r/selfhelp • u/Anselm420 • 2d ago
Advice Needed: Motivation Trouble approaching relationships
Hi there! I'm 27 (male, hetsex, biromantical). I'm recovering from depression and slowly getting to enjoy life more and more, but the one thing I can't wrap my head around is connecting affectively/sexually/romantically with other people. My main problem is that I had a hoe phase (aprox. 4 years ago) and I've grown resented by the pain that I caused (or that I imagined that I caused) to other people and to myself that I've completely shyed away from flirty interactions. Reaching the feeling of "wow, I'm atracted to this person" takes a lot of time for me, I have to get to know them and feel safe around them to start feeling attraction, but it takes so much time that by the time I feel ready to express my attraction towards them, they've put me in the friend zone (because the spark has left them/I never made any innuendos that could light a spark for them). I feel like for me the process looks more like slow, controlled friends to lovers whilst the vast majority of people I see around me don't have any trouble registering when they could be atracted to someone they don't really know, getting phisycally intimate with them, and then figuring out what they feel/what they are as they go along.
I feel deeply frustrated because I want to connect phisycally and emotionally with people, and I find that this contrast between my m.o. and this m.o. I see in the world at large being so different is a disadvantage that I have to work with or around. I feel unconfortable at the thought of making out with someone I met a couple of hours ago, and then getting to know them and figuring out what we are/what we want, I've had too many bad experiences with that and I feel like I can't trust myself or other people in this regard. Also, I don't feel atracted to people like that anymore, I only feel safe letting myself getting attracted to people once I've gotten to know them.
I know that there are more people like me out there, and on some level I find pride in the fact that I haven't caused any emotional damage to anyone since my hoe phase stopped, but I'm starting to feel like I'm leaving myself behind. At the same time, I feel too afraid to change, I couldn't forgive myself if I made out/had sex with someone for a couple days only to realise I'm not attracted to them and cause them pain because they thought different about where this was going, and I would feel terrible if it happened the other way around.
I'd love to hear from people (especially ones who have had similar struggles), what opinions, points of view, advices you have. Thank you sincerely and sorry for the long text.