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Even though I (31M) would like to be in a healthy and stable romantic relationship, I feel like I lack proper motivation to pursue it, simply because I've never had a real chance to experience it as such, so it's almost like I don't even know what I'm going after, like I've never had a proper taste of the end goal in order to find it sufficiently worthwhile.
I've had two relationships, if you can even call them that, so far: one which was a very one-sided first-base affair with a woman who had a bipolar/schizoaffective disorder and kept passively leading me on (i.e. never quite rejecting me in a way in which she would distance herself from me for my own good) for my friendship while being in love with (and going after) someone else, and another in which I covered all three bases with a woman who had BPD and for whom I was ultimately only a rebound once every week for a little over a month (which I liked the tempo of but didn't get enough real intimacy from at all), despite wanting an actual relationship. Each of those women also ended up hospitalised (for hysteric and/or self-poisoning episodes) at least once during those periods, and those situations, among others, brought me several episodes of anxiety back then.
It's been almost 10 years since the former "relationship" and almost 7 years since the latter one, but I haven't really dated in the meantime. Sure, I've had - and used - various social opportunities to gauge the interests of women I found at least attractive and pleasantly captivating enough to talk to, but I've never quite felt any impulses that would break my self-control enough for me to feel compelled to make any serious moves... and the reason I feel I need my self-control broken, in a way (and no, no substances have helped so far, however psychoactive), is because, from my own standpoint, my lack of willingness to attempt any further escalations from the position of anything other than a girl escalating first or being blatantly smitten with me is entirely reasonable. It's like I'm supposed to reach out using something that doesn't quite exist in me on its own, in order to get to something that I don't even believe exists.
There is psychological research that suggests that a stable and fruitful relationship should have about five positive experiences for each negative one (and that's even considered to be the optimal ratio, because there should be a healthy minimal dose of conflict in order for the relationship to keep developing without significant stagnations), but based on my own past relationships, the score is overwhelmingly in the favour of the cons over the pros. Moreover, while imagining potential negative experiences produces negative emotions in the present, imagining potential positive experiences does NOT analogously yield positive emotions in the present as a result; therefore, I don't see how I could make dating fun. It might be that I just haven't found an adequate person approach-wise, but even that got ruined for me by the fact that my two "exes" essentially escalated first and yet they were very unstable people. I'm not inherently attracted to instability, even though it can bring a sense of adventure to dating and relationships. I've had romantic and sexual excitement tied to anxiety back then, and it was horrible. Hell, before I got together with those women, at least I could follow some youthful instincts that were still untainted; but afterwards, tallying the score, I felt like those relationships weren't rewarding at all. The kissing was mediocre, the desires were unaligned, the sex was terrible, and I never managed to keep those relationships for long enough to improve upon any of that. It all felt pointless.
In closing, I would also like to stress that I've also been in psychotherapy for 9 full years now, and that it's helped me more than I could describe. I'm also in a genuine phase of focusing on other areas of my life, like finding a job, and I'm working through my baggage by recognising it and also learning a great deal of self-love that I've missed for the great majority of my life (although that, too, seems to indirectly reduce my need for a relationship, since a part of it consisted of my projection of my parental figures onto my potential partners).
TL;DR
I think that my lack of motivation for pursuing a relationship is both fundamentally rational and fully justified by my unfortunate past relationship experiences, and I feel helpless to change that without forcing myself to date in the absence of any positive feelings and visions for my dating future at all, which would just make it even more boring and unappealing. I would like to know if there's anything that I can do to "start believing in love again" without having to rely on blind luck of someone being assertive enough to either escalate or not get turned off by my transparency about my own baggage-induced relationship apathy. I've learnt not to fixate on this, but I wouldn't wish it upon anyone, either.
I've had two relationships, if you can even call them that, so far: one which was a very one-sided first-base affair with a woman who had a bipolar/schizoaffective disorder and kept passively leading me on (i.e. never quite rejecting me in a way in which she would distance herself from me for my own good) for my friendship while being in love with (and going after) someone else, and another in which I covered all three bases with a woman who had BPD and for whom I was ultimately only a rebound once every week for a little over a month (which I liked the tempo of but didn't get enough real intimacy from at all), despite wanting an actual relationship. Each of those women also ended up hospitalised (for hysteric and/or self-poisoning episodes) at least once during those periods, and those situations, among others, brought me several episodes of anxiety back then.
It's been almost 10 years since the former "relationship" and almost 7 years since the latter one, but I haven't really dated in the meantime. Sure, I've had - and used - various social opportunities to gauge the interests of women I found at least attractive and pleasantly captivating enough to talk to, but I've never quite felt any impulses that would break my self-control enough for me to feel compelled to make any serious moves... and the reason I feel I need my self-control broken, in a way (and no, no substances have helped so far, however psychoactive), is because, from my own standpoint, my lack of willingness to attempt any further escalations from the position of anything other than a girl escalating first or being blatantly smitten with me is entirely reasonable. It's like I'm supposed to reach out using something that doesn't quite exist in me on its own, in order to get to something that I don't even believe exists.
There is psychological research that suggests that a stable and fruitful relationship should have about five positive experiences for each negative one (and that's even considered to be the optimal ratio, because there should be a healthy minimal dose of conflict in order for the relationship to keep developing without significant stagnations), but based on my own past relationships, the score is overwhelmingly in the favour of the cons over the pros. Moreover, while imagining potential negative experiences produces negative emotions in the present, imagining potential positive experiences does NOT analogously yield positive emotions in the present as a result; therefore, I don't see how I could make dating fun. It might be that I just haven't found an adequate person approach-wise, but even that got ruined for me by the fact that my two "exes" essentially escalated first and yet they were very unstable people. I'm not inherently attracted to instability, even though it can bring a sense of adventure to dating and relationships. I've had romantic and sexual excitement tied to anxiety back then, and it was horrible. Hell, before I got together with those women, at least I could follow some youthful instincts that were still untainted; but afterwards, tallying the score, I felt like those relationships weren't rewarding at all. The kissing was mediocre, the desires were unaligned, the sex was terrible, and I never managed to keep those relationships for long enough to improve upon any of that. It all felt pointless.
In closing, I would also like to stress that I've also been in psychotherapy for 9 full years now, and that it's helped me more than I could describe. I'm also in a genuine phase of focusing on other areas of my life, like finding a job, and I'm working through my baggage by recognising it and also learning a great deal of self-love that I've missed for the great majority of my life (although that, too, seems to indirectly reduce my need for a relationship, since a part of it consisted of my projection of my parental figures onto my potential partners).
TL;DR
I think that my lack of motivation for pursuing a relationship is both fundamentally rational and fully justified by my unfortunate past relationship experiences, and I feel helpless to change that without forcing myself to date in the absence of any positive feelings and visions for my dating future at all, which would just make it even more boring and unappealing. I would like to know if there's anything that I can do to "start believing in love again" without having to rely on blind luck of someone being assertive enough to either escalate or not get turned off by my transparency about my own baggage-induced relationship apathy. I've learnt not to fixate on this, but I wouldn't wish it upon anyone, either.
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