First date follow up?

Thank you so much for your advice, Maddie. I’ve def been trying to distract myself. I had a date tonight with someone else and it was only meh. I had a much better time with guy one but I hate to admit that. I do hope he texts. We shall see! Thank you again for your words.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read and comment. Liz, your story is encouraging and I appreciate you telling me. I did go on another first date last night and I am not very interested in that guy at all. He was nice we just didn’t have any sort of chemistry and I found myself wracking my brain for conversation topics with very little help from him.

I wish I knew what I was doing “wrong” on first dates. I know it’s not that I’m doing something wrong necessarily I just can’t think of the right way to describe it but it’s def something I am doing because when I do like the guy I literally never hear from him again. I could use some tips and pointers if you ladies are inclined to share. I try to be myself and I try to ask questions and listen to the guys as they talk but I really do hate awkward silence so sometimes I feel like I’m talking a lot trying to fill it. I’ve been working on not doing that because I am so aware of it but outside of that I honestly don’t know what it is and I would really like to fix it.

Building on the “type” question, a reason people often find the only dates they ever like are the ones they never hear from again is because they are most attracted to emotionally unavailable people. If it’s really ALWAYS the case that you’re not getting the second dates you want, then it’s not about doing anything “wrong,” but it’s about figuring out if you’re also emotionally unavailable… and, if so, working through that.

That is very difficult if no one is getting back to you, and I’ve heard that as well over the past couple years.

Effectively, my take on being emotionally unavailable is a fear of intimacy and vulnerability, and at the core of that is possibly shame and often distrust. Distrust means, not trusting other people (because you’re afraid you’ll need to give too much and lose yourself or they’ll hurt you if you’re too close and you’ve been disappointed before), not trusting yourself (you’re afraid of the idea of being alone and fear abandonment because you don’t trust you have your own back and can emotionally take care of yourself if something bad happens), or a combination of both. So, it’s not usually conscious, but at some point you developed what was a defense mechanism to protect yourself from being hurt by other people based on emotional needs not getting consistently met. That gets expressed as either not letting other people get close or as only choosing partners who are also unavailable. They can’t meet your needs but won’t push you for more intimacy than you can handle, either.

The way I see it is, the defenses went up when you weren’t in a place to process painful emotions. Maybe you were young or simply overwhelmed. But then those emotions got stuck and never processed, and that’s how you’re getting in your own way now. There are probably exercises available online if you search how to become emotionally available. There’s a book called The Body Keeps Score which people seem to find helpful. You can look up information about attachment theory and how to become secure, because insecure attachment is usually tied into this. Free videos by Thais Gibson are a good start on that topic. And you can try different types of therapists who aren’t only talk therapists and see if they have more room to make appointments. I’ve heard good things from people who have felt this way and tried something called somatic experience therapy instead of traditional talk therapy. If you like The Body Keeps Score, somatic experience therapy will use more of a physical approach to process stuck emotions.

Even if it takes you a while to find a therapist to get back to you, as you can see there are other resources to start with in the meantime. The most important thing is being serious and committed to confronting your issues. Eventually you’ll get out on the other end of it, you’ll have a much better connection to yourself and know more about what you want, and dating will seem easier from there! Not necessarily *easy,* but easier for sure.