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Frage Nr. 37573 von 05.11.2023

During my early 20s, I was falsely accused of harassment by a woman at a workplace. Though I was acquitted and didn't lose my job, the mental agony that I underwent scarred me badly.
Its been almost a decade since that happened, still I am not able to approach and talk to women to ask them out. Even when women approach and talk to me, I am scared to ask them out.

I want to make this clear, I don't hate women, and I am not against women's rights and equality. I hope you don't think this is some incel rage post to blame women/metoo for my problems.

I am now in my early 30s, I am a successful professional with an active outdoorsy life full of activities. I have got many things going for me(for which I am grateful), but I have never had a girlfriend, and this has left a huge void in me.
I don't want to oppress or blame anyone, I just want to find someone to love, share my life with, and eventually start a family together.

Over the past couple of months, I have requested my close friends to set me up, but nothing has turned up yet. Seems like everyone in my circle is in a relationship(good for them).
I have tried apps as well, I barely get any matches.
So meeting new women and asking them out seems to be the only option for me. Anyone new and unknown is scary for the reasons I mentioned above.

I tried therapy with 3 different therapists, it was helpful in sorting out other aspects of my life, but it hasn't really been helpful to resolve this particular problem I have. I don't know what to do, I just feel stuck.
Any thoughts Lilli?

Unsere Antwort

I'll send you my thoughts:

You write that you're afraid to ask women out. And then you indicate that you're afraid that I might think you hate women and see yours as an incel rage post. This is absolutely not the case. My picture of you is that you underwent mental agony after being falsely accused, and that you're afraid to ask women out.

I assume your fear re: asking women out is about doing something that might be seen as harassment or that they might falsely accuse you of it. This would be understandable – and I would strongly recommend that you seek therapy to deal with your traumatic experience in order to be able to tuck it neatly into your memory of past experiences. Past in a sense of "over". You've been to therapists before, but you seem to never have approached them about this particular problem. Go ahead and do so: Take yourself seriously, take your suffering seriously, take care of yourself – ten years is enough.

Obviously, meeting a woman, dating her, being in a good relationship, could also be therapeutic – in that new, positive experiences can help your brain free from the grip of old, negative ones. So, I wouldn't give up trying to find a date, as well. You've taken steps, so don't give up. If you barely get matches, you might get one. And if nothing has turned up yet, it might tomorrow.

Also: We've got a chapter on dating in German, with lots of tips. This is the link. You can click on each text in this chapter, and then feed it into the DeepL translator. Sorry this isn't available in English yet...

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