I wasn't sure if I should post this in the Men's ADD section or in this section so this section is the lucky winner.

My name is Rob and I live in North Central Texas. I am 36 and was diagnosed with ADD before summer last year (2003). I chose to seek help after reading various information on ADD / ADHD which seemed to explain a lot of things about me, going as far back as grade school. Actually, my grades didn't suffer until I was in 7th grade. I would daydream a lot and would catch myself reading the same paragraphs over and over again after my mind would wander. I had trouble taking notes and remembering anything that was verbally spouted out to me. My friends and family would tell me how smart I was and that I can express myself the best through writing, yet I had to struggle to finish anything and never felt like I was getting anywhere with my life. I still do not have a college degree because I usually end up dropping the classes I have no interest in or fall behind in. I have 3 older sisters who have all graduated from college...one with a master's degree. I sometimes feel like a poster child for underachievement. :p

Relationships are another story. I seem to stall myself and don't get out to meet enough people or ask many women to go out on dates. My two best friends want me to put an ad on Match.com but I have hesitated doing so. The only reason for this is that I don't feel like I've achieved a level of success that is acceptable as a quality that most women are looking for. I have always wanted to accomplish great things but my life has not worked out that way up to this point. In fact, I am currently living in my parent's home helping to take care of my father after he suffered a mild stroke last year. While I don't apologize for this situation, it's still a situation that most women frown on...still living with mommy and daddy. I am confident that I can function well in a relationship if I can just let go and get beyond these obstacles and find someone who will love me and accept me for who I am. I am actually very caring and try to be as attentive as I can for someone with ADD. I guess what I am saying is that in addition to feeling unsuccessful, I am also feeling extremely lonely which I believe has been induced by my ADD problem. One day I would love to have my own family and that is something huge that is missing from my life right now. I feel time ticking out.

More than anything, I would just like to start over again in life, knowing what I know now, and make the most out of a second chance. I am thankful there are others in these forums that can offer advice and some sort of help. Thank you.

An understanding, compassionate woman would respect you for taking care of your father; that's actually an admirable quality! Lucky you; it will help to weed out the gold diggers and social climbers. Good luck, and welcome!

Match.com and similar places - just go for it! You'll be able to share your thoughts and feelings about relationships and life in general with people who don't judge you by the way you carry yourself in a smoky room filled with drunk people! (it does help if you like/are good at express yourself in writing, of course..).

From my experience, there's a lot of serious, sensitive, sensible people around on the internet. What might happen is you end up finding someone a little bit too much like yourself. This happened to me, I met a fellow ADDer, and we just clash and clash and clash, while at the same time having complete confidence in each other, while at the same time distrusting each other as soon as we get stuck in an ADD loop.

But I disgress (surprise! :p). The point is, you don't sell your soul by trying this match.com thing out. Just try and whip up a straightforward, open ad. Don't try to figure out what to write by looking at the women's ads. If you want to get some sort of feel for what to write - look at the men's ads instead. With all the reflective thinking you've been doing about your life, I'm sure you can do much better than a lot of them in conveying who you are and what you're after!

If nothing else, you'll get female penpals to "try out" your thoughts and theories about yourself on.

best
/M

Rob.
I responded to a companions wanted ad in the newspaper nearly twenty years ago. I don't even buy newspapers ... too much bad news!..heh

Making the long story short - I'm married to her and enjoying three smart and beautiful daughters. The trick according to my wife was to know yourself quite well and to be very specific in your request.

I have not been to match.com but it sounds like the same kind of idea. It can work.. I'm living proof. < g >

Easy does it. Ian.

Rob,
First of all, I was also diagnosed with adhd late in life and your right it's nice to know I wasn't crazy lol.
But, let me tell you something you talk in your thread about wanting to accomplish great things about graduating college because this is what women want. Well, guess what,,,I'm a woman. And you are wrong!!!! lol
My husband is a layworker in a factory and is 13 years older then me. The reason I married him is because he is sensitive and attentive and makes me feel beautiful when I see myself thru him.
You already show the qualities that it takes to make a wonderful husband and father,,,not many men would put their lives on hold to help take care of your parent's--GOD BLESS YOU.
Dont live your life by someone else's expectations first you must learn to love yourself the rest will follow.
Hugs and good luck Cherity

I have advice for you Rob that a lot of people are not going to agree with.

You have an advantage here that you may not be thinking about. That advantage is called math.

Not everybody knows this but the human race is actually only 48% male, and 52% female. Additionally, females live longer statistically than males do.

What this means, as some of our less fortunate women here at the forums have discovered, is that the further in life you get, the more the single women tend to outnumber the single men. And of the single women who are left, many of them become more and more desperate to be with someone, and less and less interested in playing hard to get...

Now... I am not advocating being a jerk to these poor souls... but let me tell you from a bargaining standpoint, this is NOT the time for you to lower your OWN standards. And when you do get into a relationship, make it clear up front who you are, and what you are willing to change about yourself, and what you don't particularly want to change about yourself. (I think these are good ideas in ANY relationship, but especially in your situation.)

The only thing that may work against you is unattached women this age may also be desperate to have kids VERY SOON. Kids aren't a bad thing, but you need to be sure you can support them, and right now you want to go to school and build your career... marriage and kids right now will completely destroy any focus or momentum you are trying to build in that direction.

Just my 2 cents (1 cent American).

Your plan is excellant. Just make one slight alteration and things will go great.

Instead of starting form a mythical spot that is not where you are but thinkiyou could maybe be if....

Start over from right where you are, and forget "being" where you want to be and live with "heading toward" where you want to be from right where you are.

How does that sound?

I have read and re-read every person's comment and advice in this thread and I sincerely appreciate the wisdom and the words.

As of this moment, I am back in college taking 12 credit hours of classes and getting closer to that seemingly elusive Bachelor's Degree. I am hoping that I can get through all the low stimulus reading that is required and not get behind as I previously have.

I guess we all have our challenges to overcome and I certainly appreciate everyone's viewpoint here. Thank you. I will definitely be around.

I wish you the very best, Rob. Come back and let us know how you're doing...and if you need ADD Coaching...we can help with that too!

Hang in there. It took me almost 20 years to get a BA.

at least you arent starting over at 1.....that would seem like a life time ( I am sorry people....I am hooked on one liners today...I cant stop it....)

Well... Hello!!! :D I'm also in the starting over part of my life and looking as well. Its tough for me I know for many men find me too hyper or clever for their tastes.. alas. But stay confident for there is someone out there for you. I feel the same way towards myself. I wish you the best :)

Originally posted by Keppig
... many men find me too hyper or clever for their tastes.. alas...

/me wonders what the hell other men have wrong with them these days...

Rob, I'm about to do you a HUGE favor. Since we will probably never meet, and thus enable you to thank me, feel free to help someone else when they need it and count any debt or gratitude you might feel repaid. (NOTE; I'm not looking for anything from this, I consider it my privilege to be able to help, [God certainly doesn't need my help to get anything done...] I'm just helping to spread the joy I've found around...)

My advice to you which will probably change your life is this-
Get yourself involved in the phillipina community- there are many advantages to this- their culture is such that they live with their parents until marriage, (actually many of them, in the phillipines at least, because of the scarcity of housing and depressed economy, still live with parents even after marriage) and are VERY warm and caring and it is quite common that the entire family will live together their entire lives, meaning that they care for their parents as you're doing right now.

There is of course good and bad in every culture, but in general, they understand that the size of your wallet is not what defines you as a person as it does to americans. They come from a country where just about EVERYONE is broke, so they look a lot deeper than (most) Americans do at your character, not what you've managed to achieve, or would like to if circumstances had turned out differently. As for character, it sounds like you're doing just fine.

And hey, it could be worse- you could be down on your luck in California, where people are REALLY superficial. I've worked in Texas (Dallas) for a year, and the people there are MUCH nicer than in California. But they're still American, and raised in our culture, and they will always have it in the back of their minds (just as we as men ourselves do- that we'd like to be more successful than we are, no matter how successful we are now, that our defining role is that of breadwinner, and the better you are at that, the better a man you are) that they can "do better".

The sad truth is that there are a lot more women single because of this mindset.

A lot of phillipino people come here to do in-home care, just as you're doing right now- I assume your family is not able to afford to hire someone, but you could perhaps go to an agency and ask what the costs would be, maybe so that you could go back to work, and that would be a better proposition in some respect? The point is to meet some philipinos. However. Doesn't matter how.

Maybe just go to a phillipino bar (kareoke!?) or restaraunt or whatever. Or just get a learn tagalog disc from the library and strike up conversations with whatever phillipinos you may run into in everyday life. Heck, you don't need an excuse, they're very friendly, in a strange land, some with no friends or family nearby, the point is you won't be rejected. An unfriendly phillipino is almost a contradiction in terms.

And it doesn't even matter if they're not your type, or you date them and they turn out not to be your type- they will set you up with their friends, cousins, etc, etc. Yes, philipinos are a wonderful people.

Wow, I do get going don't I? ;p

Thanks for noticing me, Paul :D

Noticing? Heck, if either of us respected marriage less than we both do, I'd be totally hitting on you all over this forum... :D :D :D

*covers eyes*

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted here. I lost my dad in March of last year and ended up moving closer to my mom to help her out. I had to drop my college courses again because I got behind after all this occurred. I think I have thrown more money away towards education than the average individual.

To seperate myself from the harshness of real life, I absorbed myself in an online computer game called Everquest. When Everquest 2 came out, I subscribed to it. When I heard the buzz on a game called World of Warcraft, I had to check that out. Right now, I subscribe to 3 MMORPGs and have personal friends who play in all 3. This is how I ended up spending my time because it's simply turned out to be more fun dealing with this than it is dealing with real life at 37.

Yet, on the other side of the coin, there is an awareness of going nowhere and accomplishing nothing. My brain is stimulated by this online 3D world.

In complete honesty, nothing has really changed for me since last year. In fact, it's probably got a little worse. I probably do need an ADD Coach but not sure if I can afford it. It's sort of "Catch 22". My life is very discouraging at the moment, but I'm sure there are others who are worse off than I am.

Thanks for listening.

Hey Rob...

I read your posts and all the other's(some of which were pretty interesting and some I didn't agree with)...I'm similar to you(35) and the last five years of my life or so have been a real struggle. I moved from the Bay Area to Sacramento... since then I have had relationship problems(lived with two women) money issues(haven't had a full time job in over 2 1/2 years more than a few months), etc, etc...I like you, have no BA degree, but I'm currently in school trying to get one...FINALLY after such a long time, I landed a job in Probation(as a on-call assistant without benefits but at least its a start). As soon as I finish my Criminal Justice degree I will be able to apply for a Deputy Probation Officer, that is my goal right now..Its been very hard the most of my working adult life, because I have felt like kind of a failure, usually not working, having no money, relying on my parents for money to pay the bills, very embarassing! this in turn caused a lot of realtionship problems/isssus with women(it also doesn't help that I sometimes have a temper!)..

My advice is to get some help for your ADD..I saw a coach for a few months last year and that helped me..I'm not so sure about all the medicine that is out there, didn't seem to work for me(just made me feel really weird most of the time) but it does seem to help some adults...as far as women goes, I wouldn't worry about them to much(beleive me, easier said than done)..I'm in the same situation as you, single, not dating anyone...sometimes its really hard cause I would love to find someone get married, have some kids...but I realize I HAVE to take care of myself and once I do that then I can focus more of my attention on meeting a female....oh yeah, Match.com...I would NOT recommend it..I tried it several years back...lots of werid, freaky women(I met at least 10-15 on dates) and didn't find one that was worth going out with more than a few times...maybe you will have better luck though..I would suggest doing some charity stuff, joining a group, etc for meeting a women.

take care!

Rob,
I agree with Cameron, find some things that you love to do and volunteer or join groups to meet other people (women). I have heard that eharmony.com is good because of the detailed questionaire that everyone fills out. I haven't had to try it because I re-married shortly after it came out.
A few words of encouragement- My husband was 43 when we married. I met him through volunteering at his place of work. He had his life come to an abrupt halt 5 years before and he was trying to rebuild his life even though he had not finished any college. He did not expect to find anyone at that age. We have been married for 4 1/2 years and are moving foreward together. You are never too old to find a loving partner.
Remember, life is lived just one day at a time. Don't let yesterday and tomorrow overwhelm your today.