I only attract fairly disturbed creeps

[MitchierInge]

what if this is an immutable fact rather than a series of misjudged sexual events?

it is all very well having sex with myself and I'm not particularly keen on cohabiting or some other full on relationship but it makes me SAD :(

Work on your own wholesomeness

is there a self help book for that?

Not that I know of! But, if you want to attract wholesome men, you do need to be wholesome yourself. Study the wholesome couples you know and copy.

The clue might be in the last paragraph? I've been musing lately about why I attract emotionally unavailable folk, and I think it's because on some level ironically they are safe, because I find the idea of a cosy living together kind of setup quite scary and it's not something I crave. So I end up with people who make that easier - not having it, I mean.
Dunno, just my thoughts.

what on earth does wholesome mean?

how do I copy a couple, take it in turns to emulate one half one day and the other person the next? confused!

yes it could be the unavailability, although I had sort of convinced myself I would like a more traditional (as in sharing my life) set up recently

not for long though

I suppose various of my behaviours could be improved and steered in a more wholesome direction, less sex with self, more reading

Copy the behaviours/lifestyle of their couple/family. If you don't know what wholesome means, therein might lie part of the problem .

If you are having sex with yourself a lot, you are probably very bored. You need to engage your imagination with something else. Books could be a good start, but hardly sufficient.

I don't know what you mean so you must be right.

There is nothing inherently unwholesome about most of my interests (apart from chain smoking and masturbating). They do not really explain why weirdoes zero in on me.

I just want an at least partially normal man to have fun, affectionate sex with. Also to talk to etc. and ski with in the winter. It is not much to ask.

I think what Bonsoir is getting at is that you have to know what values you prioritise and be prepared to act accordingly. If you like unavailable men with a hint of danger and a track record of infidelity, you will get more of the same. If you like physical good looks to the point where you don't care about personality, ditto. I'm not saying good looking men can't be attractive, or indeed wholesome, just that often people who say 'why do I attract creeps?' really know the answer, as the signs of creepiness are usually staring them in the face.

Taking time to get to know someone, getting to know their back story, seeing how they treat their friends/relations/others, listening to what other say about them, these all help you suss out the ones who just present well from the ones who are really nice. I don't get why this means giving up sex, you could have uncommitted sex with nice people instead of nasty ones, more just to tune your antenna in to the signals that people give you, wittingly or unwittingly (some of my friends literally have stuck their fingers in their ears singing 'la, la, la' when the warning signs are deafening them).

Chain smoking and a lot of masturbation are addictive behaviours, normally an indicator that something deep-seated is not being dealt with. What are the phantoms in your closet...?

Fidelity and availability are not good things though, they often mean = insecure, unhealthily attached to you, want to know your every move, expect you to meet their every need and be exclusively theirs

am worried there is something about me (those phantoms maybe) that makes quite normal people turn weird, this is irrational isn't it?

We all attract weirdos. It's up to us not to hook up with them. Really, I should take my own advice

MicherInge, no wonder you are vulnerable and end up with creeps if you don't think a) being available in the first place and b) fidelity, or agreed boundaries between the two of you about who you sleep with, are important. I think your model of relationships is not very healthy, if you think these qualities denote some type of suffocating dependence.

If you don't want exclusivity, you don't have to have it. You could have a mutually respectful polyamorous relationship or no-strings sex. But creeps are best avoided, whichever relationship form you go for, and given you can't tell for looking who is a creep, it makes sense to get to know people first/in their different life situations. Otherwise, you are rolling a dice (which obviously hasn't been successful for you recently).

I would go for counselling, I think it's really helpful sometimes to hear yourself saying things out loud. What do your friends think?

You want affectionate sex, skiing and talking. But you make no mention of love, commitment, friendship - do you want to have this emotional connection?

Take your finger off the self-destruct button, Mitch.

If you're attracted to mad, bad, and dangerous to know there's no point in trying to change your preference overnight to wholesome as mom's apple pie with a cowlick.

The answer is to seek out those boy-next-door types and corrupt them gently encourage them to explore their darker sides with you, either on or off the piste

"Fidelity and availability are not good things though, they often mean = insecure, unhealthily attached to you, want to know your every move, expect you to meet their every need and be exclusively theirs"

Mitch - who taught you that?. Are you describing one of your parents here?

What on earth did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?. What sort of example did your own parents set?.

Mitch is absolutely right, though. If you are not interested in monogamy, the last thing you want is to get involved with a monogamist.
Mitch, I don't know what age group you are but it could be that you are looking in the wrong places for men to have NSA fun and sex with. The older you get, the more tricky it becomes to meet men in your general social round who are not either engaged in monogamous relationships or just out of one and therefore bitter whinyarses.

hm interesting, thanks everyone, yes obviously not had entirely healthy early role models or best possible experiences with own relationships

not really looking, things just happen, you know, when you meet someone, but I seem to have a special flair for meeting quite disturbing people - unless they are normal and I make them horrible?

maybe I should do more active looking and less serendipitous shagging?

I'm not entirely anti-monogamy, it's a bridge to cross when you get there isn't it? It's the early insistence on it that is a bit inappropriate. How do you know until you've got to know each other a bit?

I like the idea of corrupting a nice man, I like it a lot.

actually it's not even true, I do attract quite nice men sometimes but they either have horrible new houses or are not very exciting or interesting enough to have sex with

I'm 40 SGB (41 TOMORROW) and trying to stick to own age group, with success, just need to fine tune the marital status and weed out the coke heads, those who want to poo on me etc and will be almost there

I know of someone who makes shedloads a sizeable tax-free income from being pooed on while she lies under her large reinforced glass coffee table

Think corruption, honey; that's the way to go. Search the hidden inner depths of those nice men and get them to move to horrible old houses

I do sympathise. I only attracted quite horrible men for ages. And I only really liked blokes who had visible neuroses and/or drug and/or alcohol habits and/or wives already. Wholesomeness is quite wearing, really. Quite by accident I ended up with Mr Inferior, who manages to be not too wholesome while also wanting to be nice to me .

There's only so much tedium apple pie a gal can handle, mother, and I'm glad to learn of the happy outcome of your accident..

Get those skis on and go break a leg, Mitch