OK, I'm on my umpteenth attempt to find someone for a relationship (and I have been in several long-term relationships, but it's been a while since the last one and almost all of them were more of the "settling" type of relationship in that for each one we had almost nothing in common). I try personal ads, specify what my basic interests are, and no one pays any attention to what I write. In the past I ended up with people where I was always doing what they liked to do because we otherwise had almost no common interests and they weren't willing to do the things I like to do. And now it's happening yet again.
I met a man about a month ago and I could tell we probably had nothing in common but he seemed "nice". He implied he would call me to get together to see a movie and he never called, so last week I texted him because I thought maybe I was giving off a vibe that I wasn't interested and I thought I should at least give it a chance. He invited me over for dinner on Christmas and I realized there are things about him I don't like as far as his point of view on certain things, beside having basically nothing in common (yet again). I didn't plan on seeing him again, but he called me tonight and invited me for dinner again tomorrow. I have a hard time making decisions as it is, but I decided to say yes and see how it goes one more time, just in case. Right before he called, I decided I was going to stop looking for someone for the time being and try to work on being happy alone even if I'm alone forever (and my parents had a horrible marriage, also with nothing in common, but they never divorced and were married for a very long time - my father was the one who was extremely unhappy though, which caused my mother to be unhappy).
So any advice on how to be happy alone and not settle for a relationship where I have nothing in common with the other person and either wind up doing everything they like only or going places by myself even though I'm in a so-called "relationship"? What makes it even worse is a good number of the people I grew up with are in long-term happy marriages or relationships (or so they say), so that makes me feel even more "defective".
I met a man about a month ago and I could tell we probably had nothing in common but he seemed "nice". He implied he would call me to get together to see a movie and he never called, so last week I texted him because I thought maybe I was giving off a vibe that I wasn't interested and I thought I should at least give it a chance. He invited me over for dinner on Christmas and I realized there are things about him I don't like as far as his point of view on certain things, beside having basically nothing in common (yet again). I didn't plan on seeing him again, but he called me tonight and invited me for dinner again tomorrow. I have a hard time making decisions as it is, but I decided to say yes and see how it goes one more time, just in case. Right before he called, I decided I was going to stop looking for someone for the time being and try to work on being happy alone even if I'm alone forever (and my parents had a horrible marriage, also with nothing in common, but they never divorced and were married for a very long time - my father was the one who was extremely unhappy though, which caused my mother to be unhappy).
So any advice on how to be happy alone and not settle for a relationship where I have nothing in common with the other person and either wind up doing everything they like only or going places by myself even though I'm in a so-called "relationship"? What makes it even worse is a good number of the people I grew up with are in long-term happy marriages or relationships (or so they say), so that makes me feel even more "defective".