>>36510
I have also read Les Miserables, and it is one of my favourite books of all time. Did you get to the random chapter where a man falls overboard off a ship and drowns? That was fantastic, and I especially liked how neither the man nor the ship are mentioned at any point in the rest of the book; it's just a total diversion from the main story. A bit like that chapter in The Wind in the Willows where one of the characters meets an ancient Greek god, or the other one where he goes off to become a pirate for a bit.

The most horrifically unreadable book I have ever read from start to finish was Atlas Shrugged. That, admittedly, is not something to be proud of if you want to impress ladies.

>>36511
I didn't get to that part, no. It does sound humerously tangent.
Atlas Shrugged took such a weird direction with the blue steel and free-energy device that I found it difficult to keep my conception of the internal world intact. But again, only read half. I donated plenty of books recently, hopefully not Atlas if it's a dating line.

Bringing it back to dating woes, a friend of mine used to live in what is now my flat and I strongly suspect, believe even, that they used an old key to look around my home. Over the course of our brief relationship they used the information gathered from my cupboard bookshelf to strike conversations and force a connection that might not have been there otherwise.

>>36511
I seem to remember the whole plot is driven by impossible coincidences, that Mme. Thenardier's villainy underlined by her taste in terrible pulp novels that Hugo certainly hopes his readers wouldn't deign to touch, that Marius finds one of Valjean's handkerchiefs and sleeps with it over his face, and that Javert is actually just an autistic man who could do with some support.

>>36507
I believe it's standard practice to burn every book you've ever read once you've finished it, otherwise your fellow Presbyterians will be concerned about your lack of modesty.

An attractive woman has set up a coffee stand in a local park I have to walk through on the way to work. The coffee is overpriced so I try to avoid it but she's already got me once before where I realised I basically had nothing to talk to her about as she made my coffee. This morning she smiled and said hello to me, I was already running late for work but I'd probably have been her best customer of the day if I wasn't.

Obviously I'm not going to buy coffee just to try and chat up a local coffee woman. Service staff have to be nice to you and if it all goes wrong I would want to walk through that park in future. But this is also how my parents met where my dad kept buying scratch cards from the petrol station my mum worked at as an excuse to talk to her.

>>36495
I think it's acceptable and even expected to lie in this situation and say a more socially acceptable answer that you still enjoy. The question's purpose is to elicit conversation.

>>36506
For me they make good conversation pieces and people can use your book collection to get a feel for you as a person.

>>36510
>Displaying your stuff is an identity claim.
This is not a public place. It's "displayed" for me, inside my house. As is my oven and the spices I don't always but do occasionally use. Are we supposed to hide everything I own in case someone happens to come by while feeling intellectually insecure? Little cupboard doors on all our bookshelves?

>>36514
Fuck it, I'll leave for work a little earlier for couple days over the next 2/3 weeks where I'll do some light friendly chatter and see if I'm living in a Richard Curtis movie by how she responds.

The difference won't make much sense unless y you saw the rumeo trouble.

>>36515
I don't know what the fuck you're talking about but identity claims reinforce our own perceptions of ourselves as well as others perceptions of us.
Your items are indeed displayed for you as are my DVD and CD synthetic fabric printed binders (one of them has a devilish cherub on it and holds a small collection of horror and erotic films).

Read the book, it's a tenner on amazon. Paperback. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. When you're done put it in a charity shop, apparently some pulp books now.

>>36516
I been there mate, least it could go better than this.

>>36520
>Read the book, it's a tenner on amazon.

Oh, you're one of those people. If you're buying a book brand new on Amazon then chances are you are doing it for show. Always buy second-hand, it's usually about a quarter of the price.

>>36521
I'm not him, but I don't follow your logic. Where is the added cachet from buying a book on Amazon? He also suggests immediately sending the book to a charity shop once you're done with it, something that hardly allows him to show it off. It's worth remembering that you can buy plenty of secondhand books through Amazon.

>>36521
Unfortunately it takes somebody to put it in the charity shop before I can buy it second hand. Start the cycle, brother - I paid £50 for a book on Ancient greek lexicon, internet said it was worth over £2000 I later did more exentive research and it's worth about a fiver. Got another that's worth £10, tho!

This'll be the third time I'm correcting back to thread topic - guess what I heard echoing through the halls late last night? 2 girls getting fuuuuucked for an hour. How the fuck do I experience that? Preferably in a relationship with an open minded woman. Pegging lad, shower us with wisdom.

>>36522
Apparently Amazon prints on order. Lots of pdf art and colouring books.

>>36520
They're not a display mate, they're storage.

>>36523
>Apparently Amazon prints on order. Lots of pdf art and colouring books.
That's not really the case. You can buy plenty of actual books from Amazon directly or via the company, but from another retailer, as well as secondhand copies.

A mediterranean m8 of mine plays the numbers game. He constantly approaches women outside of the traditional contexts of pubs and clubs (e.g. when we're just walking somewhere, in shops, public transport, or in a museum) and says stuff like "hey I think you're really cute blahblahblah I'd like to get to know you better, can I get your instagram or number". Nine times out of ten he fails but he does it so often that it works out for him.

Is there a trick to cultivating the same ability to not care?

I was organising a date with a woman over an app, she said she was happy to go out but is organising her brother's birthday party so we'd have to find a time around that. I said not to worry and to feel free to prioritise family over some stranger on an app, but said I could be flexible outside of tomorrow or Tuesday so to let me know if there's an evening free later in the week where we could go for a dinner date.

She came back and suggested Tuesday night.

>>36514
>>36516
Phase 1 complete: Today I paid £5.60 for a small latte and a pastel de nata.

She's very bubbly and chatty but I don't really know what to say to someone running a small coffee business so my ideas of the 'what happened to Costa Rican blends?' and 'does it get busy here during the rush hour' seem quite bad for getting a friendly conversation going which meant I mostly stood in awkward silence. I'm not sure if I like this new hobby.

>>36527
I think it works like thumping people where you need to do it for it to get easier and easier. Maybe that explains why those PUA courses took off in the 00s because their core target was telling insecure men to try talking to women and keep doing it until they learn how to talk to women and don't mind the initial awkwardness.

>>36530
>said I could be flexible outside of tomorrow or Tuesday
I read this as, "It doesn't have to be tomorrow or Tuesday; I can be flexible and do a different night instead." So if she suggested Tuesday, she's probably trying to be accommodating.

There's a woman at the chipshop who's continually showing some level of interest in me, a semi-regular customer, despite seeing that I barely interact with anyone and am generally .. shabby. She's commented on a change in my appearance and has just now spoke to me on the street, as she was leaving work.
I'm pretty sure she's not just being nice for repeat custom.

What would you say to explore relationship potential in this situation more than "Small chips, thank you"? I did once appologise to a different woman for touching her hand during change transfer - she giggled and did it again, which was nice.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo_9UgaxeJE

>>36551
If you won't ask her to batter your sausage for you, just start a conversation. Ask about her day or something.

>>36552
>Ask about her day or something.
That I didn't even think to say that shows how hopeless my situation is.

>>36553
You've done well to pick up on there being any signal at all. Subsequently maintaining enough self-esteem to want to do something about it is another accomplishment, as a lot of blokes are too clueless and/or depressed to make it as far as you have now.

>>36530
If you'd like an update on the coffee shop girl: We're at the stage of observational chatting and starting to get into light conversations. I stop by a 2-3 times a week and always make some observation or attempt at humour that she engages with. Now I just need to go further and start dropping things she can question in my life to test her interest to spark a proper conversation.

I assume she will have worked out that I fancy her already which should help to steer this.

Uh-oh, I'm seeing her smile in my mind's eye when I'm hard.

>>36585
Tea drinkers will never have this. Good luck, lad.

>>36585
Sad news: I was chatting to the coffee shop lady just now and asked about her business logo - she revealed that it's her boyfriend doing a hobby they share. I think I kept my poker face and made friendly chatter about the business being established 6 years ago so that's quite a love story.

It was nice to dream. I guess I'll slowly fade out to the coffee shop down the street lest I get a wedding invite one day.

>>36622

You should probably have tried to establish this a lot sooner, honestly, before wasting weeks on the set up. I was rooting for you but I figured you already knew she was single. Lesson learned eh.

Trouble is you've got to keep going now. Or else she'll know you were only being nice to try ask her out. Then again it's probably good to keep up practising the conversation either way.

>>36623
I guess I misread the signals I was getting from her and wanted to exercise a lot of strategic patience given the customer relationship.

Yeah it's going to be a delicate one to extract myself now. Shorter chats, cutting my coffee stops to once or twice. There's a nice cafe/gallery nearby so I won't be short on caffeine anytime soon.

>>36622
Would it be appropriate to continue talking to the woman, as a friend, and share your goings on? You could even mention other romatic interests from friendly familiarity alone. Makes sense to maintain a social pool than .. not.

>>36626

Agreed. As a bonus to maintaining a pleasant friendship, attractive people often have attractive friends.

On the internet this is going to sound like I'm complaining that my chair is too soft and my arse is too toned but I seem to fall into a cycle with Japanese women. It's very difficult to have a proper relationship when there are cultural and linguistic divides that mean that I'm often looking after them without a deeper connection - which isn't the kind of relationship I want but I seem to have something Japanese women like which might paradoxically be a forward and caring nature that someone in a new environment clings to so we don't have much to talk about but we get physical very quickly.

Actually I should analyse myself a a little: I end up offering care and guidance. In return, receiving physical affection and gratitude. For a short time, this trade feels acceptable because it solves the immediate problem of isolation for both of us. However, at least for me, the deeper need is for an equal partner—someone who can engage my mind, who can stand on her own two feet and maybe someone I can rely on.

The relationship structure I sometimes fall into makes it impossible to receive this. The initial satisfaction of being needed slowly curdles like spoiled milk into the resentment of being a service provider. The physical intimacy starts to feel hollow because it isn't supported by a shared mind or a shared life. The issue is that I might be repeatedly drawn to situations of inherent inequality because they allow me to play a role that is both familiar and often deeply validating. It protects me from the far more terrifying challenge of building a relationship with an equal, where I cannot rely on being the caretaker and must instead bring my whole, vulnerable and scarred self to the table.

>>36629

Bearing in mind that advice from strangers can go tragically wrong, my first thought is that it's possible to be nurturing while also taking care of someone. Perhaps your goal should not be to become a service provider, but to nurture and encourage them in the direction of further independence throughout the relationship.

Some women might see it as an affront that they can't just take you for a ride and benefit from your care with no expectations, others might be unable or unwilling to meet the task, but those are the ones you don't want anyway. It seems important to set the expectation for this early on enough that resentment doesn't start to creep in.

In my experience, cultural divides in romantic relationships tend to be overblown. Linguistic divides can be trickier, but then it just takes more attempts and creative means of communicating yourself.

Not meaning to sound too scary or patronising, but it sounds like in many ways your proper "romantic" life has yet to begin with many of these women. Working out how to show more of yourself to a partner is Relationships 101. Navigating that question is what sorts out all the 6-monthers from the 7 to >20-year stints. Do you think there's anything holding you back from having more serious conversations with your partners, aside from the fact you were born in different countries?

Also, can you let me know where you're meeting all these willing Japanese girls? You know, for research.

>>36630
This advice seems like trying to fix what is a flawed structure. To nurture someone as a project rather than provide a continual service does not change the fundamental imbalance of the relationship and merely takes it towards a more enlightened form of parenting. A relationship where one person's primary role is to foster the other's independence is not a partnership of equals.

To get to the more practical barrier, we're thinking men and linguistics and cultural divides create a firewall to complex, abstract, nuanced conversation - that you need in order to feel seen, understood, and truly intimate with someone. That kind of 4am afterparty chat where you suddenly both know where the other is coming from. You might be able to have a practical exchange of information with a language learner about the weather or what time a train arrives what their favourite food is but I think all bilingual relationships have to be bilingual to an extent. You cannot "show more of yourself" if you do not share a language in which your true self can be expressed.

The effective change doesn't seem like trying to mitigate these relationships but to avoid them. Not to write off dating all foreign women but to stop and ask if the situation is right when getting into relationships - because even a British woman might speak a different language to you.

>Also, can you let me know where you're meeting all these willing Japanese girls? You know, for research.

London. I think more Japanese people have moved abroad in recent years, something has changed in their culture where living abroad is viewed as very fashionable and as a worthwhile adventure (or as they describe it, 'the young are international now'). It might be a means to escape the suffocating culture around work and family they feel - at least a Japanese nurse I dated viewed the NHS work-life balance as almost utopian, I don't think she believed my own schedule.

But to slightly return to the point as a seeming expert in intercultural affairs I'd contrast with Chinese immigrants, the affluent kind you meet in the west anyway, will speak a very high-standard of English and will likely have read Chaucer in school. I've never met a Japanese woman who studied English in university by contrast who understood deeper structures like how our society works or branched into English literature beyond Harry Potter and Anglo-Japanese touchstones like Ishiguro. I'm being blanket here but I find the whole situation strange for all three cultures, Japan isn't teaching English properly despite the enormous influence that Britain has had on Japan while China, the classless nation undergoing national revival, has a highly mobile middle-upper class who are more well read on western ideas than the people they're talking to.

>>36634
>To get to the more practical barrier, we're thinking men and linguistics and cultural divides create a firewall to complex, abstract, nuanced conversation - that you need in order to feel seen, understood, and truly intimate with someone.

Seems like you're mostly repeating what I said, lad, i.e. linguistic barriers can be difficult, but that the ability to show more of yourself and be understood by your partner is a basic necessity within a relationship.

If your overall point is that doing this with a person who doesn't possess enough of a vocabulary to describe complex situations or emotions will be a challenge, then yeah, My brother once masturbated onto my stick insects because I wouldn't let him watch Thundercats. It didn't kill them but I didn't want them after that.

>>36635

"I a g r e e" is now another absolutely hilarious word filter. Well done, mods.

Thought I would give apps another go. Reminded in less than a day what uptight humourless pricks everyone seems to have turned into these days. Uninstalled.

To be more serious though, I have self examined, I have analysed if it is just me. And quite honestly, no, I don't think it is. I've had enough success building meaningful and fulfilling relationships in the past, I have a stable life built for myself and care for myself, I am a warm and caring person with only a mildly sarcastic exterior, I am not the unhinged one. There just genuinely seems to be this pool of bitter women who are only on dating apps so they can fake interest until they get the chance to criticise or attack something about you. Like that's the only reason they are there, is to get the self satisfaction of lecturing somebody about their appearance/views/lifestyle/interests. They must be deeply unhappy souls.

I've encountered it at least a couple of times in each go of using these apps, by no means a majority of the users there, but a definite thing that exists. I think the only reason it bothers me is because I can't understand why, is it insecurity? Because I have noticed on more than one occasion, this behaviour came from unemployed and therefore presumably terminal layabout type women. Supposedly I am the bad one because I made some joke they didn't like or because I don't like whatever their current favourite thing is or whatever the fuck, but I am never the one criticising, I am never the one throwing an insult, I am never the one trying to make somebody feel bad about themselves.

Obviously they are just headcases and I shouldn't let it get to me, but it does, frankly. Why are people like this. It's a very specific kind of neurosis.

Wanted to have another go on the Feeld app, but it just crashes every time I reach the last stage of setting up a profile. Looks like I won't be getting pegged by any danger hair problem glasses pronoun girls this autumn.

I am utterly unwilling to go to the kinds of places those people hang out in real life, and truth be told, you can't do that even if you wanted to, because most of them are the same kind of terminally online shut ins as me, that's why we get along. Why is technology cock blocking me?

>>36658

Try Fetlife.

>>36659

Sadly that's one of the leading contenders for proving Dead Internet Theory correct these days. Any real profile is buried under a hundred Instagram/OnlyFans etc models whoring their shit.

>>36648

Honestly, at least for the ones who are not obviously doing it to get a kick out of telling you off on the internet, it's probably autism. Over the years I've come to realise that the type of autism we associate with awkward lads expresses differently in women, they look "normal" from the outside and so you don't recognise them as being a bit of a sperg. So because you are assuming they are neurotypical and judging their behaviour in that context, they just come off as disagreeable whingey cunts. But really it's the same kind of inability to recognise social cues, such as flirtatious teasing or when you're being sarcastic or facetious etc.

Trouble is a lot of them have been conditioned to believe men are bastards on top of that, so you'll always be up against them being hyper vigilant for any perceived faults. It just is what it is.

At 4pm today I got home and found out a woman had super liked me in CMB. I recognised the pictures somewhat and she was very attractive, just my type, so sheepishly I liked back and gave a simple opener.

It turns out we'd gone on a date last year, reminded me how we snogged after a boat ride and that she'd had a great time. But she ended up ghosting as her dad died and she needed to sort things out.

Fair enough but... I fucked it, I had no idea on how to proceed with this information. I opted to ask her on a second date - yeah, I suggested tomorrow before the rain hits, no, she wanted more time. I said to let me know when she was free then and if I should stick to a nautical theme as the kiss was great last time. She unmatched me.

Feels like I've fucked my weekend from there really. I contend that it was an impossible situation though, she clearly fancied me but also the first date no longer counted but you can't really go back to pre-date chatter, especially as I didn't quite remember much about her at all. It was the Kabyashu Maru scenario of internet dating.

>>36674

Sounds like it's a her problem. You've internalised whatever impossible standards as a man it has become normalised to hold you to in dating. You shouldn't.

Which one of you was saying you've gone from drought to... The opposite of draught recently? Because the same has happened to me. Two new matches on Bumble, one on Hinge and also the bird who's a bit too fat for me to conscionably date but always wants to shag is after it again.

>>36676

Start of cuffing season innit.

>the bird who's a bit too fat for me to conscionably date but always wants to shag is after it again

We'll have her.

>>36676
Buy her some Mounjaro?

>>36629
Two-weeks later and I'm back at it. Maybe she'll have some more depth over coffee.

Went out with an Australian woman last weekend and still we have nothing in common. No shared interests or deeper connection, she's into reality tv, sitcoms (Friends) and celebrity gossip. Her dating profile said that she loved museums and collecting pottery but it turned out to be shallow interests - she buys pottery. Awfully slow to reach for her purse as well but I assumed that things are just different in Oz.

All I want for Christmas is an attractive woman with a rich inner life.

>>36688

>attractive woman with a rich inner life

Can't have your cake and eat it too, I'm afraid.

>>36689
I could. I could if I wasn't ugly and poor and boring.

I have a video-call tomorrow evening. I've never done one of these before but she's the president of a major bank subsidiary. She's attractive, wants to find someone to start a family with now that she's done her career and I've been doing okay so far despite making it clear that I'm more work/life balance focused and showing her pictures of cute nature stuff on my walks. She seems to like the childish fun.

I'm having kittens and will probably die horribly at this. But I also need to work out how to do calls on my personal laptop using Whatsapp which I've never done before which has put me back down to the computer literacy of my dad. I have since discovered that there is no means to do a test call and no features of softening or dealing with artificial lighting like with other video applications I use for work. Which is unfortunate as I have to do a call at night.

This can't be it, surely? I don't want to videocall my mum to test the settings. Why is Whatsapp doing this to me.

>>36717
It's video chat built for the general public in current year, you'll figure it out immediately. Just have a few light sources around, start with the lowest and move them up until you look washed out then squint like it's in your eyes before turning it down.

>>36717
Are you being interviewed and vetted for a potential date?

>>36719
I think that's what it was, a vibe check to save each others time. I've heard some horror stories over the years with guys giving one-word answers (So what do you like? "football") or letting women know they want to have a baby within a year.

Anyway I did it and I thought it went well. It soon fell into my natural working from home aura of absolute bullshit after we both got over jitters. She's in the UK for the next 3 years and then has to make a choice on staying, my lesson is to jump right into it because you'll both be feeling incredibly awkward.