It's been 1 year 8 months since she left me with a blindside (and since I last saw or spoke to her, she basically disappeared back to her home country after living with me for 2 years). The absolute worst part is having to put yourself out there and playing the game again. I'm 33(M), I try to keep happy, go to therapy, stay fit. Dating apps just don't work for me as I rarely match with anyone there for some reason. So my main social outlet/meeting potential dates is the gym and/or chance encounters when socialising in a group. I'm pretty good at meeting people and making friends and I feel socialising at the gym and making friends there helps me keep getting better at it.

However, the couple of people I've been interested in the past 8 months are either not interested, are in a committed relationship (which they reveal much later despite giving me signs early on), or too young (my ex is 10 years younger, and I wanna try to avoid that atleast at this stage of my life). It's the same song and dance every time, I find someone I'm interested in and spend the next few weeks getting to know them and then end up encountering the above situation.

It's a bit tiring because each time it feels a bit like a setback eventhough I should not because these people were never really a part of my life. And I feel like each day I keep getting older and older and yet after 8 months of being sort of ready to see someone, I've not been able to go on even one date lol.

Basically it just sucks to put yourself out there. It'd be one thing if I was actually going on dates as that'd still be fun even if it didn't lead to anything. But going through the trial and error only to face error at each try is a bit disappointing.