Hi Reddit. Sorry if this is a little rambly or all over the place - I just need a bit of advice!
There's not really one specific example that lends itself to my question so I'm going to have to be a bit more general - please ask me any follow up questions needed :)
To start, it's important to note my physical stature as I think it's part of the problem. I'm just under 6'2" and about 165lbs - so obviously VERY tall and not waif-thin either. I work out and like to think I could, I don't know, fight back if I were getting mugged or stop an armed bank robber with my bare hands or something (joking, obviously). The point is that I 'm a pretty big girl so I think this is adding to my problem.
Basically, the problem is that the guys I talk to all start to see me as "one of the guys" within a month or two of dating. Now I know this isn't an overarching "kiss of death" in every relationship, but in my experience it has been. The guy will stop putting literally any effort in, and I'll have to plan 100% of everything if, for example, I want to eat something besides leftover Jack in the Box tacos that have been in his refrigerator for lord knows how long. That's a REAL example, and it happened not a month after that exact same guy had been planning gorgeous dates for us to trendy restaurants. And I had paid for half of the bill on all of our dates! It's not like I was asking him to pick up some huge financial burden. I had planned dates for us too, but when it was "his turn", the nights changed from romantic candlelit dinners to doing literally nothing in his living room real fast.
Another example is hanging out watching movies/tv - at the beginning of a new relationship it will be romcoms and cute things that we can snuggle to, but inevitably within a month once the guy sees me as "one of the bros" it becomes South Park reruns or even me watching him play video games. I'll put up a fight and ask to watch a romcom/something more romantic, and be met with "but you love South Park!" And I'm like "ugh I totally regret telling you that - yes I love South Park when I'm at home high as balls eating Cheetos in my underwear, but we just started talked literally 4 weeks ago so do you think we can put the old married couple thing on hold for a little?!"
The truth is that I AM kind of one of the guys within my friend group, which is pretty evenly split gender-wise. I'll get invited to stuff that the other girls don't get invited to - e.g. watching the NCAA championship most recently - because I actually love watching sports, whereas the other girls would have been bored outta their gourds (they were glad they weren't invited haha). But when I'm talking to a new guy romantically, I don't want to be one of the bros! I want a little romance! I totally understand that it goes both ways and I definitely do my fair share of romancing too, but it's just so frustrating when I've been talking to a guy for 5-6 weeks and he'll invite me over and when I show up (with makeup and hair done - cause ya know we're newly talking) he's wearing stained basketball shorts and a torn t-shirt and he hasn't showered in 3 days. I'm like ooooookay I guess we're not going anywhere today...
I don't know. Am I being unreasonable? This has happened to me like 8 or 10 times in the last 2 years so it's gotta be something I'm doing. My girlfriends (who I'm fairly sure I'm on the same level with appearance-wise at least) have these guys who bring them flowers and take them on little trips and do weekly date nights. I somehow keep finding these guys that just want to treat me like I'm one of the homies!
I'm really not asking to be swept off my feet but just a little effort for more than 4 weeks would be nice. I see people on here saying the "honeymoon period" lasts for the first year or so, and I'm like - I don't even know how to make it last longer than 30 days! I'm really chill personality-wise but do I need to start faking it a little bit to get guys to see me as more girly? I wear acrylic nails, have eyelash extensions, dress mostly feminine - I'm not giving off some total tomboy vibe here. I just also happen to love camping, hiking, lifting, sports, cars to some extent...do I need to hide that kind of stuff early on to come across more girly? It really is getting frustrating and I feel awful because I've had to break it off with literally at least 8 guys in the last couple years because once the romance is gone I'm totally checked out. There's only so much one-sided effort I can put in.
To note: MANY of these guys have reached out to me after I broke it off wanting to rekindle/meet back up, so I'm fairly certain it's not a lack of attraction. They literally just start seeing me as a bro and forget that we're newly dating and that there needs to be some effort on both sides.
tl;dr: I'm into some stereotypically "masculine" things but am otherwise fairly feminine. I keep getting into short-term relationships with guys who stop putting romantic effort in the moment they realize I'm not extremely "girly" or high maintenance, opting for chill nights over date nights 95% of the time. I'm fine with a chill relationship but this happens to me within 4 weeks every time. How do I stop the pattern?! I'd like to be treated like a romantic partner rather than a bro at least for a while longer!
Submitted April 17, 2017 at 06:07AM by tomboynomore http://ift.tt/2pnVHDh relationships
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