I am in a really dark place. I am a failure. I'm not putting all this at the foot of everyone else. I think it's a mix of the world around me and my own failures, but this is how I feel. I don't make enough money. I have a business in a creative industry, and I am very good at it, but finding clients seems to have only gotten more difficult, to the point where all my advertising efforts feel futile. I have another job, a couple of days a week, basic wages, and I keep applying for more work but have had no luck. I am just not making enough to afford a place to rent, housing is ridiculously expensive in my country. I am in my late 20s now and living with family. I have put a huge amount of work into a creative product people really seem to like, like a lot, (I don't want to be too specific here and identify myself) but trying to get any sort of publicity for it seems hopeless. My industry is focused entirely on diversity, so despite coming from nothing, there is no story or interest in something created by a straight white man. I see the active, intentional discrimination every day. The speeches, the quotas, the policies, the special initiatives. I'm seen as the old guard despite still being an industry outsider.

I feel hopeless in my romantic life. I've worked so hard on my confidence, charisma, presentability, anxiety, etc. over the years and it's still an uphill battle all the time. I am egalitarian, and I think that is very much to my disadvantage. I think I've put a number of women off by splitting the bill/paying for my own food only, not that Id want a partner who expects to be paid for anyway. If I'm lucky I go on about 8 dates a year. On dating apps I get maybe 2 matches a week. It's extremely daunting to initiate flirting in realnlife social settings due tovfear of being seen as threatening or predatory. My longest relationship was with an abusive severe alcoholic who was obsessed with me. I kept coming back because I was afraid of being alone again. She could find another boyfriend in a week despite being a complete wreck. I hated that being female and nothing else granted her that power, which she would abuse, while everything was so hard for me. I am a failure but I don't hurt people. I mind my own business and I put in effort, even if I struggle to motivate myself.

I have become increasingly anti-woke over the past 5 years while I watch everything become more woke around me. More authoritarianism, more blatant lies seen as gospel, more people who are so far beyond reason it feels like a surrealist horror film. My own self-improvement has improved my ability to at least form rudimentary friendships and achievements, yet the increasing madness around me makes me feel more and more alienated and alone.

Yes, I have thought about giving up on the industry I have struggled hard for years to be successful in to no avail. I know I am good at it, better than many who achieve success there, from a skills perspective, and I truly love the craft more than anything, but it is highly competitive, nepotistic and, currently, woke. Maybe it is time to throw in the towel and spend 4 years full time learning a trade and giving up entirely on my current path and my lifelong dreams because I would have no time. But at least I would have money. I would be worth something to women and have a chance at a happy life with a loving partner. I would be able to afford a home even, eventually. I feel like all I need is that one thing, that one big client, that one bit of media coverage for what I've made, that one investor, that one company that sees what I can do, something, and I could be having success but it just never seems to happen. Nothing I do ever seems to get me anywhere.

I'm not going to kill myself. I'm too fucking chicken. I'm not going to be some kind of radical misogynist terrorist or something like the media tries to paint antifeminist men. I don't have a violent bone in my body. So what am I going to do? Nothing. I'm going to keep trying and probably keep being a failure forever, and keep being depressed, watching my hairline receed, or I'm going to change course and probably fail at that too, but maybe having a fighting chance at a job where I would be miserable but could make a bit of money, and probably still end up alone anyway.