"I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice

[Low Levelled 335]

Me again.

 

In case you forgot, I'm 22 and I've never even held hands with a girl. Realistically, at what point should I give up (or should I have already)?

Self-worth.

[muggiwhplar 2221]

Me again.

 

In case you forgot, I'm 22 and I've never even held hands with a girl. Realistically, at what point should I give up (or should I have already)?

 

We already gave you advice a couple of months ago. Reread what we said.

 

You can't simply "think" your way out of your fears, weaknesses, and inexperiences. Only uncomfortable/embarrassing experiences and failures will cure your fears. Just accept that if you wish to be successful at anything, you have to accept the growing pains of getting there.

[Horatio 39]

Nobody's answering my question.

[muggiwhplar 2221]

Nobody's answering my question the way I want them to.

 

FTFY

[Horatio 39]

If I asked what 2 + 2 equaled and everybody responded with farm animals, yes, you'd be answering the question, but the answer wouldn't be useful.

 

I'll try to make my question clearer:

 

At what age do >90% of straight males who have practically no interaction with women not have any meaningful interactions with women for the rest of their lives?

 

As far as I know, there isn't any formal documentation on this, so I want what you guys think the answer would be. You all have much more social experience than me, so you're all much more qualified to answer than I am.

[muggiwhplar 2221]

There's no natural law that states if one has not had any contact whatsoever with a woman by age X, they are doomed to remain that way until they die.

 

People become successful with women when they decide that they want to be.

[Hedgehog 2501]

Go to a bar or anywhere with a lot of people if you're under 21. Find the ugliest girl there. Have sex with her.

[Horatio 39]

It baffles me how people who can't answer a straightforward question manage to pick up on the smallest social cues and have friends and a social life.

[muggiwhplar 2221]

We may not be smart men, but we know what love is.

[muggiwhplar 2221]

(Yes, that was a Forrest Gump reference)

[Kalphite 167]

There is no age at which that happens.

 

Happy?

 

Anybody can start talking to girls when they get over it and start doing it. I remember a guy in my hall freshman year that couldn't even look a girl in the eye when I met him who had at least made several female friends by the end of the year (don't know the guy well enough to know if he has a girlfriend yet). Even Blackdragon didn't lose his virginity until his mid twenties, and now he's made a career out of giving dating advice. Girls really aren't that scary - they're people, just like guys, and they're socially conditioned to be a lot nicer to you when you start talking to them which will make things easier on your end. You just need to try talking to people more in general and get over some of your social anxiety before you can really understand that I think.

[Sir_Squab 280]

Here's a tip: change requires... wait for it.. change. It sounds simple, but so many people don't understand that if you want something to change in your life, you need to change something in your life. If you want different results, you need to do something different to achieve those results. If you want different output, you need different input.

 

And you need to accept failure. You need to accept that if you want to get good at something, you have to start by becoming bad at something. You won't wake up one day and find yourself a changed person. Best case scenario, one day you decide you want something badly enough to change.

 

If you want to change yourself for the better, to become someone who can get a girlfriend, we will help you as best we can. If you want to have a pity party and convince yourself that life isn't fair and that you'll never get the touch of a woman? Find a new forum.

 

But before you go looking for that new forum, here's a question: would you rather spend your time around people who believe that, with hard work, you can become a desirable man and get a girlfriend? Or would you rather spend your time around people who believe you will die single, alone and a virgin?

[RpgGamer 1089]

The answer is when youre dead. That's when you give up.

 

Being more social breeds more positive social habits. Sometimes it'll feel like jumping into a brick wall. But eventually you'll jump over that wall and actually enjoy yourself.

[Ring_World 753]

It baffles me how people who can't answer a straightforward question manage to pick up on the smallest social cues and have friends and a social life.

 

The answer everyones given you is that its never too late. They've also given detailed advice on how to get started.

 

 

 

Horatio if you are reading this, follow my advice exactly. I can tell you have severe social anxiety and the only way to overcome it is to put yourself in social situations constantly until they are no longer scary for you.

 

Anyways my advice that you should take is, go to the mall tomorrow and turn your phone off. I want you to ask 10 girls you find to be attractive what time it is. Thats all, tell them thank you and walk off after.

 

 

If that is too scary for you atm ask 10 men or women you don't find attractive for the time and try this exercise again the following day.

If this is too scary for you go to a 7-11 or any liquor store and buy a pack of gum and ask the cashier if they are hiring.

 

Remember as a general rule if its not scary you arent growing. In real life MMO you don't get 99 smithing by making endless bronze daggers.

 

 

Again as muggi said it takes discomfort to grow.  

[muggiwhplar 2221]

I used to have really bad social anxiety when I was younger too. I was afraid to go through a fast food drive-thru or check out at the grocery without my parents because I was afraid I'd do something to humiliate myself.

 

The biggest things that cured my social anxiety were:

1. I joined a fraternity, where I was welcomed with open arms (I was never hazed), and as I spent more time with guys who got laid a lot or were super social, my social anxieties quickly began to vanish.

2. I started working as a part time cashier at the university bookstore. Being forced to interact with strangers just by saying "Did you find everything you were looking for?" pretty much put the final nail in my social anxiety coffin. I remember my first week working there, I was terrified of embarrassing myself somehow and I'd avoid hot girls when they'd start walking towards my register. But within a year, I'd go out of my way to hop on the register that the hot girls were walking towards just so I could flirt with them :lol:

 

So yeah. I think you said you're already in a social group which is good. Spend as much time as possible with guys who possess qualities that you admire (social skills, charm, etc.) and eventually those qualities will begin to rub off on you automatically. I'd also go get a job that forces you to be social (even if it's as little as cashiering) since anyone can get hired at a job like that.

 

Then after you become comfortable in your own skin in social situations, you can take things to the next level and become a salesman :P

 

Edit: another thing that helped my mindset before I left for college was I pretty much assumed the mindset of an idiotic student/learner when I finally started doing things on my own (such as going to the grocery). Like, if I was going through the self-checkout and I messed something up and an employee had to help me, instead of freaking out I'd just be like "Sorry I don't know what I'm doing. Can you help me?" Something as simple as that made "failures" like that much more bearable.

[Estonian dude 238]

My korp! or, well, frat is one big positive influence for me.

And you don't learn without getting burned.

 

And sometimes things happen when you just happen to be at the right time at the right place.

 

Which was really-really bad for me, if I think about it retrospectively...

But, I am no longer a virgin.

And can manage to hold on my own with girls.

 

But seriously, dude. You give up when you die. No other option.

People don't care about what you do.

If they do for a bit, then they are wrong people, find new ones.

There are over 7 billion people on this planet.

[The_Gabe 166]

Yea if Saq can do it, you can do it too.

[Estonian dude 238]

What was that supposed to mean now?

[RpgGamer 1089]

:twss:

 

Now now, we're all friends here

[Low Levelled 335]

Yea if Saq can do it, you can do it too.

Tehehe

[MuffinMaddy 188]

From time to time I get a bit down about some of the stuff my boyfriend and his friends said about me, the short version of what happened for those who don't know is that he insulted me a lot based on my appearance but we've been in a generally happy relationship since I forgave him 11 months ago. It's nearly a year on, but I feel myself get down from time to time, particularly at the fact that he's still best friends with the people he slated me with and I know they aren't saying things about me anymore... but I still get down about the words they said and I know it was ages ago, but I feel like they're still in my life and I don't want them to be. Is this selfish because they're his best mates? Another problem I'm having is he has no other friends. I've asked him to try making new friends in addition to the one he's got now (partially because everyone's going to graduate and leave him alone anyway and he'll have nobody if he doesn't - and partially because I feel unhappy that those horrible people are his only circle.) It's like if something happened with him and I needed to contact a friend of his, I'd have no choice but to go to people I dislike. And I want to like my boyfriend's friends but it's not your stereotypical case of gf doesn't like bf friends. It's because they've hurt me and I've tried to get over it but I can't remove my dislike of them.

 

Am I being unreasonable for pleading with him to make new friends in addition to the ones I don't like currently? 

I, like a lot of people, already had some self esteem issues but now I just feel like I think about what upsets me a lot more since discovering what they said. How can I make myself happier?

 

I feel myself getting very uneasy whenever he's out with them

Just feels a bit like I'm the only one who got the short straw with the whole situation and the others involved have gone on as normal.

[muggiwhplar 2221]

Does this upset you because deep down you think what they said about you is true?

[RpgGamer 1089]

Muggiw asking the hard questions. But the real one

 

Weigh your options. Can you live like this and continue to do so indefinitely?

[MuffinMaddy 188]

For me that isn't a hard question to answer. I very much think they are true, but it really really really hurts to think other people said what I already know to be true and try to ignore because they don't shape me as a person.

[Noxx 315]

Honestly, once you know a person you love has said something bad about you, there's no going back. You won't be able to look at them the same way, or feel the same way. Despite what you're telling yourself. You still get down about it because you haven't moved on and you haven't forgiven him. Chances are you're never going to either. Whether you think what they said is true or untrue is irrelevant in your situation because this is not about how you're making yourself feel. This is about how he is making you feel, how he made you feel, and how he's going to make you feel in the future. Sad fact is that you're probably always going to hold on to what he said, whether he makes new friends or not.

 

Best thing you can do is let go, move on.

Yeah, for once i'm telling someone to break up. But that's just how it is.