Have any of you gone from zero to hero? Share your experiences.

Improveandshit · 2012-09-15T20:40:33+00:00

Weird timing... I just posted my story on another site less than 12 hours ago. I'll C/P it here(also there's an intro I removed because it is specific to the site I posted on):

There were a few things in my early childhood that definitely set me back on the track of normal social development. The first, and most readily apparent of these, is that my mom held me back from going to Junior Kindergarten when I was 4 because I was her favourite child(no crying, obedient, bright, etc. as a kid), she thought I was going to be her last kid and she wanted to spend the year with me. This meant that when I went to Senior Kindergarten the following year everyone else had already spent the entire last year making friends and learning how to interact with each other, whereas I had literally no experience talking to anyone that wasn't family.

As you might imagine, I was not exactly the most popular kid in my grade. When I realized that I was going to have little success making friends I dove even more into my school work, and this pulled me farther apart from the rest of the kids. This only got worse and worse throughout my time in elementary school. For a long portion of it I could barely even talk to people. I had almost no social skills. However, this was not the end of my problems. I also enjoyed eating fruit a lot, and would often eat 10+ apples, bananas or oranges in a day. As might be expected, this gave me extreeeemely bad gas. Combined with my lack of social skills, I think I had one friend up until Grade 5. Discovering Runescape in 4th Grade pretty much sealed the deal, especially because it made me "content" with having no friends. This is a theme that would show up for long stretches in my life – I would get sucked into a video game/use it to escape not having a social life, and consequentially push myself even farther away from getting a social life. It’s a vicious circle, and one that happens a LOT nowadays.

I started to play football when I was in Grade 5, which led to me becoming very muscular and fit. This would eventually end up being my main saving grace. I met a lot of my friends through football. Initially, these were the nerdy kids that happened to play football, similar to me. However, when they matured/became more balanced they naturally dragged me part of the way along the same path with them. As a result, I became slightly less nerdy heading into High School. Unfortunately, despite becoming more balanced, I STILL had no social skills (because I had missed out on practice through all of elementary school) and was therefore unable to converse with the people that I was now starting to meet. What could have been an opportunity for me to break out of my shell and finally start developing a social life was aborted before it had a chance to sprout wings and fly.

Things got even worse when I discovered BroodWar, and even worserest when I discovered its prodigy, Starcraft II. BroodWar wasn’t so bad at taking over my life (I only played 300 games in a period of 3 months, or so, around 3 a day). SC2 was. I played 2100 games between getting it in October and the next summer, a period of 8 months. Additionally, like any true nerd, I used the opportunity to ~~flame people about balance~~… converse with people about the game on Reddit. I probably spent twice as much time on Reddit as I did playing. Yikes. Combined with this, I developed an eye infection which was like a massive pimple on my eyelid, which made me really embarrassed to even be seen in public.

I distinctly remember one of the only(maybe literally the only one) parties I showed up to in Grade 12 I talked to some of my friends about SC2 for 30 minutes(it was the only thing they knew about me at all, so they dragged me into the conversation)... and then went and recovered in a corner for hours. The combination of being a hardcore introvert, and the effort required due to a lack of social skills took almost all of the steam out of me. I was bushed after 30 minutes of talking, and that effectively ended my night. I ended up skipping my semi-formal for graduation to work, and my prom to play in an unimportant baseball game... and left my graduation literally ASAP without going to an afterparty. And then spent the summer playing Starcraft.

Here comes the good part of this blog: I finally managed to turn around all of this backwards progress in a pretty short amount of time through one main thing: University. I knew I needed to really change myself, because I wasn't happy being a loner and only playing video games, so I lived in residence for my first year and promised to myself that I would socialize in any way possible, at any time. I needed to in order to catch up. And I did catch up a fair bit, although still not to a normal level. Unfortunately, over the winter I became out of shape, depressed and the damned eye infection came back and I was scared shitless that I would revert back to my high school self. I completely worked my ass off over that spring to recover in all of those areas and to continue improving socially(luckily for me I discovered /r/seduction and succeedsocially.com, and got some outgoing friends who helped me at this time, all of which were extremely helpful) and it actually started working - I finally had an attractive girl start hitting on me a few days before the break and I could hold a real conversation(with a girl, even)!

This girl hitting on me provided me with a lot of encouragement over the summer. I finally knew I was doing something right. And it got even better. I got a full time summer job working at the Salvation Army near my home and it literally was the best job I've ever had. At my only previous job(grocery store for 2.5 years) I just put shit on a shelf for 5 hours and went home, without talking to anyone ever. At the Sally Ann I was doing donation reception(take donations, put them in proper bins/help carry in big shit, and make sure the clothing sorters have clothing to sort). A lot of the time at this job I didn't have anything to do. If there was no one donating at the time I was given free reign to do whatever I wanted as long as I was ready for the next donation. This meant I could talk to everyone else in the store. Primarily, this was the ladies working with me on the donation's side, and the "volunteers"(guys who commit minor crime and have to do community service. I call them "Conscripts" because it's the Salvation Army). However, I would also often go over to the clothing side or to the cash registers and talk to the ladies there. My favourite was talking to the girls who were working there that were my age - apparently I flirted a lot, but it was unintentional. When I combined all of the theoretical things I learned about socializing from /r/seduction and succeedsocially.com with all of the practice I got from talking 6 or more hours per day I got freaking good at it.

Which was good timing, because I needed to put it to use relatively soon. One of the girls my age there had been told by a volunteer that I liked her(which I had told the guy) and she took my phone one day and put her number in, and started hitting on me. Now that I had good social skills I could actually recognize someone hitting on me, so it was on like Donkey Kong. I started hanging out with the girl in the parks around where we lived, got my first kiss(at the age of 19, better late than never haha), etc.

Here one of the flaws of /r/seddit's influence came into play. I thought my thing with that girl was non-exclusive, so when I got back to University after that summer I hit up the girl who had flirted with me before(and got my second kiss less than a week after my first one). We agreed to a FWB type thing right off the bat. When the first girl found out she was kind of pissed so I cut it off with the second girl. And that's where I sit now.

2012-09-15T22:00:28+00:00

Attention all, turn up your volumes, and rock the fuck out.

2012-09-15T21:09:53+00:00

I'm not there yet, but on my 18th birthday on a cruise I nearly bedded the most beautiful woman (20-24 years old) that I have ever seen in person. She shot me every signal, I just needed to make the gesture. What stopped me? No condoms. After that night, I didn't have the courage to go back up to her. Nevertheless, that experience has provided me with a reminder that it's possible to get what you want with a bit of courage.

I'm 19 now, going on 20. I am a sophomore in college. I'm still a virgin, but that's by choice. I talk to girls a lot more frequently now and am in general becoming a more socially adept person. I've got a long way to go, and I'm taking baby steps to get there, but things are slowly getting better and better. I see a bright future ahead.

BassmanUK · 2012-09-16T13:15:09+00:00

I had some shit happen to me during my younger years (that I'd rather not go into) that really fucked me up. I used to be quite outgoing, but after this I developed very strong social anxiety and an array of nervous twitches. People scared me and I couldn't retreat from my shell because of this. I would try to hide myself (which is were I believe a lot of my twitches came from) but being a big guy (I'm 6"9') this wasn't exactly easy. When I was 4 or 5 the parents got me a Sega Genesis (Megadrive here in the UK) with Sonic and I was hooked ever since; much like Sedditthrowaway I became 'content' with holing myself up in my room and gaming all day.

I moved through school and college like this, improving slightly as time went by but still being awkward as fuck. Never got intimate with a girl, had no real self worth and my cognitions were just generally fucked; I just kind of moved from day to day hoping tomorrow would be better. I would throw myself at things to try and hide myself from the world like gaming, anime, bass, warhammer; but these only provided temporary relief. I felt like a creep, because of how awkward I was and the fact that I was always a good foot taller than everyone else and I guess because I was thinking like this I might well have been one. I was ashamed of my my lack of social skills, my size, and my hobbies. I made myself seem almost aloof and unfeeling in another attempt to hide and it's only recently that I've really been able to loosen up. I had a good if small group of friends, and quite a few people were receptive and friendly towards me but I had no idea how to act around them and I couldn't understand why people would like me.

My first real period of self-development happened during the first year of Uni. I knew no one and so was forced to meet new people. I was still pretty awkward and depressed but I learnt (finally) some basic social skills; I could talk comfortably with people for more than a few minute and actually get to know them. I made some decent friends and felt a lot better the I had prior. Though I was still hugely uncomfortable around any women I was interested in and still felt (sounds melodramatic but the only way i can really find to describe it) hollow.

It was since this summer though that I've made a real difference. I discovered Seddit back in May and got heavily into self-improvement. At the risk of sounding cliche I hit the gym and started dressing well at quickly started seeing visible results, people were far more receptive and I started having women hit on me; though I still couldn't respond properly. While it may not be a popular answer what has made the single biggest difference for me was MDMA. I first dropped about 3 months ago at a festival and I had the best time of my life. All these boundaries and walls I'd constructed in my head that had constricted me and trapped me fell away. I could actually express myself and it felt amazing; I could just go up to people and start a conversation about anything. It made a massive difference with all the self improvement material I'd been reading, before I understood but now I could internalise it. I've done it twice since and each time I feel that much better afterwards.

I've right now just moved up to London for Uni (first time living out of my tiny town) and it feels like I can finally start living. Sorry if this sounds boastful: I'm now a pretty social guy, I've put on 2 stone since starting the gym (I'm now 225 pounds), I dress well, have sorted my hair out, fucking rock my height and have come realise I am attractive and deserving despite what I'd been telling myself for years. I got with the girl I'd been into for months (dw I'm not about to go all oneitis on you) a few days ago after watching a movie, we didn't have sex but for me it was a huge step up and has boosted my confidence immeasurably. Hearing someone half naked tell you your gorgeous while straddling you and nibbling at your neck has that effect. I'm interested in starting a relationship with this chick and now I have the confidence to do so.

I still have my off days and some remnants of my more anxious days persist (e.g. I say sorry way too much) but now I can assert myself and am a confident guy. Just wanna say cheers to you Seddit guys as you were one of the biggest reasons for my self development.

TL;DR Was a nervous ball of anxieties and stayed so until a few months ago. Combination of Seddit, MD and experience sorted me out. Still got a long way to go but thanks to you guys had my first sexual experience and gained some confidence.

Edit: Fuck this is the longest post I've ever written!

252 · 2012-09-16T02:50:10+00:00

Be me. Be 10 years old.
Barely talk to anyone. Grow up as weird socially awkward kid. Later diagnosed Aspergers. Never really socially retarded per se, just uninterested in people. Gain interest in girls in High School.
Lose virginity at 18. Be 26, have been in multiple long term relationships with girls I really cared about. Have had sex with 35-40 girls at this point. Feel extremely comfortable with women.

I was never exactly a zero, but I feel like I really have a handle on relationships that most people I know don't have.

I am in control of whether or not I have success. If I want a girlfriend, I can go out and get one. If I want to get laid, I can go out and get laid. It doesn't feel like something that is decided by the gods. I know it is one hundred percent up to me, and what I choose to do with myself.

Sometimes I choose the path that leads to girls, and sometimes I don't, but I can always see what needs to be done one way or the other, and the decision is mine, and hers, and no one else's.

Title	Have any of you gone from zero to hero? Share your experiences.
Author	3109
Upvotes	12
Comments	11
Date	September 15, 2012 7:18 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/seduction
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/zxr91/have_any_of_you_gone_from_zero_to_hero_share_your/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/seduction/have-any-of-you-gone-from-zero-to-hero-share-your.1302042 https://theredarchive.com/post/1302042

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