Problem finding a partner

[steel_lady]

I feel like I am just lost for years and there is no hope for me to find a right partner. I am 30, doing a doctorate in science and I have been through a lot in my life. I developed love for heavy metal music which provides for me an escape where I can let it go and enjoy. It is not just the music, it is a life philosophy. On the other hand, I have a lot of interests in intellectual topics. All this turns out to be a problem for finding a partner. People around me at work, that I can share ideas with, do not attract me at all on other level. They are all nerdy, complicated and conservative and apart that I am not attracted to them, I do not like the way how interpersonal relationships are developed. They can be very romantic but I see that kind of romanticism as socially learned romanticism and I find it repulsive. I have good friends among them but I am not interested for more and they just do not understand that other part of me... Right now I am engaged in a relationship with very attractive guy from the 'heavy' world. A strong bond of primitive loyalty, a lot of sex and physical attraction, music and romanticism on some other level. And of course, I miss that intellectual aspect. And he is not accepted in the other nerdy world where I am very criticized for this relationship. I was trying for years to find a partner with a profile similar like mine but my search is hopeless. I can not change and for me a relationship with such a compromise is not a relationship. How to be happy?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Perhaps it's not a matter of you having to change but more one of you "looking for love in all the wrong places", as the pop song from a few years ago said.

I find it difficult to believe that there are no men with similar tastes in music/lifestyle who are not also intellectual and/or academic (I can tell you that my sons are or were at one time interested in metal music, even playing in metal bands, but that doesn't stop them from having a variety of other interests, including science). But it may be difficult to find them at heavy metal concerts or clubs. Perhaps you need to find them among your fellow students - or friends of your fellow students.

One of the things I have suggested to people in the past is to put your energy into seeking friends rather than relationships - expanding your social network. The more people you know and the more people they know, the more likely it is that you will find your "Mr. Right".

 

[steel_lady]

I know more or less 350 persons that are working in my institution. 2 of them have same interests and are both married. I forgot to say that I live in isolated tropical place with very unfriendly climate for this kind of interests. Occasionally I take the plane ticket to the continent to see some concerts though it might not be, as you say, the best place to find the kind of people I am looking for. I am aware how friendships can pass to relationships. You grow more and more feelings to people who you are close with. But it was not enough for me. After I broke that kind of relationships, I was sad because they didn't want to return to friendship and I was relieved because I was free again to enjoy things, at least alone, I was missing in relationship with them.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I wasn't necessarily talking about friendships growing into relationships. I was talking about friendships leading you into contact with other new people (i.e., people your friends know but you have not yet met) with whom a relationship might be possible - expanding your social network and increasing the number of potential relationship partners.