I sometimes ask myself, “why am I single?”, and I always have to ponder this. I’ve met “good guys” like myself that have many different rationales. More often though, I mix these different ideas to form what feels like a strong enough argument that it satisfies my desire to know, at least for the time being.

I might say that I’m unattractive. I’ve been overweight for a majority of my life and while I’ve lost a lot and continue to lose weight (and even have started to lift a bit), my insecurities remain as strong as when I started. But why can’t these girls get over my body fat and see that I am the man of their dreams!

This, for a long while, led me to think that girls were simply too shallow to see how great I’d be as a loving partner. I’ve heard others say that girls were too stupid to see that same thing in them.

I even had arguments for it. I’d say “just look at my personality! I’m sweet, I like the same things as half of them, I’m romantic, I’d never cheat…” the list goes on and on. I, like many men, am amazing at telling people how great I am as a person, and therefore how great I’d be as a romantic partner.

I’d hear things like, “well some girls just like more masculine guys” or other things that didn’t make sense to me. If you’re a girl, why would you want to be with a guy who wants to watch an action movie, have sex with you, and go to bed, when you want to cuddle? Why not date a guy like me instead? It’s like that song “Treat You Better” and I’m sure there are plenty of other “I’m better for you than that guy” songs.

Most of my friends, who were mostly girls, wouldn’t say what I needed to hear: YOU don’t get to decide what THEY want in a romantic partner!

What got me to change my thinking entirely was to flip the scenario. There have been girls who I know wanted to date me and I didn’t want to date them. Perhaps they were not physically attractive to me, smart to me, or just didn’t match up with my “type”. The things I look for in a girl aren’t just things that “make sense”! And if I and other men get to decide that a girl isn’t what we’re looking for, then she has just as much of a right to determine for herself that I, or Billy Bob, or Sally, or whomever isn’t right for her.

If a guy doesn’t want to date a girl because they don’t find her attractive, no one says “oh he’s so shallow”. I’m 20 years old and I got hormones for days! It’s not surprising that I care more about physical attraction than I might later in life. But neither is it for cute girl X in one of my classes. 

So what if something that she’s looking for doesn’t make sense to me? Even if I could talk to her and convince her it made no sense, how she feels can’t change.

I want to make another point very clear. Let’s say a girl is into a hyper-masculine “bro”, and she even finds a lack of intelligence endearing (or maybe she enjoys being able to dominate him intellectually). Whatever the case may be, she is not “asking” to be hurt, to be cheated on, or to be abused in any way. She is looking for whatever she is looking for and if she doesn’t find it, she is not to be blamed because a guy who met X parts of her criteria turned out to be abusive. Stereotypes are not an excuse for a person’s behavior.

By the way, I don’t blame myself for having gone through, and continuing to go through this conversation in my mind. As I said, I am hormonal, and while that is not an excuse for behavior, it is absolutely an excuse to open up a dialogue with what I’m thinking and feeling! And let’s be real, rejection hurts! When my ego gets hit, it’s only natural that I’d come up with those thoughts as a defense. It’s always easier to blame than to accept responsibility.

But to end, let’s really answer why I’m single: I have yet to have met, or had the courage to talk to, a person who is my type while I am simultaneously her type, and then allowed that relationship to blossom into a romantic nature. No it is not the fault of the cute girl in my class for liking a different type of guy. If I want to stop being single, it is on me to get out and meet more people and have the courage to talk to girls I like. It is also on me to respect whatever answer that I get. And finally, it’s ok to accept that sometimes you’re just not in the right place at the right time and that I just have to be patient.