“I was dating a guy on Match.com. He would call three times a day, we would have amazing dates and then he asked me to be exclusive. Then he got distant, moody and unresponsive. He said we should break up while he worked out what he wanted. Two days later, he was back on Match. I feel like an idiot and can’t stop thinking about what went wrong or what I could have done differently. It makes me not want to date anymore.” —T.

Hi T.,

Aaargh, that sucks! I hate thinking about that stuff: the mysterious guy who is all over you and then—POOF!—disappears. I met so many of that guy throughout my dating years, too, and it’s frustrating as hell.

As for you feeling like any of it has to do with you, you’re not an idiot and there’s nothing you could have done differently in that situation. It’s simply like another level on that crazy game show Wipeout, where you have to get punched a few times on the dating platform to get to the next level.

What I will say is this: You’re too good for letting this one guy knock your game down. You’re so much better than taking some lame loser guy’s opinion of you and letting it color yourself in any way. The only thing you should be thinking about is how you feel about you, no one else. No guys, no friends, no bosses, just what you think of you.

Since you sound like you’re exactly where I was when I was single, it’s time to start thinking about what you can do to make yourself happy this month. For the rest of the month, don’t think about the guys you’re going on dates with, or the guys who aren’t emailing you on Match, or the guys you like but aren’t sure how to make them like you (we women can plot for years on that one!). Instead, think about what you can do in the next month that has nothing to do with guys that will make you gloriously, ridiculously, incredibly, laughably happy. Once you see yourself worth it again, you’ll start attracting the right kinds of guys again and be back on the path to your half-orange.

That’s my advice anyway. If anyone else has any other ideas for T. pass ’em on!

—Amy

This entry was posted on Friday, October 15th, 2010 at 9:05 am and is filed under Let's Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.