the problem could be in that you are trying too hard. I know this sounds silly but hear me out. Think of it this way, if you try stopping your pursuit of girls and get used to and celebrate your being single then maybe they will come to you. Remember, we attract those that wish to be with us for our optimism and outlook in life, not our pesimissim that guys tend to project when they are unsatisfied with their lot. If you try to meet women for a purely friendship sake then the possibility for advancement is far better than always setting yourself up for a fall....

"It seems to me that ALL the women I'm attracted to are either unavailable or not interested in me."

Inversely, could it be that you are unavailable and not interested in the women who ARE attacted to you?

the unfortunate thing is that no matter what you do, something like love only comes when it wants to itself. There is nothing we can do to find it nor push it away.

I'm sure that if you swear off women again some damn girl will spark your fire again.

Blame stupid love!

DAMN YOU LOVE!

If you swear off women, then you really don't have a chance. The closest I came to someone was when this yummy UPS guy came to the door. I didn't even notice the box in his arms, I was just staring. Thinking "Wow! There IS some kind of god-like being and this is my reward!" No, no special delivery for me. It was my monitor back from Apple (this is years ago).

A friend posted this in my old tribe so I'll post the link for you too:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence

Limerence is longer than a crush, but not true love. It's important to make all these distinctions so we know what we feel and are able to see the differences. So we don't end up believing it's one thing when it's another, that's when we get our hearts broken.

I was going through my list of current crushes and realized some are fictional characters. According to Wiki, a crush is simple:

"A short-lived, intense and usually unrequited love, sexual attraction, or infatuation, as in, "I have a crush on Alex". "Crushes" are usually seen as insubstantial and even immature, thus the term is considered distinct from the Western concept of love. The term, most commonly used in North America, is similar to the chiefly British "fancy"."

Like in film and books, that kind of fictional. I have crushes on people that I don't even know what they look like. It's just the words they use, online. Just something about a person that stands out, if only for a moment. Sometimes longer. And the few people that are real people are also married guys, or in a relationship, or living on another continent or something equally annoying.

I do a lot of analysis on compatibility, realizing that most of the guys that are actually single would NOT be a good match. Yes, some things we might have in common, but the differences are too much to overcome.

I will put in my thoughts though about long term things. We're all going to get old (or die, and dying is inevitable). If you start looking around at older people, the elderly, you can't tell who the hot guy or gal was, can you? You can't tell who the person is that was popular or not, pretty/handsome or not. You can tell who is compatible though. You can see the people that are still in love.

I saw a wonderful couple, the gentleman was daring to jump over the fire hydrant, and the lady was trying to get him not to do it. They were holding hands and laughing. She's giggling like a school girl. He's acting like a school boy. I was soooo charmed I had to talk to them. I said something like it was nice to see people still so in love. They'd been married 45 years. They were nearing 70 years old.

That's what I want. Well, not a 70 year old guy. Shouldn't rule that out though. But that kind of relationship. And that's going to be based on caring about each other, inner feelings, communication. If you marry an airhead or jackhole who are good looking, and they will age, what you'll have left is an airhead or a jackhole. Not my idea of a good time.

Think about that. Think about who you want around when you're 70. What kind of woman? What kind of woman would you want to be around now, if you were very sick, like with the flu? You want someone to take care of you? You want someone to nag you? You want someone who will be disgusted and leave? Or someone who'll be a little less disgusted but will nevertheless clean you up after you throw up? LOL!

I can't stand those guys that don't want to get dust on their shoes, clothes, autos, boats, whatever. That's not going to be a guy who'll pick up my pile of tissues when I have "aaaa code" sniffle sniffle. If I wanted someone not to do a darn thing, I'd get a nice mannequin.

Oh yeah, and don't put your life on hold. You go do the things you like to do. You'll run into people also doing those things. And you'll have something in common to talk to them about. This is an old thread. I suppose before typing all this I should have checked your profile to be sure you haven't gotten married yet. If so, then, uh, this is a post for everyone else.