineffectual man, no matter his physical size. Like the boogie man, the bully loses his ability to frighten as people learn to combat irrationality as you have in REBT [Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy].

Since your REBIT endeavors, I suspect you’ve become a more rational and adjusted person, and so you’d probably handle better the raw emotions of bullies or anyone attempting to cut you with their words. REBT, as well as experience itself seems to reduce one’s sensitivity. Incidents that, to children, might seem upsetting (like their first shot at the doctors office or their first fall from a bike), if repeated as adults these once-traumatizing experiences often don’t seem as bad the second time around as remembered, and the adult wonders why he’s feared them so long. You wouldn’t be as inclined to take such negative emotional expressions to heart because you know now that they’re the signs of immaturity in the expresser. Plus, the fact that you’re not nearly as depressed these days would galvanize your internal defenses against such browbeating. Have faith that REBT and your own maturity will protect you.

Yes, I remember [the Star Trek episode]  Errand of Mercy.   The guy who played the lead Organian also appeared in Lost In Space once as a robot builder, who attempted to steal the human emotions and motivation from the Robinsons so he could evolve his robots from mere automatons into true thinking machines.

Tom Hesley

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• Necessary Verses Needless Rejections

Dear [Mentat],

Yes, that’s certainly understandable – that excess craving would prevent you from reaching your other goals. Your belief that finding the right mate would drastically transform your life for the better may indeed have been irrational. But maybe not. It’s hard to know for certain, since you haven’t found such a person yet, and don’t really know how that would make you feel. You could meet someone tomorrow who would indeed make   the earth move under [your] feet   as Carole King sang, or give you love that would   turn you around   as sang Kenny Rogers. If popular music and literature are any indication, such transformations happen quite often.

In fact, Maslow suggests [in his book,  Motivation and Personality]  that psychotherapy works as well as it does because it satisfies some of the thwarted level three needs of its patients. He argues that the most effective therapies are those that most completely satisfy the basic needs and teach the patient how to ensure continued gratification once the therapy ends. He says that if society at large became a more gratifying (as opposed to a more restrictive) one, then the need for most therapies would vanish. You know yourself how positively transforming a string of therapy sessions can be. I suspect that the right girl would be at least as transforming for you, although I am sympathetic to your position that it’s foolish to hold out hope for such a lady, given the odds against her ever appearing.

Still though, enough people write about the magically uplifting effects of a good lover, that I don’t think the belief that such would happen for us if we found love, is irrational. It has a strong basis in fact. My own experiences (though admittedly brief and few) with perfect tens, suggest that it can indeed happen this way. The belief itself is sound in my opinion therefore, though the long odds against it ever happening might make it appear irrational.  [This can encourage] us to seek level four and five gratification [in reference to Maslow's hierarchy of needs triangle] with the hope that successes up there would for the most part offset the thwarting at level three. Yours is a good strategy [to rid yourself of your love needs through meditation] if, as you suggest, the odds of finding true love are prohibitive for you.

Yes, given our histories, it does seem that I had fewer issues to overcome to achieve success than did you. And, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, finding a partner may or may not change anything fundamental about a person. It just depends on what the individual needs happen to be as to how uplifting a relationship will be for a particular person. If, as you said, much of your depression came from loneliness, then is it so unreasonable to think that had you found your dream girl, and ridded yourself of that loneliness, that your depression would have left you also? I don’t think so. By the law of transitivity, a good woman might have been all the therapy you needed. But, if your depression came from other sources that had nothing to do with a missing mate, then you’re correct that any happiness you would have reaped from finding a love would have either not occurred at all, or at best, have been short-lived. Only you can know these things about yourself however.

Tom Hesley