I Get Lonely Too

In the words of Drake, I get lonely too.

Lately, I feel incompetent as a female.  Like a hungry female lion that grew up in a zoo and doesn't know how to hunt.  I feel stupid for not having this skill that seems so innate to others.  I'm frustrated with myself and I know that from the outside, it looks pitiful too.  A starving lion that seemingly has all the tools and resources to be gorging on human flesh.  If only I knew how to hunt.

My love life is laughable at this point.  Part of it is me being unaware of social norms.  Like a male might call me beautiful and rather than take it as a compliment, my gut reaction is to cringe or out of discomfort ignore the comment altogether.  Albeit, it doesn't help that the only guys that do make such forthright comments seem way older than me or much younger.  Their forwardness always catches me off guard, and I just wonder, "What do you want from me?"

Another question.  If a guy likes your instagram post and he's the first "like", does that have any special significance?  Is it something like the equivalent of a guy walking across the gym floor to ask you for your first dance?  Or if a  guy uses affectionate emoticons like winky faces or emojis with heart eyes in texts, that doesn't automatically mean he likes you, does it?

I dismissed such behavior in the past, because I thought, surely if a guy liked me, he'd make sure I knew it. So, I never did respond positively or enthusiastically to such things.  And they stopped.  It just makes me wonder, was I being very dense or were they just toying with me?  Perhaps I'm overthinking the whole thing, but I really don't know how to navigate/understand romance in the digital age.  And online dating? That's an entirely other can of worms I don't think I'm prepared to open.