I know a lot of people post things like this on here. Kinda tired of seeing, you just need to “work on yourself” and “love yourself before trying to love others” and “be happy being alone” or whatever else.

I’m a healthy, fit and somewhat successful 38m single dad to a 5 year old and I own a home, have a good career. Dating apps are terrible and I’m finding it harder and harder to connect with new people as I get older.

I hate being alone and just want to love and be loved. I’ve had multiple relationships over the years fail for different reasons. Some of them I loved very dearly which ended because of toxic dynamic / emotional abuse or just because of lack of communication between the 2 of us. Other times I find myself settling or rebounding into a relationship where I am not happy and am just trying to fill the void of loneliness. I find myself overthinking about past decisions and reactions and wondering how things would be different if things went a different way.

I’m not picky per se but I have a lot of unique traits and hobbies, social and political beliefs that aren’t very common and I’ve always been involved in different types of counter cultures that don’t typically align with the status quo. So finding someone with similar interests is hard even though I have dates all kinds of different people. Just hard to feel connected to many of them. And for many people who id normally jive with end up not being stoked that I’m a single parent. Finding a good match and someone I’m attracted to and having it fall apart so easy has been hard and that seems to be an occurring problem.

It’s an exhausting experience and I’ve known that I have already done a lot of internal work but I hate being alone when I know that I’m capable of being a great partner in a relationship. I know many others have gone through this. I just keep going to some dark places when I’m really feeling that emptiness and loneliness.

I go through a waves of feeling fine and content and positive that I will find someone eventually. Other times I feel hopeless and awful and wonder why i even exist. I don’t even know why I’m posting this because I know others are doing through the same thing. Maybe just venting and fishing for validation or advice, I don’t know.