Why do I keep losing momentum with girls I actually like?

TL;DR: Met a girl I genuinely liked, things started really well, then her energy slowly faded and I ended it. But I think what’s affecting me more is the feeling that I can never seem to hold someone’s interest for long.

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I (23M) matched a girl (21F) on Hinge at the end of March and for the first time in a while I felt genuinely excited about someone. The first two dates were great. Easy chemistry, loads of attraction, loads of talking. It felt very natural very quickly.

I don’t catch feelings easily at all, to the point where I’ve genuinely questioned whether I even really experience them properly sometimes, but something about her got to me almost immediately.

At the end of the second date I handled something badly and left earlier than she expected. She was annoyed, understandably. I apologised properly and she accepted it, so I thought we’d move past it.

But after that her energy completely changed.

Replies slowed down massively, conversations became one-sided, and making plans started feeling like pulling teeth. I kept trying to give her the benefit of the doubt because she was busy with uni stuff, travelling soon, and still replying, just inconsistently. But deep down I could feel the shift happening.

As this Sunday got closer she still hadn’t properly confirmed plans with me, and after weeks of this hot and cold dynamic I just hit a point where I couldn’t keep sitting in uncertainty anymore.

So I ended it.

I basically told her that it didn’t feel like this was progressing, that our communication styles seemed very different, and that it was probably best to leave things there.

She responded well. Said she’d actually been thinking about bringing it up herself, and that she didn’t think what we both wanted really aligned given her plans to travel and live abroad. She agreed with what I said and said she enjoyed getting to know me.

So realistically I know I probably made the right decision, but part of me still wonders whether I acted too emotionally or too rash by ending it before seeing her again one last time. Do you think I was right to end it when I did?

But if I’m being honest, what’s stayed with me isn’t even really losing her specifically. It’s the feeling underneath it.

Every time something like this happens it chips away at my confidence a bit more because I never fully understand why it changed.

I know I’m not ugly. I know I’m not a bad person. I know I can hold conversations and make good first impressions. But somewhere between the initial excitement and something becoming real, things seem to fall apart, and I never fully know what I’m doing wrong.

That’s the part that messes with my head.

Because when you can’t pinpoint the problem, eventually you start picking apart everything about yourself instead.

I find myself constantly wondering what other guys seem to have that I don’t. I’ll see girls move on from situations like this and end up in proper relationships not long after, and I can’t help comparing myself and wondering what those guys are giving them that I seem unable to.

I’ve even tried putting on different personas before because I thought maybe I needed to act differently to keep someone interested. But I can’t sustain that long term, and I don’t want a relationship where I can’t even be myself properly.

But then when I am myself and it still doesn’t work, it’s hard not to internalise that too.

And honestly, this is the kind of thing I find weirdly embarrassing to talk about in real life because logically I know this wasn’t even a long relationship. It was only a couple of dates. But emotionally it still affected me more than I expected it to.

I think what scares me most is not struggling to attract people initially, but struggling to maintain emotional momentum once the novelty wears off.

Has anyone else gone through this kind of cycle where each failed talking stage starts affecting your self-worth more than the actual rejection itself?