The first few dates are not about finding a romantic connection most times. Usually its about getting to know the basics to figure out if you two actually have anything in common or if its just superficial or if there is no connection at all. A connection on a first date means nothing. I've felt strong connections on tons of first dates and they have all ended with a break up.

This is the core of my problem. I kept saying shit like that. I couldn't get out of my own head.

We had sex. So we have to have a safe sex talk. No questions there, I believe strongly in communication. But the problem is that the safe sex talk led to talking about other partners, which led to talking about our own relationship. And people these days hate the world "relationship," they're allergic to it. I use that word in the most literal sense, the connection between two people. In the future I'm going to say "connection" instead of "relationship" so I don't scare people off.

I hate being meta. I hate having to talk about "where we are," "how do you feel about us," that stuff should just be understood if it's going well, or brought up in the case of problems. But my problem is that I could never just accept it, I was so nervous and anxious that I KEPT BRINGING IT UP, of course she's going to get scared! I might as well have proposed marriage day two.

My advice is to stop giving a fuck. Stop observing everything as its happening. Stop giving labels to everything around you. Stop trying to quantify things that you enjoy and just enjoy them. Stop trying to judge good things and put pressure on everything.

I thought I had learned this lesson. But this girl was on another level, and I turned into a different person, and I lost it. And that made me lose everything.

This is the right advice. Thank you.