Unable to Form Human Connections [advice]

[Guest]

I'm going to try really really really really hard not to let this devolve into yet another self hating rant, I actually need help with this. If I do, I'll delete the ranty bits.

Prefacing this, I got drunk four times in a row this week off a handle of vodka my friend had given me. I had finals, I didn't know how else to relax, it's all finished, so no harm no foul. In the middle of this perpetual drunken stupor, I started complaining to a friend of mine about my girl problems, and here were the basic points I made to him:

Note: You're probably not going to agree with most of this.

1. A man's primary value is in the amount of sexual experience he has.

2. Aggressiveness and asserting dominance are the two most sexually attractive traits.

3. Women want nothing to do with me, wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole. (hyperbole, although it's true when it comes to romance/sex)

4. All of the women who have ever liked me have been abused in some way or have some psychological issue, thus they don't know any better (he couldn't contest this one, I have a habit of attracting only psychos). Having read the Doc's post on how there's something wrong with every man who attracts psychos, I can't pretend as if this doesn't make sense. Stupid, mental, legally blind, or all of the above, that's the parameter when it comes to Girls Who Want Glides. I've only gotten the first two so far.

5. People despise virgins (maybe not in Sexually Liberated Wonderland, but they sure as hell do by me).

So naturally, he responded with a series of his own arguments because he was also drunk and thus able to handle my bullshit:

1. I never express my opinion on anything in conversation, making it impossible for people to connect with me.

2. People want to connect with you and I've seen you accidentally stop that from happening (I call bullshit)

3. Nobody cares that I'm a virgin (they don't care because I've been lying about it all this time).

4. He listed a bunch of qualities that mean exactly dick when it comes to relationships (general hygiene is common fucking courtesy)

5. I shouldn't drink to try to get with girls (he's got me there)

6. I give up too easily when it comes to talking to girls (yeah, true)

7. I don't even bother waiting for attraction to grow. If a girl isn't attracted to me within five minutes, I assume she'll never like me and just ignore her (how the fuck does attraction grow? But I do this)

8. All the girls who have ever liked me like me for me (I contested this with the abuse thing and he shut up about it, I'd gotten him this time)

9. Try to talk to strangers more often (God I hate knowing that I'll be rejected)

So all in all, some good points, some bad ones, nothing I didn't already know.

The trouble started when we were hanging out a couple days later (yesterday), and he decides to bring this drunken Facebook conversation up and claims that because I never share my opinion on any issue, that's why no one likes me.

Example: someone talking about immigration, I'm asked about what I think about it: "Glad they're finally getting rid of those goddamn Canadians."

It's a bad joke, but I always do something like that whenever I'm asked for my thoughts on anything. I never talk about myself, and he says this is what's keeping people from liking me. I don't particularly want people to know, because then they'd never talk to me again.

He also said that I was a Red Piller because I'd made a comment on "getting my score up" (which is objectifying, but I don't think it's Red Pill unless you think all women are sluts and deserve to die). He vehemently denied that women hate virgins despite losing his virginity at a healthy age and having a regular sex life after that, thus not knowing shit about the issue. It's always the sexually satisfied who are the most delusional about this crap.

So we argued this issue out, because frankly, no one I know is having a lot of deep conversations. I don't like deep conversations anyway, so I tend to try and lighten the tension whenever that happens. It's mostly just joking around and having fun, which I assumed is how people interact generally. But because I'm not telling people my life story, that's why no one wants me. Right.

I dunno, is anything he's saying make any sense to you? Am I the delusional one here? I honestly don't think it's as simple as he thinks it is.

Also, am I a Red Piller or something? Was this a rant?

[Guest]

I think you're a profoundly depressed and unhappy person whose problems with self-image are inevitably going to colour all of your personal interactions.  No-one can feel the way that you do without it coming out in their manner.  And honestly?  I don't think you are in any shape to interact with women right now even on a friends level.

Obviously I don't agree with a lot of your numbered premises, because a guy who wants to "get his score up" and thinks he has to be aggressive to do so is cruising for a short sharp kick in the testicles.  But I think you know that.

I have seen a lot of people, unhappy people, who think that getting that one magical milestone will solve all their problems.  Lose the V!  But I don't feel any different and it was kind of weird and awkward.  Lose the weight!  So now I'm the same person with the same problems, only thinner.  Get a date!  And now I'm in a relationship with someone I don't like just to say I have someone.

I know that you don't want to hear that you need therapy, so I'm not sure what else to suggest.

[reboot]

Honestly, your friend sounds spot on to me, even the red pill comment, since what you said is something they say (even if you do not have the beliefs behind it). This does not make you a red piller, it just means you buy into some of what they say.

[Guest]

Okay, to be honest, this is kind of big and overwhelming, so I'm going to narrow in on something here:

7. I don't even bother waiting for attraction to grow. If a girl isn't attracted to me within five minutes, I assume she'll never like me and just ignore her (how the fuck does attraction grow? But I do this)

I am never attracted to a man in 5 minutes.  Ever.  I mean... I can notice an aesthetically pleasing form or whatever, and I am totally guilty of just watching the work crew across the street because PRETTY, but I don't consider them attractive in the same way I do dating  things.  I don't think I've ever been able to judge how I actually feel about a guy and whether he, um, gets me going, as it were, without actually touching.  And I am not going to move to touching until I have a sense of, "Is this guy someone I trust to touch me?"

On the rest of it...

I TOTALLY understand what you're saying about not wanting people to know you, because I have the same problem. I have spent years of my life dodging real connection, because I know -- I KNOW -- that if people really saw me, the real me, they would run and hide and mock me and fear me and recognize the subhuman reality of me.  Because I was depressed.  Because I still am depressed.  Because depression distorts your picture of reality, and it does it in a way that turns its gross picture of you into reality.

My friends group is small.  I have some friends from church, where I started attending less than two years ago.  I have internet friends from games over the last few years -- friends who have made an effort to keep in touch with me.  I have no friends from HS I ever see.  I have no friends from college I ever see.  In fact, if you look at the circle of people I see at least once a year, they are all either family or people I met in the last 3 years.  No exaggeration.  This is because my depression convinces me they don't actually want me in their life, so I pull away, and eventually, they stop trying.

There's a song I really like for this, by the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60-qspVM8eI (note: I post for the song, not the video -- some of the images are a bit graphic and distressing)

[Guest]

Okay, to be honest, this is kind of big and overwhelming, so I'm going to narrow in on something here:


I am never attracted to a man in 5 minutes.  Ever.  I mean... I can notice an aesthetically pleasing form or whatever, and I am totally guilty of just watching the work crew across the street because PRETTY, but I don't consider them attractive in the same way I do dating  things.  I don't think I've ever been able to judge how I actually feel about a guy and whether he, um, gets me going, as it were, without actually touching.  And I am not going to move to touching until I have a sense of, "Is this guy someone I trust to touch me?"

See, this confuses the hell out of me, especially because male and female attraction works very differently. I can be physically attracted to someone almost immediately, but it takes a little while to determine if I'm attracted to anything else. Is it like that?

What he said made absolutely no sense, though. When I talk to women, they don't give me any IOIs. They don't give me any signs of being repulsed, mostly just boredom. So eventually I say to myself, "you have no chance, this is futile," and I excuse myself. That's how almost every interaction with a cute girl I didn't know beforehand has went.

They laugh at my jokes and seem to like talking to me, but no attraction is there. No downturned chin, no physical contact, nothing. And I know that it's creepy to make a move unless IOIs are shown.

So I've countered this just by talking with no intention of having sex, and this has sort of helped, but it still results in me making a ton of acquaintances with no real progress, because I'm still subconsciously hoping that she'll like me and she can probably tell.

And of course the massive sign on my forehead saying "I HATE MYSELF" probably doesn't do much either. People who hate themselves are supremely unattractive, people who are nervous or shy are extremely unattractive, and I am all of those things combined. So I don't know how to stop falling to pieces like that and find a woman who is actually attracted to me for me, for a change.

On the rest of it...

I TOTALLY understand what you're saying about not wanting people to know you, because I have the same problem. I have spent years of my life dodging real connection, because I know -- I KNOW -- that if people really saw me, the real me, they would run and hide and mock me and fear me and recognize the subhuman reality of me.  Because I was depressed.  Because I still am depressed.  Because depression distorts your picture of reality, and it does it in a way that turns its gross picture of you into reality.

I just didn't like how confrontational my friend got about it, as if I should welcome the chance for people to see all the skeletons in my closet. I really feel like he was spouting bullshit just to justify his own "anybody has a chance" worldview.

I mean, I can't really cure it in any affordable way. Everyone says therapy, but I know what's wrong with me, and the entire point of therapy is to figure out what's wrong with you.

So basically, I need to find the reason why women don't like me? Am I ugly? Am I nervous? Am I shy? Every time that I feel like I've made any kind of progress, I fall back about fifty feet. I've spent the last two years changing myself in any way that could possibly get a woman to like me. I've exercised, dieted, dressed better, slept more, tried to socialize more, literally every bit of advice the Doc gave, I sucked up wholeheartedly in the hopes that I'd have more self-confidence. I have a little more, but it's still not quite enough. But women find me just as boring and unappealing as before. I make for a good friend (no, I'm not gonna go there), but I'm simply not high enough quality right now to be a good romantic or sexual partner.

I'm at least smart enough not to blame women for this, because why blame women for having good taste? I do secretly want to blame women, because it's easier and takes the pressure off of myself to be any better.

So no wonder I've given up and spending most of my free time verbally abusing myself about how terrible with women I am. I don't approach anymore (god it was fucking awful, so many blatant rejections), I actually go out of my way to avoid women I'm attracted to now. It's like banging against a brick wall and I just broke my hands metaphorically. I have made no progress in two years except for having a little more muscle and dressing a little better.

It's like, what else can I change about myself? Should I get plastic surgery? Should I change religions? Should I change careers? Should I pretend to like things I don't like? What the fuck do I do? I'll do literally anything, and that's probably why, since desperation is blatant and incredibly unattractive, too. So it's almost like I've been genetically designed to be the most unappealing and boring man alive.

Like if I was told that women would find guys with one arm attractive, I'd find a cleaver. It's really that bad. My entire life is consumed with this unbreakable code. And yeah, it's not a code, it's chemistry. And every time I fuck up, my mind tells me how awful I am and how I should die. And when I don't try at all, my mind tells me how awful I am and how I should die. And I'm even smart enough to know that having sex once won't even be enough to fix anything, that there's literally nothing I can do to fix myself anymore than I already have (unless that cleaver really will help things ).

What else can I change about myself? Who do I have to be to get people to like me? And don't say "me," because people hated me until I became what they wanted. At least now I have a bit of a social life now that I imitate anything that is said to me. I'm like a chameleon or something. I dunno.

Two years of work and nothing to show for it. That's what gets me so damned mad. I only have myself and my genetics to blame.

[Guest]

No, therapy is not just for figuring out what's wrong with you. It's also for trying to actually help you make changes to resolve those issues. If I had walked into my CBT appointment and the therapist had gone, "Welp, you're depressed! Next!" that would have been a waste of time. It sounds as though you're very resistant to making any changes; what would a Glides-with-his-shit-sorted look like to you?

[Guest]

No, therapy is not just for figuring out what's wrong with you.  It's also for trying to actually help you make changes to resolve those issues.  If I had walked into my CBT appointment and the therapist had gone, "Welp, you're depressed!  Next!" that would have been a waste of time.  It sounds as though you're very resistant to making any changes; what would a Glides-with-his-shit-sorted look like to you?

Glides-with-his-shit-sorted-out would be a caricature of a real person, he'd be literally perfect or something. Being in complete mental and emotional turmoil and having everything in my life be terrible is central to my identity as a human being. If I'm not a failure, I literally wouldn't be the same person.

[Hirundo Bos]

About connection: Sharing personal information isn't necessarily the same as connection. In my case, it's rather the opposite. I share a lot about myself, probably too much, but I still feel remote from people most of the time. And I think the sharing I do is actually part of how I avoid connection... I use personal information to make myself a stage, where I can perform for other people rather than interacting with them. So I'm not quite sure exactly what a human connection is, but I don't think you have to display skeletons to find it.

[Guest]

They laugh at my jokes and seem to like talking to me, but no attraction is there. No downturned chin, no physical contact, nothing. And I know that it's creepy to make a move unless IOIs are shown.

I would consider laughing at your jokes and enjoying talking an IOI, albeit a small one. Have you tried out some really non-threatening contact, to see if it goes over all right? Things like tapping her hand before pointing to something across the room, or the high-five approach or something like that? Hand-hand contact is pretty low stakes, and if you're getting "I like being in this conversation" vibes from her, maybe it's okay for you to try the next step and see if she'd like that, too? If she's like me, she might not know until you try...

It sounds to me (and I don't want to armchair-psychoanalyze you, so please tell me if I'm going to far and you want me to shut up) that you don't really like yourself, so you go into interactions expecting that other people won't like you.

I'm going to quote myself from a fanfic, because I'm that person:

“Data doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” Vorkosigan said. “How we interpret information depends on its source.”

“Right,” said Ivan. “If you tell me something, I give a different weight to it than something from a guy in a pub, or a known spy.”

“Yes, but it goes deeper than that. You and I get along, ah, relatively well.” Vorkosigan inflected the words with a dry drawl, and Ivan flushed instinctively, then gave a rueful grin.

“I’ll grant the premise for the sake of argument, sure,” he rallied, and his uncle raised one hand as if awarding a fencing point.

“Now, I propose an idea to you. ‘Ivan, why don’t the two of us go to this little bar in the west part of town and have some local-brewed beer?’ You like me, so you look for reasons to agree. Beer is good. You could use a break. There are generally nice-looking girls in the west part of town.”

“Are there?” Ivan asked, straightening in his chair.

“Hypotheticals, married man,” his uncle intoned.

“Right,” Ivan said. He slumped back again. “Pretty girls.”

“Yes. Now, if we did not have such a good relationship, you would hear the same suggestion and look subconsciously for reasons to disagree, instead. Local-brewed beer is unreliable. Little bars are cramped and unpleasant. There would be security issues. You don’t have the time. You would acknowledge the marks in its favor, but since you would be looking for reasons to disagree, you would give those reasons greater weight. And you would do all of this while firmly believing that you were being rational and impartial.”

If you go into a conversation expecting that people aren't going to like you, you're watching for the go-away signals -- the fact that they haven't touched you, the fact that they aren't doing the "triangle gaze", the fact that they smiled at another guy. When you expect that they are going to like you, you're watching for positive signals: laughing at your jokes, angling their body towards you, playing with their hair. You dismiss the positive signs as "maybe just friendly" and read the negative signs as much more important.

This isn't an easy thing to fix! Especially since we do talk a lot about how it's really important to respect those negative signals, and in general, I don't like telling people to ignore them. But the reality is that everybody signals things differently, and you have to look at the positive signals you are getting and consider that maybe yes, they're real, yes, she likes you, but she doesn't know exactly what signals will tell you that, and she's as worried about your reactions as you are about hers.

[Guest]

Glides-with-his-shit-sorted-out would be a caricature of a real person, he'd be literally perfect or something. Being in complete mental and emotional turmoil and having everything in my life be terrible is central to my identity as a human being. If I'm not a failure, I literally wouldn't be the same person.

So it's more important to you that everything in your life be terrible than it is to feel OK sometimes?  Are you sure that's you talking and not the parasitic brainweasel that is depression?  Because honestly, if you actually really enjoy being miserable (and some people do, my grandma was one such) then I'm not sure what reaction you're looking for.  Um, carry on?

HOWEVER: I have noticed that you tend to compare yourself to some standard of non-existent perfection.  Because you didn't write a screenplay in utero that made actual angels weep, then you are a failure as a person and wouldn't even qualify to get mushed up and made into soylent green*.  And that's your prerogative, but it sounds like a pretty fucking lazy way to set yourself up to fail.  It also sounds like, secretly, you're used to thinking of yourself as a bit of a special snowflake, because no-one else has to meet these standards, but Glides, Imperator Mundi does.  The options are not a) perfection or b) eternal suckitude.  I don't think I have ever done anything perfectly in my life but I still have things I've done that I'm proud of. After all, you have chosen a major that involves huge amounts of subjectivity in its reception; it's not like maths where the equations either balance or they don't. What reaction from the film-school-film-watching public would be good enough for you?

If you could pick one thing to aim for, what would it be? Get a date? Get your grades up to a B+ in that class you're worried about? Write a screenplay about X? Sleep better?

*Snark because you've indicated you're into that, meanness not intended.

[Guest]

[quote="ElizaJane"]

If you go into a conversation expecting that people aren't going to like you, you're watching for the go-away signals -- the fact that they haven't touched you, the fact that they aren't doing the "triangle gaze", the fact that they smiled at another guy.  When you expect that they are going to like you, you're watching for positive signals: laughing at your jokes, angling their body towards you, playing with their hair.  You dismiss the positive signs as "maybe just friendly" and read the negative signs as much more important.

This isn't an easy thing to fix!  Especially since we do talk a lot about how it's really important to respect those negative signals, and in general, I don't like telling people to ignore them.  But the reality is that everybody signals things differently, and you have to look at the positive signals you are getting and consider that maybe yes, they're real, yes, she likes you, but she doesn't know exactly what signals will tell you that, and she's as worried about your reactions as you are about hers.

Yeah, that is easier said than done. I've actually tried talking to girls while inwardly telling myself "she likes you she likes you SHE LIKES YOU" but I wouldn't believe myself.

Maybe it's just the depression, but I honestly can't tell if someone likes me even as a friend most of the time, and I get legitimately surprised whenever someone says that. I assume that everyone hates me. I'm not quite sure how to stop doing that.

Yeah sure, list all the positive things about myself, and I'd have a blank sheet of paper.

Seriously though, I've been subscribing to the Doc's ideas for TWO years, and have nothing to show for it! I feel like I only just saw the website for the first time.

[OneTrueGuest]

Glides, I signed up to join the forum today just so I could answer you. Which means I really really hope you understand that this answer is actually meant to help (or at least was written with that intention).

Okay.  Here I go.

Glides.

I have been reading these forums for over a year.  I have read many if not all of your posts.  And what I see are two very different Glides.  I see the struggling human Glides, the man who has depression (btw so do I, I know it well), who thinks he's not as smart as his posts clearly demonstrate he is, a good guy who cares about doing the right thing and not taking advantage of women, who just really wants to fit in. Sometimes this Glides gets so mad at himself, treats himself like he would never even think of treating another human being. It's heartbreaking, but honest and real and we all relate (at least I do, the cruel things I have said and done to myself, I'd never even think of being so cruel to anyone else).  And I like this Glides.  Because he's a good guy with problems.  Like so many of us.

But the second Glides.  The second Glides.  The second Glides we only really see through your own reporting of it.  We see it through your stories and your dialogue.  People have complimented you on your storytelling abilities, on your dialogues but I cannot.  Because though, yes, they are very well reaslised, they scare the shit out of me.  The kind of person you portray yourself to be, quite frankly, disgusts me.  The callous way you discuss everything as if nothing really matters.  The callous way you talk about sex and women.  Even though you don't blame women for anything, you talk about them as little more than objects in these dialogues.  Referring to them as "chicks" and other worse names.  

But here's the thing that took the cake for me.  A couple months ago you posted about your disgust with yourself for fake getting a blow job.  You took a picture of yourself in such a fashion that it looked like someone might be giving you a bj.  And you sent off that picture.  Now many people here thought that was funny, but I hated it.  And I'll tell you why.  You weren't getting a BJ, but for all the other person who you sent the picture to knew, you were.  So now he thinks you are the kind of person who in an intimate moment with a woman, a moment believe it or not that a woman is extremely vulnerable, without that woman's permission, you took a picture of her and sent it to your friend.  I know, there was no actual woman.  But this is the point Glides.  This is the second Glides.  This is the person you have decided you want to be publicly. The person for all intents and purposes your friends think you are.  And that really really disturbs me.

Now I know, you're going to say that everyone in your group is like this and they still get laid, but I don't care.  These people have always made my skin crawl in general and I've always hoped you'd find better friends. And I don't think your goal should just be sex with whatever.  I don't think you just want sex with whatever or else you would have had it before with the girls who have thrown themselves at you.  The reason you didn't was because you didn't want to take advantage of emotionally vulnerable women.  That's a good thing. I think for all your bravado about masculinity, you don't want to just have sex with anyone. I think you want a real connection with a real person. Because I think you think that masculinity is one thing (which I highly disagree with), but you don't LIKE that it's that one thing. If you could change it, you would. You don't want to conform to that idea. You just feel forced to.

So Glides, you want to know what you are doing wrong, it's the one thing you refuse to do right.  Be yourself. It's cheese as all get out, I get that.  But this friend (the only friend quite frankly I haven't cringed about, I like this friend, and clearly you do too because you actually told him the truth about your virginity) is right.  If you never open up to people, you can't expect others to open up to you.  Most people want emotional connections.  And sex isn't just wam bam thank you mam, it isn't just a notch on your belt, it isn't jus a numbers game.  Sex is a connection physically and emotionally.  Sometimes it's not, that's true, but I feel from everything you have written you want that connection because otherwise you would have had sex by now. You would have taken advantage of one of those girls.

Opening up is terrifying.  It makes you vulnerable.  If people hate the second Glides that's okay because you know that's not really you, they hate a mask.  But if people hate the first Glides . . . then when the fuck do you do?  They hate YOU.  That's some bloody scary shit there.  But you know what Glides, if all you ever posted here was second Glides I don't think many people would devote as much time to try to help you.  I think most people here would eventually have given up on you and gotten into arguments with how you talk about women and life in general.  People keep trying to help you because of the real Glides.  The first Glides.  Sure he's imperfect.  SO IS EVERYONE ON THE PLANET.  So are all those girls you want to be with.  Those girls who are also scared of being vulnerable, and especially being vulnerable with the cold quippy Glides.  

Anyway.  Them's my thoughts.  Take them or leave them.  But in my opinion the one thing you don't want to do is exactly the thing you should be doing.  And that sucks, I know.  Because it's so damn scary.  And you will get hurt.  Someone will take advantage of your vulnerability and throw something back in your face.  It's happened to me.  It's happened likely to everyone on this forum.  But I think you'll start to learn you are stronger than you think you are. I think once you start facing the world honestly, and learn what it feels like, and also learn that you are capable of getting back up when someone's put you down, I think truly that things will start to get better.

[Mel]

I think other people are tackling the big picture better than I can, but a small note on the issue of IOIs--if you're giving people 5 minutes or less, I'd imagine that's too early for a lot of women to start doing things like touching a guy they've never met before. I wouldn't be that openly flirty with a guy I'd barely started talking to. Those sorts of interactions and indications of interest generally build over a longer conversation. If after five minutes a woman is holding a fair bit of eye contact, facing you without moving away, engaged in the conversation (giving responses that help the conversation along rather than making you do all the effort to keep it going) and you're getting some smiles/laughter, that sounds like signals for "please continue" to me. If I was doing all that and after just a few minutes a guy walked away from me, I'd assume he mustn't have been interested in me.

[Enail]

I think your friend has a lot of good points there. We've talked about some of this before, the idea of connection and vulnerability. If you're deflecting with humour at every possible moment rather than risk saying your own opinion that other people might judge or dislike, that's shutting down an opportunity for them to know anything about you other than your humour (also, hey! stop picking on the Canadians! ). People can only like you as far as you let them know you. That doesn't mean you need to jump to the opposite, telling them your entire life story all over the place. There's a middle ground, and that's what you want to find.

I know it's scary, because as long as you don't show them anything, they can't truly reject you. But that also means they can't truly like you. I'd suggest practicing with little things, trying to say something genuine in ways that don't feel unmanageably personal - give an opinion about a topic that doesn't seem too charged, tell people something you like. Let them get to know everyday you, a level or two deeper, not your deepest, innermost you.

I also think your friend is right that you probably give up too easily, and have likely accidentally shut down people trying to connect with you or cut off attraction building. You have such a strong belief that you're unlikeable and unattractive - you define yourself by a feeling of failure - that you are probably not capable of judging accurately how people are reacting to you. You might need to veer towards what feels like overconfidence to you in order to correct for that. Lean a little more towards assuming that there might be interest, even if you don't see it, as long as you're not getting signs of disinterest. Not saying to be pushy, but try to approach what feels like neutral how you would if you thought you were seeing signs of interest but weren't 100% sure.

A sort of side point: people who have mental illnesses or undealt-with trauma are still actual people with actual people feelings. Just because someone is messed up in a way that skews their people-picker doesn't mean that they don't have any ability to make choices about who they like or that their feelings are totally imaginary. There isn't such a clear and drastic line between "messed up" and "totally fine."

And, no, I don't think that was a rant. And I don't think you're a red-piller - but that particular way of framing things is rather red-pillish.

[Guest]

But here's the thing that took the cake for me.  A couple months ago you posted about your disgust with yourself for fake getting a blow job.  You took a picture of yourself in such a fashion that it looked like someone might be giving you a bj.  And you sent off that picture.  Now many people here thought that was funny, but I hated it.  And I'll tell you why.  You weren't getting a BJ, but for all the other person who you sent the picture to knew, you were.  So now he thinks you are the kind of person who in an intimate moment with a woman, a moment believe it or not that a woman is extremely vulnerable, without that woman's permission, you took a picture of her and sent it to your friend.  I know, there was no actual woman.  But this is the point Glides.  This is the second Glides.  This is the person you have decided you want to be publicly. The person for all intents and purposes your friends think you are.  And that really really disturbs me.

Nah, that's not quite what happened. Someone kept texting me and I wanted her to cut it out, so I took my shirt off and took a picture of myself lying in my bed, with the caption "quit interrupting."

Not great, but I didn't pretend to take a picture of an imaginary girl or anything like that, God no.

Now I know, you're going to say that everyone in your group is like this and they still get laid, but I don't care.  These people have always made my skin crawl in general and I've always hoped you'd find better friends.  And I don't think your goal should just be sex with whatever.  I don't think you just want sex with whatever or else you would have had it before with the girls who have thrown themselves at you.  The reason you didn't was because you didn't want to take advantage of emotionally vulnerable women.  That's a good thing.  I think for all your bravado about masculinity, you don't want to just have sex with anyone.  I think you want a real connection with a real person.  Because I think you think that masculinity is one thing (which I highly disagree with), but you don't LIKE that it's that one thing.  If you could change it, you would.  You don't want to conform to that idea. You just feel forced to.

Like I've said, until recently I lived in a reallyyyyyyyyy backwoods kinda place, with very traditional moral values. I haven't really had those kinds of issues since moving to *insert city name here*. No one bullies me about my virginity anymore, it's nice.

I'd certainly love a real connection with someone, but someone would also want someone who's good at sex. And since I'm not one of those freaks of nature who hates women for expressing themselves sexually, chances are that the older I get, the women I'll be interacting with will have a lot more experience than I do, and thus have no need for me.

But I've given up on romance since that's virtually impossible for me. I would prefer to be realistic. I'm not the love of anyone's life, I don't have the traits for that, but I can be that one OK-looking guy who was an OK lay once. That's achievable, maybe.

So you're speaking from the perspective of someone who didn't used to live in a town in which there were NO COLOREDS ALLOWED signs in the older parts of the town. Things are not great in terms of gender equality. Ironically, the remaining friends I had up there were the ones who weren't being misogynistic assholes. I got rid of everyone else.

Opening up is terrifying.  It makes you vulnerable.  If people hate the second Glides that's okay because you know that's not really you, they hate a mask.  But if people hate the first Glides . . . then when the fuck do you do?  They hate YOU.  That's some bloody scary shit there.  But you know what Glides, if all you ever posted here was second Glides I don't think many people would devote as much time to try to help you.  I think most people here would eventually have given up on you and gotten into arguments with how you talk about women and life in general.  People keep trying to help you because of the real Glides.  The first Glides.  Sure he's imperfect.  SO IS EVERYONE ON THE PLANET.  So are all those girls you want to be with.  Those girls who are also scared of being vulnerable, and especially being vulnerable with the cold quippy Glides.

2nd Glides exists so he can even socialize daily. I don't like him very much either, but he's what people want and tolerate. Nervous, shy completely mental Glides is what gets me those apathetic stares from girls I try to talk to when I'm sober. People in general don't like nervousness or shyness or anything that suggests weakness and inferiority, unless it's a fetish or something. You can agree with how you'd never make any friends if you weren't confident. Same goes with finding a mate. If you're not confident, you're not getting any. And I'm never confident.  

Anyway.  Them's my thoughts.  Take them or leave them.  But in my opinion the one thing you don't want to do is exactly the thing you should be doing.  And that sucks, I know.  Because it's so damn scary.  And you will get hurt.  Someone will take advantage of your vulnerability and throw something back in your face.  It's happened to me.  It's happened likely to everyone on this forum.  But I think you'll start to learn you are stronger than you think you are.  I think once you start facing the world honestly, and learn what it feels like, and also learn that you are capable of getting back up when someone's put you down, I think truly that things will start to get better.  

These folks have spent the last two years telling me everything you're saying now, and here I am. I appreciate the support, but I think you've underestimated my talent at supremely fucking shit up, I think. The forum knows I'm a lost cause and every post is just one more nail in the coffin, just one more futile cry into the world, but they're far too kind to admit it to themselves.

I don't think I know how to be myself, honestly. I don't even know what "myself" is.

I think other people are tackling the big picture better than I can, but a small note on the issue of IOIs--if you're giving people 5 minutes or less, I'd imagine that's too early for a lot of women to start doing things like touching a guy they've never met before.  I wouldn't be that openly flirty with a guy I'd barely started talking to.  Those sorts of interactions and indications of interest generally build over a longer conversation.  If after five minutes a woman is holding a fair bit of eye contact, facing you without moving away, engaged in the conversation (giving responses that help the conversation along rather than making you do all the effort to keep it going) and you're getting some smiles/laughter, that sounds like signals for "please continue" to me. If I was doing all that and after just a few minutes a guy walked away from me, I'd assume he mustn't have been interested in me.

So how do I move forward after that? They seem interested enough in talking to me, but I'm stuck because I can't touch them, and I only want to touch them to show them that I like them, but I also don't want to be a creep. God, I wish this shit was natural for me, it's like learning calculus.

So I get a ton of "please continue talking to me, I enjoy talking to you" signals, but that's as far as it goes. And it's cocky callous quippy 2nd Glides who has these results, I can't do this as a nervous mess.

I know it's scary, because as long as you don't show them anything, they can't truly reject you. But that also means they can't truly like you. I'd suggest practicing with little things, trying to say something genuine in ways that don't feel unmanageably personal - give an opinion about a topic that doesn't seem too charged, tell people something you like. Let them get to know everyday you, a level or two deeper, not your deepest, innermost you.

Well if I get the opportunity, I will.

I also think your friend is right that you probably give up too easily, and have likely accidentally shut down people trying to connect with you or cut off attraction building. You have such a strong belief that you're unlikeable and unattractive - you define yourself by a feeling of failure - that you are probably not capable of judging accurately how people are reacting to you. You might need to veer towards what feels like overconfidence to you in order to correct for that. Lean a little more towards assuming that there might be interest, even if you don't see it, as long as you're not getting signs of disinterest. Not saying to be pushy, but try to approach what feels like neutral how you would if you thought you were seeing signs of interest but weren't 100% sure.

That's what never makes any sense: how does attraction build? Some chick sees me, says "eh, he's a human being," and then half an hour later is like "GOD I WANT HIM NOW." That can't be how female attraction works.

And, no, I don't think that was a rant. And I don't think you're a red-piller - but that particular way of framing things is rather red-pillish.

yeah, "keeping the score up" was pretty bad, I know. I just desperately wanted physical release. I think that's the evil side of me showing up.

How the fuck haven't you guys given up on me after two years? I do appreciate all of it, but I think two years is long enough.

[OneTrueGuest]

Okay.

Just for the record I've been reading these forums for two years and no one is giving up on you. You are being ungenerous and unkind saying that everyone here knows you are a lost cause. If they did they wouldn't keep trying to help you.

People here like the first Glides. You don't, so you can't understand why they do, but regardless they do. That's why they are trying to help. Maybe someday you will understand that people like the first Glides so much more than the second. That the only kind of people who would prefer the second are douchebags.

And you are wrong about women. Completely and totally wrong. About what they find attractive, about what they feel about sexual experience. But you've been told that before. And I as a woman telling you this I know won't make a difference. But you're wrong. Someday I hope you finally realise that you don't know everything. Because that's the day you will be able to start to make real changes.

(and I know you think you're stupid, but you also think you've got the world's morality all figured out. You don't. You're wrong. And I am excited for you to discover just how wrong you are - the kindness that is out there, the love, the hope, even for you, the day you finally discover that will be a beautiful day )

[Guest]

And you are wrong about women.  Completely and totally wrong.  About what they find attractive, about what they feel about sexual experience.  But you've been told that before.  And I as a woman telling you this I know won't make a difference.  But you're wrong.  Someday I hope you finally realise that you don't know everything.  Because that's the day you will be able to start to make real changes.

(and I know you think you're stupid, but you also think you've got the world's morality all figured out.  You don't. You're wrong.  And I am excited for you to discover just how wrong you are - the kindness that is out there, the love, the hope, even for you, the day you finally discover that will be a beautiful day )

How am i wrong?

[Spiffo]

And you are wrong about women.  Completely and totally wrong.  

How am i wrong?

You are wrong in that, you are incorrect

[UristMcBunny]

Glides, I'm not going to tell you all the ways in which I disagree with you.  For one, I'm confident you already know a lot of them.  For another, I can also tell you're not in a place right now where you'd be able to hear me.

All I will say, is I know what it's like to have depression or another mental illness take over your brain and make you think and feel... well, pretty much exactly what you are thinking and feeling right now.  I really wish you would give therapy a try some time, even if you think it's stupid.

Because some of it is stupid.  And it works anyway.  A large part of it is not about diagnosing you or fixing you, so much as it is about teaching you coping mechanisms and helping you learn to train your brain to come out of the cycles it's falling into right now.

Take one very silly idea - combating poor self-esteem and body image by saying nice things about yourself.  How silly, right?  Well, the first time I tried to do it, I thought so.  Of course, the first step wasn't even getting to that point.  It was simply not saying nasty things about myself.  It was catching myself about to think that X body part was awful and instead clamping my hands over my ears and literally trying to think of an annoying song that would get stuck in my head and trigger some neutral persistent thoughts.  It was just not looking in the mirror for something like three months.  Then, eventually, I looked at myself in the mirror and I could not think of one single thing I liked about myself.  Everything I could have said felt like a lie.  In the end I think I said something like "I like the colour my hair was when I was younger".  And walked away feeling daft.  The next day I think I said something like "I guess my lips are kind of a nice shape, almost."  and had to bite my tongue to stop myself from finishing up with "it's a pity my teeth ruin my smile".  The next day I think I told myself that I liked the scars on my arms because they reminded me who I was.  And gradually, over weeks and months with all kinds of false starts and backwards steps I got to the point where one day I told myself that, actually, I kind of loved having hooded eyes because they looked like my mum and nan's eyes, and that the way my stomach was kind of saggy and stretch-marky made me feel a bit like a fertility goddess.  And I meant it.  I wasn't in denial of how I looked.  I'd just had enough time to acclimatise myself to my body while *not* reinforcing negative messages about it that the way I felt about those exact same body parts had changed.

A lot of CBT is like that.  It's about avoiding the negative patterns that send you into spiral and offering - even a pointless, silly, nonsense - alternative to fill the space while your mind resets. I know you think it's silly, but if you go for something where you don't have to see a therapist in person (to void any fears you have about being locked up etc), what have you got to lose?

[Robjection]

And you are wrong about women.  Completely and totally wrong.  

How am i wrong?

You are wrong in that, you are incorrect

Come on, you know that's not what he meant.

[UristMcBunny]

And you are wrong about women.  Completely and totally wrong.  

How am i wrong?

You are wrong in that, you are incorrect

Come on, you know that's not what he meant.

Good catch, I missed that one.

Spiffo, now is perhaps not the time to be snarking at a dude.

[Enail]

These folks have spent the last two years telling me everything you're saying now, and here I am. I appreciate the support, but I think you've underestimated my talent at supremely fucking shit up, I think. The forum knows I'm a lost cause and every post is just one more nail in the coffin, just one more futile cry into the world, but they're far too kind to admit it to themselves.

Hey Glides, could you try to stop making assumptions about what the people here think? It's a little insulting for you to keep insisting that you know our opinions better than we do, whether or not you attribute our supposed ignorance to kindness.

Also, if you think the fact that you're not where you want to be even though a bunch of people on the internet have given you suggestions of things that could help - and most of them not at all easy or quick things to achieve - is a sign that you're a lost cause and just fucking things up, well, you really overestimate the power of non-expert advice given by strangers.  

I don't think I know how to be myself, honestly. I don't even know what "myself" is.

That's okay. Personally, I tend to think of the self as a pretty nebulous thing, more a collection of feelings and thoughts and actions and ways of doing things that you can roughly group together into a personality, like a pointillist painting that only resolves into an image from a distance, than something clear and defined. Try paying attention to your wants and opinions and values and letting them out into the world a little, let it sort itself out over time.

I also think your friend is right that you probably give up too easily, and have likely accidentally shut down people trying to connect with you or cut off attraction building. You have such a strong belief that you're unlikeable and unattractive - you define yourself by a feeling of failure - that you are probably not capable of judging accurately how people are reacting to you. You might need to veer towards what feels like overconfidence to you in order to correct for that. Lean a little more towards assuming that there might be interest, even if you don't see it, as long as you're not getting signs of disinterest. Not saying to be pushy, but try to approach what feels like neutral how you would if you thought you were seeing signs of interest but weren't 100% sure.

That's what never makes any sense: how does attraction build? Some chick sees me, says "eh, he's a human being," and then half an hour later is like "GOD I WANT HIM NOW." That can't be how female attraction works.

Attraction works differently for different people. Some people it's an instant on/off switch. Some people there's an abstract "hey, I like the way they look/move/smell/whatever" but it's more like a question and it takes seeing more of what they're like, feeling what their chemistry is like together for it to be answered with "yes, I'm into them" or "no, not doing it for me". Some people it starts as a little spark and takes time to grow into an intense feeling. Some people go around not really evaluating whether they're attracted or not to whoever they meet and it takes some little thing to ping their interest and make them pay attention to that person in a romantic/sexual way.  

How the fuck haven't you guys given up on me after two years? I do appreciate all of it, but I think two years is long enough.

I'm not really sure why we would. You listen to what people say, you engage with some of the advice, you have interesting thing  to say of your own, you pay attention when someone objects to what you say and try to see their perspective and do things differently next time if you hurt someone. I very much doubt that anyone here expects that they give you a piece of advice, and poof! It's solved.  This stuff's not easy, and advice isn't magic. No one blames you for that.

[Spiffo]

Now is perhaps not the time to be snarking at a dude.

True, the guy's in a really bad place. I'll respond in a way that contains as little snark as possible.

Glides, I used to think in pretty much the same way. You could even call it a little Red-Pilly, although I didn't have a name for it. I understood how women REALLY worked, read the Ladder Theory, how we evolved to do this or that, and that's why women are so shallow, etc etc. I just needed to get my score up (actually I didn't want to do that, but having a low score is a convenient excuse to blame other people for my problems). Based on the almost-nothing I know about you, I can see it in your interactions with your friend. The nerve of this friend: despite having meaningful relationships with women, what does he know about having meaningful relationships with women?? Surely the expert on the subject of relationships with women isn't the women, and isn't the people having relationships, but rather the bitter single virgin angry about his place in life.

It's holding you back, man. You're reinforcing the whole "society against you" mindset, and it's going to turn you more bitter and angry and resentful toward women and yourself. You have to let go of that mindset, pick up some more hobbies, meet some more people, make some more friends (I found the Internet pretty helpful in this regard, after working on myself a bit). Then people won't see a bigger angry person who's afraid of the world, but instead a well-adjusted (or at least "better-adjusted") person making his way through the world and getting his stuff in order. That's how you grow: by solving the real problem.

But you wouldn't have been able to convince me of any of that back then either. I was sure I knew what women want. I knew that I knew everything, and that the women were just lying to make themselves feel better, and the men were deluded when they tried to give me advice. As a metaphor, it's like trying to explain fossils to someone and then they ask "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys??" The question can't even be answered if the asker doesn't have an understanding of the basic concepts. And likewise, one way of responding to your assumptions about women's wants and needs is:

You are incorrect.

[OneTrueGuest]

Well very basically, all the things you think women want from men I don't care about. And I'm a woman. So you are wrong about at least one of us. And I've read your posts for two years, I know other women here have said the same as me, so I'm clearly not some freakish anomaly. And quite frankly your second Glides behaviour is a massive turn off for me, like I imagine meeting you in person and not even wanting to have a conversation the way you claim you talk with others.

So yeah. (you are also wrong about your filmmaking career, I'm in the same field as you and much older and thanks btw for basically saying I'm worthless since I haven't made a film yet)

[Spiffo]

1. A man's primary value is in the amount of sexual experience he has.

2. Aggressiveness and asserting dominance are the two most sexually attractive traits.

3. Women want nothing to do with me, wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole. (hyperbole, although it's true when it comes to romance/sex)

4. All of the women who have ever liked me have been abused in some way or have some psychological issue, thus they don't know any better (he couldn't contest this one, I have a habit of attracting only psychos). Having read the Doc's post on how there's something wrong with every man who attracts psychos, I can't pretend as if this doesn't make sense. Stupid, mental, legally blind, or all of the above, that's the parameter when it comes to Girls Who Want Glides. I've only gotten the first two so far.

5. People despise virgins (maybe not in Sexually Liberated Wonderland, but they sure as hell do by me).

He vehemently denied that women hate virgins despite losing his virginity at a healthy age and having a regular sex life after that, thus not knowing shit about the issue. It's always the sexually satisfied who are the most delusional about this crap.

And you are wrong about women.  Completely and totally wrong.  About what they find attractive, about what they feel about sexual experience.  But you've been told that before.

How am i wrong?

Well very basically, all the things you think women want from men I don't care about.  And I'm a woman.  So you are wrong about at least one of us.  And I've read your posts for two years, I know other women here have said the same as me, so I'm clearly not some freakish anomaly.

Herb Powell: D'ya hear that!? This is why we're getting killed in the dating scene! Instead of listening to what women want, you're tellin' em what they want!

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