Is it self defeatist to say that some men are meant to be alone??‏

paddy1990

eric prydz wrote: »

They both mean the same to me,neither of which the op needs imo

I take it you're religious as well?

eric prydz

paddy1990 wrote: »

The bolded part is completely ridiculous and smacks of PUA rhetoric.

How do you know he can get one night stands and eventually get a girlfriend when on all known form he hasn't ever done this and has suicidal thoughts and a lot of social anxiety. And you don't even know what he looks like either.

Outrageous. This is the hopeful BS I'm talking about.

Why are you running down everyones else posts when they are trying to encourage the op live a happier life??

paddy1990 wrote: »

I take it you're religious as well?

WTF has that got to do with anything

paddy1990

eric prydz wrote: »

Why are you running down everyones else posts when they are trying to encourage the op live a happier life??

Delusion does not generally equal a happier life. One can be happy and realistic about where one is and where one is going.

To the OP, disregard what you have read. Only you will know what you can/will do. My advice would be to get yourself looking as good as you can. It's an extremely shallow world out there in the dating world. Get your body fat down, get healthy, get a good wardrobe and look the part as much as you can.

Then I'd be honest about whether I could go out and approach and get rejected a lot. That is a horrific way to go if you ask me and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to do it due to your social anxiety and so on but if you want to give it a go, go ahead. I would advise against it.

I would advise online dating just to see where you are/if its possible. Once you look as good as you can, you might be able to get some dates here and there. At least you'll know your level online.

At the same time I'd have you joining clubs and societies that you really want to join. Mountaineering, sports clubs, social clubs, volunteering etc, im sure you could come up with quite a few and these would be good ways to meet people of similar interests and get talking to men and women under a more natural setting, than the brutal cold approaching and rejection.

If you've done all that and are still really struggling and getting nowhere then you'd have to look at more drastic measures, which there are plenty of. But i'd give all that a go first.

Whether you actually have the willpower/desire/motivation/mentality/mental sanity to go through all that is questionable and to be honest if I was a betting man I'd say you don't and will be in the same position in 5 years.

However, good luck with it all OP.

Im out of the thread.

Mike747

paddy1990 wrote: »

The bolded part is completely ridiculous and smacks of PUA rhetoric.

How do you know he can get one night stands and eventually get a girlfriend when on all known form he hasn't ever done this and has suicidal thoughts and a lot of social anxiety. And you don't even know what he looks like either.

Outrageous. This is the hopeful BS I'm talking about.

Telling him to go out, take small steps, improve himself and know he's in it for the long haul is hopeful bs? Good one mate.

Your sole contribution has been to tell op not even to bother.

Y2KBOS86

Photographer and online dating OP.

Paddy is kinda of right that looks are very important at the start of a relationship, less so the longer it to goes on.

My advice is to have a session with a photographer, get a load of good pic's, pic's of you in casual wear, suit, at the beach, even with a nice girl etc.

They have to look realistic, use them on your profile and get professional help setting up a online dating profile too, will help loads.

If your normal looking their is no reason why can't get girls, it's up to you OP.

Make a choice and don't look back.

Putins Assassin

paddy1990 wrote: »

The bolded part is completely ridiculous and smacks of PUA rhetoric.

How do you know he can get one night stands and eventually get a girlfriend when on all known form he hasn't ever done this and has suicidal thoughts and a lot of social anxiety. And you don't even know what he looks like either.

Outrageous. This is the hopeful BS I'm talking about.

What exactly is ridiculous about it? Assuming the OP isn't ridiculously ugly or suffer from Asperger's or something he should be able to get very good at attracting the opposite sex within 6 months to a year with consistent approaching, interaction and flirting with women. I know men who are ugly who have no problem bedding hot men most nights they go out. I used to be fairly average at attracting women myself, but through practice and experience I've gotten a lot better. I enjoy approaching women now, it's exciting, it's fun. Through enough reference experiences you develop excellent social skills and the ability to empathise and read people very well. You recognise patterns and get better at knowing how to escalate an interaction sexually with a woman.

SharpshooterTom

paddy1990 wrote: »

Whether you actually have the willpower/desire/motivation/mentality/mental sanity to go through all that is questionable and to be honest if I was a betting man I'd say you don't and will be in the same position in 5 years.

However, good luck with it all OP.

Honestly Paddy I don't know what I'm capable of, its very difficult to gauge what is realistic and what is not at this moment. I've been socially phobic and avoidant of people through so much of adult life I've never really given myself much of a chance to be fair.

First things first is to change that, the core structure of my thinking and thought processes which were dealt with during therapy using CBT thus enabling me to get the tools so that I can begin to improve my social skills. That's first.

To go from that, to simply "getting a girlfriend" is a huge jump and maybe its unrealistic, at for least now.

Look being honest I want to look back on my life when I'm on my death bed and say I made it as fulfilling as possible, because we all only get one chance, so at least what I want to do is improve my social circle, that's the very least I want to do. I would like for the first time in my adult life to have a social life where I have companions and I can go out and do things/enjoy life and make it as fulfilling as possible. I really want a fvcking life basically, I'm sick and tired of my social phobia/self esteem/anxiety eating away at me to the point where I knew (or at least previously thought) I couldn't do anything about it and this was all it was going to be for me, no life, no friends, no sex life, death. When I was thinking like that, I didn't feel that was a life worth living and that I would rather die as simply 'living' at that point was becoming too painful. I didn't want my parents seeing my grow into an older creepy unhappy virgin, embarrassing them to the point where I felt if I was taking my life I was actually doing it 'honourably' and doing them a favour having this rather useless lump of sh!t mopping about it crying all the time.

If I die a virgin/never get a gf because I was too unappealing, then so be it, but I don't want to go through my whole adult life not having one entire friend, being lonely, being so withdrawn that I couldn't actually do anything fulfilling with my life.

You know you may be right, I'm sure I am probably odds on to never get a gf/die a virgin without use of a prostitute, and that's why I started the thread in the first place, are there simply some men who are so unappealing that they are meant to be forever alone? And your answer, as is mine, is yes, I do believe that. Now the key question is whether I am one of them - I don't know, but I don't like my chances to be honest.

But what any therapist or psychologist will tell you is that its important not to create a mindset, and subsequently a lifestyle where you are deliberately shutting off any possibility you may have (no matter how small that is) because you have already resigned to defeat making whatever small chance you had, literally impossible. So the challenge for me therefore is to improve my life in a way that improves my social skills and my wider social circle but at the same time is a lifestyle that keeps the door open for a possible relationship to happen, but also that if it doesn't happen I can live with it (basically I have friends to fall back on) and don't fall into deep depression again. That's the challenge I face and the lifestyle I'm trying to achieve.

Mike747

Putins Assassin wrote: »

What exactly is ridiculous about it? Assuming the OP isn't ridiculously ugly or suffer from Asperger's or something he should be able to get very good at attracting the opposite sex within 6 months to a year with consistent approaching, interaction and flirting with women. I know men who are ugly who have no problem bedding hot men most nights they go out. I used to be fairly average at attracting women myself, but through practice and experience I've gotten a lot better. I enjoy approaching women now, it's exciting, it's fun. Through enough reference experiences you develop excellent social skills and the ability to empathise and read people very well. You recognise patterns and get better at knowing how to escalate an interaction sexually with a woman.

For sure. I would say two years minimum to get good with women but everyone's different.

Paddy seems determined to do down op for some reason.

tashiusclay

paddy1990 wrote: »

Im out of the thread.

That's the best contribution you've made to the entire thread from what I can see. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Daveysil15

I would say approach women without any expectations. Don't think about phones numbers, dates or one night stands, just start talking to people. The more you interact with people the easier it will get. Try online dating too. It costs nothing to set up a profile.

Bafucin

paddy1990 wrote: »

At the same time I'd have you joining clubs and societies that you really want to join. Mountaineering, sports clubs, social clubs, volunteering etc, im sure you could come up with quite a few and these would be good ways to meet people of similar interests and get talking to men and women under a more natural setting, than the brutal cold approaching and rejection.


Im out of the thread.

You are quite the bossy dramatic type aren't you?

OP do what you want to do. Do you.

Someone above said it ....if you don't know ...you know ...you do know....at this rate it's becoming obvious you know more than we do!

It's your life it's your responsibility and your journey. We don't get your difficulties how could we?

Decide what you want and go for it figure it out ..you will...more than anything what you need is support while you do that.

I actually think you have come far. It's about you though. Not your love life or the expectations of others. No one else knows what will make you happy but you.

Socializing comes easy to me. I still have huge emotional issues I need to deal with. Our issues are different to yours we are not further along than you just on a different path. You seem to be more intelligent than a lot of us on this thread. I think you have done more work on yourself than some people here and faced the harder stuff instead of putting a band aid on it. You keep working on it.

SharpshooterTom

Bafucin wrote: »

You seem to be more intelligent than a lot of us on this thread. I think you have done more work on yourself than some people here and faced the harder stuff instead of putting a band aid on it. You keep working on it.

Er I don't think I am! Otherwise if I were I would had this situation sorted out a loooooooooooong time ago!

But yeah I have "plans" and whatnot how to get out of this, its better than having no initiative and people telling me what to do all the time I suppose. But because I still have ALL these problems, I clearly at times am very lost, and maybe still will be lost in 2 years. People assume because I've got all these written plans its all going to work, I still really have no idea, I'm 28 and have got so many social problems and continue to and I don't know if I will ever get out of it, I might die a lonely bastard, the only difference is I'm trying now, I didn't before hand. Going down fighting.

paddy1990

You are far behind, having never had friends or a social circle, nevermind a girlfriend. Now close to 30, you simply haven't been socialized like the majority of people and need therapy as a result. Having never had the social experiences for all these years, it's a big mountain to climb now, much bigger than anyone here realizes. You could possibly come off "weird" in real life due to being 20 years behind in terms of social development.

Definitely do the therapy and go from there. Just don't be hard on yourself if it's not going well as you have a severe handicap at this stage.

A social circle/friends is much more important than running around doing cold approaches the PUA way, which is what you were being advised. Your best option will be as I said to join clubs and so on and try to get friends, for the first time in your life.

At 28, you're just way behind. What were you doing for the past 10 years? Are you also in bad shape? You'll need to get yourself physically in order. Don't listen to anyone who tells you that women aren't as shallow as men, especially women themselves.

Look, you've come to a forum of guys with thousands of posts on it. It's up to you to decide whether you've asked this question in the right place. Are the people giving you advice sexually satisfied themselves? I'd say many are in your position. Conversely I met with a girl from online last night, had a few drinks and stayed in her place.

Look, you've already missed out on friendships/relationships in your teens and early 20s. You are certainly way behind. Get a move on and do it pronto. Keep an open mind as you are going along but don't be too hard on yourself either. Since you've never had a friend, your social skills might be extremely stunted. I'm just trying to give you a realistic view. The people you will be talking to most likely haven't been in CBT and have had close friends since the age of 10.

I believe you should go through the process I've outlined in an earlier post and focus on meeting new people, men and women in a more natural setting. What im worried about is you giving off nervous/weird vibes in real life, something you might not be able to overcome, but you have to try and I wish you the best of luck.

pwurple

He does not have a "severe handicap". Are you trying to drive this fella to depression?

Jesus.

He does not need hundreds of friends, he is looking for one single girl. It will take a small bit of confidence, and some positivity.

ancapailldorcha

paddy1990 wrote: »

At 28, you're just way behind. What were you doing for the past 10 years? Are you also in bad shape? You'll need to get yourself physically in order. Don't listen to anyone who tells you that women aren't as shallow as men, especially women themselves.

What?

diveout

pwurple wrote: »

He does not have a "severe handicap". Are you trying to drive this fella to depression?

Jesus.

He does not need hundreds of friends, he is looking for one single girl. It will take a small bit of confidence, and some positivity.

True, but close intimacy takes a whole other level of skill, more so than superficial social interactions.

If you bring anxiety into the room, people will not want to be around that. That brings more rejection, which brings more anxiety and then more inhibitors to taking risks.

You have to put step A before Step B.

SharpshooterTom

paddy1990 wrote: »

I believe you should go through the process I've outlined in an earlier post and focus on meeting new people, men and women in a more natural setting. What im worried about is you giving off nervous/weird vibes in real life, something you might not be able to overcome, but you have to try and I wish you the best of luck.

Bare in mind though that I've had my best period of socialising I've ever had in my adult life probably in past couple of years. I developed better friendships (like I say more "acquaintances") but I'm much more confident in striking conversations with people and the anxiety doesn't show as much as it used to. Put it this way, the way I've socialised recently I wouldn't have been able to have done that 5- 10 years ago. So it aint all doom and gloom.

I've probably improved say at least 10-15%, still behind but I've narrowed the gap. With regards to you BIB, I don't know whether I will ever fully overcome my anxiety, it might be something I just have to manage for the rest of my life and learn to control it, but it may never fully go away.

Pug160

Oh you'll get better alright - anyone who is proactive will become more confident and better socially to some extent. I've been working on many aspects of my own life for the past 3 years or so and I'm certainly a lot better for it. I've just come back from a long weekend break to London on my own - something I would not have done even last year.

Some of the posts that have been made are ridiculously pessimistic and probably troll jobs in some cases. What I will say though, is that it's surprising how many guys are actually rather normal and still aren't particularly successful. Now you will get there eventually - as I hope I will. But talking to a few women each week is still no guarantee of success. Maybe success eventually, but not necessarily in a get laid a few times and then meet the right woman kind of way. That can happen in theory but it's not always reality. Keep working on all aspects of your life and good luck.

Piliger

ThomasFlynn wrote: »

I'm just beginning to wonder about this because I've recently turned 28 (so I'm not exactly a kid anymore) and I've never been in a relationship, never kissed a girl, and and yes not surprisingly I'm still a virgin LOL. And whats more depressing is that I've never been remotely close in actually having any of those experiences!

Holy fcuk Man. I know you THINK you're mature and old ... the truth is you haven't even started and I don't mean the same as you mean. It's awkard to say it here where I post a lot, but I was the same as you at not far from your age and you could not be more more more more more more wrong.

I know you FEEL like that but please take advice from a guy who is 58 that you have LOADS of time .... there NO HURRY. I had feelings like you are having now when I was about 26 and that is the MAJOR if not the sole reason I got married when I was 27 and made the biggest most stupid mistake I ever made ... and got stuck in a godawful marriage that blighted my life.

Some people just develop and change in different ways. They don't fall into the mass production system. You are following your own path and will come in to your own in your own good time. And DO NOT start thinking what I used to think "omg there will be no women left!" or "there will be no gorgeous women left!" or "omg when I get to find a woman shell be 40+ and ugly and ould !" because it is total bo11ox. The truth is that all the girls who made stupid mistakes and hooked with the the dickheads that rushed into relationshop when they were 18-21 will be back looking for a decent guy. THAT is the truth.

Believe me your 30's will be great. You'll have the calmness, the life experience and social life will be great. Your 40's can be the same. I was dating a couple of years ago and there were loads of gorgeous ladies around.

Daveysil15

^^^^Great post.

Pug160

Piliger wrote: »

Holy fcuk Man. I know you THINK you're mature and old ... the truth is you haven't even started and I don't mean the same as you mean. It's awkard to say it here where I post a lot, but I was the same as you at not far from your age and you could not be more more more more more more wrong.

I know you FEEL like that but please take advice from a guy who is 58 that you have LOADS of time .... there NO HURRY. I had feelings like you are having now when I was about 26 and that is the MAJOR if not the sole reason I got married when I was 27 and made the biggest most stupid mistake I ever made ... and got stuck in a godawful marriage that blighted my life.

Some people just develop and change in different ways. They don't fall into the mass production system. You are following your own path and will come in to your own in your own good time. And DO NOT start thinking what I used to think "omg there will be no women left!" or "there will be no gorgeous women left!" or "omg when I get to find a woman shell be 40+ and ugly and ould !" because it is total bo11ox. The truth is that all the girls who made stupid mistakes and hooked with the the dickheads that rushed into relationshop when they were 18-21 will be back looking for a decent guy. THAT is the truth.

Believe me your 30's will be great. You'll have the calmness, the life experience and social life will be great. Your 40's can be the same. I was dating a couple of years ago and there were loads of gorgeous ladies around.

As long as it's not left really late - that would be the only worry. Fertility and baggage do matter, and that becomes more of an issue as women get older. Realistically a man can look in good condition well beyond the so called peak years but there is still an invisible line somewhere. No one should ever panic but there's no time like the present for self improvement.

tashiusclay

paddy1990 wrote: »

You are far behind, having never had friends or a social circle, nevermind a girlfriend. Now close to 30, you simply haven't been socialized like the majority of people and need therapy as a result. Having never had the social experiences for all these years, it's a big mountain to climb now, much bigger than anyone here realizes. You could possibly come off "weird" in real life due to being 20 years behind in terms of social development.

Definitely do the therapy and go from there. Just don't be hard on yourself if it's not going well as you have a severe handicap at this stage.

A social circle/friends is much more important than running around doing cold approaches the PUA way, which is what you were being advised. Your best option will be as I said to join clubs and so on and try to get friends, for the first time in your life.

At 28, you're just way behind. What were you doing for the past 10 years? Are you also in bad shape? You'll need to get yourself physically in order. Don't listen to anyone who tells you that women aren't as shallow as men, especially women themselves.

Look, you've come to a forum of guys with thousands of posts on it. It's up to you to decide whether you've asked this question in the right place. Are the people giving you advice sexually satisfied themselves? I'd say many are in your position. Conversely I met with a girl from online last night, had a few drinks and stayed in her place.

Look, you've already missed out on friendships/relationships in your teens and early 20s. You are certainly way behind. Get a move on and do it pronto. Keep an open mind as you are going along but don't be too hard on yourself either. Since you've never had a friend, your social skills might be extremely stunted. I'm just trying to give you a realistic view. The people you will be talking to most likely haven't been in CBT and have had close friends since the age of 10.

I believe you should go through the process I've outlined in an earlier post and focus on meeting new people, men and women in a more natural setting. What im worried about is you giving off nervous/weird vibes in real life, something you might not be able to overcome, but you have to try and I wish you the best of luck.

I thought you had left? Did you get lonely outside on your own or something?

paleoperson

If you think about social skill as being like a sport or even a competitive videogame or something like sudoku: Practicing helps, but it will only help to a point.

The skill is not cumulative as some suggest, anyone can come off "good" in some situations, people also have inherent talent in being good socially just like other things. And if you're not talented in it, that's just tough. It shouldn't be a devastating blow to be crap socially, and anyone who says it is are just flaunting what they're gifted with as "proof" of their superiority. Don't bother with such people.

paddy1990's claims go against all the established knowledge and advice passed on from older people who've actually been there and done that. And it is intentionally that way because some people have a huge, pathetic need for attention like that. So without trying to sound flippant you would be well advised to take whatever paddy1990 says and assume and do the exact opposite.

Piliger

Pug160 wrote: »

As long as it's not left really late - that would be the only worry. Fertility and baggage do matter, and that becomes more of an issue as women get older.

So they do not. ONLY if the man wants children. And that is not the issue raised by the OP.

Realistically a man can look in good condition well beyond the so called peak years but there is still an invisible line somewhere.

I have no idea what this means.

What he needs to do is relax. He needs to relax and grow to be the man is is becoming. His social skills have already gotten better and they will continue to do so.He is only 28 FFS ! And I would confidently bet that he is not as bad as he thinks he is. It is very often the anxiety of being awkward that feeds into a vicious cycle of being awkward.

if there are things he could do, then I would recommend consulting a specialist in socialising. An evening course in drama would be a very valuable thing to sign up to. Cheap and fun and extremely good for learning and practising social skills. And that is the best thing he can do over the next few years. Practice practice practice simply being with people in different social situations, clubs, courses, activities, etc.

SharpshooterTom

Piliger wrote: »

So they do not. ONLY if the man wants children. And that is not the issue raised by the OP.

Ideally I would like a family and children, that's ideally though. But I have best part of 15-20 years to improve myself before that window begins to shut a bit.

LegacyUser

I'm so glad that you care now and I have this urge to reach out to you and try to teach you what I know and guide you through it. But from reading your posts it sounds like you're going to be ok doing this yourself. So tell us, what is your plan of action starting this week? What steps are you actually going to take tomorrow? Everyone here wants you to do well even if there have been some misguided posts I think its all coming from a good place. I've been following the thread and as someone who came through crippling social anxiety to the other side I'm rooting for you 100% and although my situation was different to yours, I still think there is hope for you. The thing is your posts are very normal, intelligent, insightful and you have got it all going on up there. Much moreso than your average bear.

Do you realise how attractive intelligence is? For me at least it trumps good looks. Also the amount of people who suffer from mental illness in Ireland of some description or another- I think you'd be surprised just how understanding people would be if you ever needed to explain to someone why you were having a weird moment or whatever. I think life just dealt you a bad card along the way. Maybe external forces just ended you up as someone who with the right cocktail of bad luck - didn't socialise well. There may be very little inherently unappealing about you and nothing that you can't overcome. Think about it- You can overcome this. You have to overcome this. It is what you want out of life so you will overcome it. Stop saying you're going to end up alone it's not going to be like that. Your caught in a cloud of your own negativity and hopelessness now, but the sooner you stop those thoughts and get out of your comfort zone the better.

Kind of random here but, I remember there was this guy who everyone bullied in our secondary school, he was really overweight and dressed unusually and constantly looked uncomfortable. He also had a lisp. That guy now works with Gordon Ramsay no joke and is a totally different person. As far as I know he spent a year in a psychiatric unit too. That's just one real life example but looking at a lot of the socially awkward guys that I knew in secondary school some of them came out of their shells in the most surprising ways later in life. But it did take a while. Another guy hung around with everyone, prob because he conformed enough to get in with the popular crowd, but he literally never spoke and when he did his voice would crack- always! I don't know what changed in him but after we all left school I met him outside a bar one night and the boy wouldn't shut up! He somehow had found his voice it was amazing. He still is that way 4 years on and its lovely to see. Noone made a big deal of it either they just accepted that he suddenly changed his personality for the better. He also posts all these pictures of art on his fb and he's really good. He failed pretty much everything in school so it was interesting to see he had a talent he was just too shy before to talk about it.

The huge obstacles you have to overcome are learning all the skills you never had the chance to develop, understanding and learning about social circles, particularly whatever social circle you may end up in. And then the confidence and motivation to do it and stick with it even when you fail miserably. It's not going to be plain sailing but I really think you are ready to take the plunge and start this journey. You're not a fool, you know people overcome great obstacles every day and you know that people can turn there lives around. Sorry if this sounds like happy-clappy BS but it's been very emotive reading your posts and I wish you the best.

random1337

This picture says it all really at the attitudes in this thread. I'm just going to assume OP isn't good looking.
https: //www .tickld.com/cdn_image_content/12054.jpg

Lol you guys realise the media LIES to men telling them that personality/confidence is what attracts women? Or that you will eventually find your soul-mate in your 30s? (i.e. once your future wife is tired of getting pumped and dumped by studs and needs to settle down). It gives sub-par men HOPE and keeps them going. So they keep working and paying taxes to keep the elite RICH.
Women are the CHOOSERS, dont believe anything they say about how they dont care about looks; its all they care about. It's biology. Men want to spread their seed as much as they can so they will fukk anything, lower their standards when drunk etc. FEMALES can only have limited amount of offspring so they need the mate with the best GENES. So in their 20s all they want is that 6foot+ handsome asshole to ravage them. Once they hit 30 they need that guy who they ignored in their 20s to support them because he is making bank and can financially and emotionally support her and her kids. These types of women (70%) cheat on their husbands because they are not attracted to them.

Mike747

random1337 wrote: »

This picture says it all really at the attitudes in this thread. I'm just going to assume OP isn't good looking.
https: //www .tickld.com/cdn_image_content/12054.jpg

Lol you guys realise the media LIES to men telling them that personality/confidence is what attracts women? Or that you will eventually find your soul-mate in your 30s? (i.e. once your future wife is tired of getting pumped and dumped by studs and needs to settle down). It gives sub-par men HOPE and keeps them going. So they keep working and paying taxes to keep the elite RICH.
Women are the CHOOSERS, dont believe anything they say about how they dont care about looks; its all they care about. It's biology. Men want to spread their seed as much as they can so they will fukk anything, lower their standards when drunk etc. FEMALES can only have limited amount of offspring so they need the mate with the best GENES. So in their 20s all they want is that 6foot+ handsome asshole do ravage them. Once they hit 30 they need that guy who they ignored in their 20s to support them because he is making bank and can financially and emotionally support her and her kids. These types of women (70%) cheat on their husbands because they are not attracted to them.

/r9k/ out of 10.

random1337

Mike747 wrote: »

/r9k/ out of 10.

unaware

Mike747

random1337 wrote: »

unaware

You have the exact mindset of the people who post there. That's not to say everything you've written is false.