I'm 31 and have spent the last five years focusing almost entirely on my career. It paid off professionally, I recently moved into a management role, my income is stable, and I finally feel financially comfortable. The downside is that I neglected my social life, and now I'm finding it difficult to build meaningful relationships. I've started exercising regularly, dressing better, and going to more social events instead of spending every evening working. I've had a few dates over the past several months, but I often feel like I'm either too career-focused or trying too hard to make up for lost time.
For those who have gone through something similar, how did you find a balance? Did you intentionally reduce your work hours, expand your social circle first, or simply keep dating until things became more natural? I'm interested in hearing experiences from people who were in a similar position rather than general dating advice.
Musicgoon78 3 1d ago
I'm going to give you a little bit of advice coming from an older guy that's dealt with a lot of setbacks, a lot of successes and just a whole lot of life. You're going to get a bunch of bullshit on here about ratios and doing this and that with your life and how to balance this and that. Let me tell you that it's all bullshit. Surf the forums and just look at guys starting off. They have a case of the "one days".
This is one of those things where a guy says, "one day when I make a six-figure salary. I will start dating women".
"When I get down to under 11% body fat I will cold approach".
"When I finish reading all the books on the sidebar I will try to build up my social circle".
These are all excuses instead of action. Now you, my brother are officially in that category. You're doing financially well, but making excuses instead of just simply taking action.
It doesn't matter how out of practice or how much you focus on other things. Get up. Shake the dust off and go start talking to women. Don't make a metric "I will do 100 cold approaches" or anything like that, just go. Start talking to women. Start asking them out, start taking some risks that will not affect your health or even your sanity.
I can say from personal experience that that I will game chicks with zero money after being laid off and having a death in the family while I'm searching for new jobs and dealing with life's other bullshit. Don't wait, just do.
And everyone has enough time to date. You just need to make time for it. I can guarantee you're going to get a lot of advice about this. Keep in mind that most guys will use some sort of metric as a buffer before you start dating. Any type of buffers or excuses are simply insecurity. You can get started right now right after you read this. It really is that simple.
adam-l Moderator 1d ago
First thing you have to do is set a time, be it 18:00, 20:00 or even 22:00, after which you don't think about work at all. Keep a note if you need to, and purposefully stop thinking about it.
That's "taking care of myself" time.
First-light 2 1d ago
I am not sure that there is a simple answer to the problem. Organic growth of a network of friends is the ideal solution, then you are more likely to naturally meet women on your wavelength and even if you meet them through dating alone, you have somewhere to take them where you belong, a vision of life to show them.
Along with doing everything else to get the big things in life lined up like career and woman, a bit of doing things that you actually like that bring you into contact with other people you actually like goes a long way to making you more grounded in your life, more connected to others. If that means reducing your hours then I would look on it as an investment not a sacrifice.
One way to make sure time is not wasted is to first get a new hobby, then give up a bit of work for it. Doing it the other way round does not always result in productive time. However if you need inspiration to make good direction choices, you do need time away from the grind to let the mind open up and get see things differently, even if this time is not directly productive. Its worth trying to identify which thing you need. Its not always the one you think it is.
I would keep on with both the dating and the career but remember that in the end they both only serve to make you happy in life. You need something else that is you doing what you personally love as well to achieve this and when you do achieve it both the dating and the career usually go better.
Vermillion-Rx Admin 1d ago
You're overthinking this and making up made up rules for yourself where they shouldn't exist
If you want to work extra and make extra money one weekend, that's what you do
If you want to take a break and meet some bitches, you go do it
If you want to do neither one weekend and want to play RuneScape for 48 hours straight you do it
If you have all your other shit together already during normal working hours then you do what you want for what you think your time is worth and what feels like a satisfactory for that extra time
You don't need internet strangers to tell you how much pussy is okay to entertain instead of working. What do YOU want?
It doesn't even have to be the same from week to week. Why are you looking for some kind of set structure when you already have enough of that?