Dear Dr. NerdLove,
I’m a college student who semi-recently ended the only relationship I have ever been in. After taking a few months to recover, I have gotten over my old relationship, which started in high school. Recently, now that I am single, I am getting a lot of attention from guys, both from ones that I am attracted to and not attracted to. I have ended up in a predicament in which I feel like I have at least three guys (but generally more) contacting me any given day. The guys can generally be categorized as:

1. Guy I had no initial attraction to, but due to not wanting to be seen as shallow, have wanted to reciprocate in case they are actually really cool dudes who are actually my soulmates who would grow on me in time (my ex boyfriend I was not initially very attracted to but after dating him for a while I fell for him)
2. Guy I am not attracted to and have been trying to kindly reject but are generally not getting the hint
3. Guy I am attracted to and he is attracted to me

The second category of guys is the largest for me. Most of these guys I have assumed were interested in a friendship, and only later I have realized they wanted to talk to me because they were attracted to me. The problem is, they are really nice guys and my attempts at telling them that I only see them as friends can go over their heads, no matter how explicit I think I’m being.

The first category I unfortunately lead on for the early stages of my post-breakup life. I assumed men I was attracted to would not ever feel the same way about me and that it would be shallow to not give people a chance based on first impressions. I don’t know how to reject someone after giving them a chance, so it stresses me out whenever I receive a message from or talk to a guy from this category.

The third category of guys stresses me out a lot because of two reasons:

1. I think they are only looking to hook up or they actually are only looking to hook up
2. I think they lose interest or they actually lose interest

I am anxious to go out with guys I am attracted to because I think they are just going to try to sleep with me instead of get to know me more (because they often are). When it comes to actually hanging out with these guys, I generally procrastinate doing so because situations like that make me uncomfortable. If I do actually get up the courage to meet these men, they either lose interest or I think they lose interest and I decide to instead meet some new attractive men to date. Sometimes, however, the guy who I thought lost interest actually didn’t and later contacts me but I already have a guy who I also like too.

My phone keeps blowing up from way too many messages every day, and all I want is to have one guy who I like message me and show me interest and that he actually want to get to know me before giving me a tour of his bedroom. How do I get myself out of this mess I’ve made myself?

Too Much of A Weird Thing

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