18yo male that was probably screwed up by RP here. I'm just having a bad day thinking about my past in terms of dating and social relationships, and how RP probably messed it up a lot.

Growing up I was never really accepted by girls romantically except for the couple that approached me in 5th grade. Everything past that, I would be straightforward that I liked them but they would think I was annoying or report me for harassing them. I was immature and there was no way I was going to attract girls back then. So, I think I probably was heavily shaped by those middle school interactions and kind of stopped approaching girls by 8th grade.

I was also a late bloomer. I was short and didn't get rid of my basic kid haircut until like 10th grade. I didn't have much interest in girls sexually until then, either. People thought I was gay...

But right as I was starting to mature, COVID hit. My school went virtual for a year. I didn't interact with a soul other than my parents. Most of my previous built-up social skills were forgotten.

But I started to want interaction, and maybe a girlfriend too. So I thought I would prepare and try to get one when I went back in for senior year of high school.

Well, I can't remember why or how, but RP content started appearing in my YouTube recommended. And being the naïve 16yo I was, not knowing anything about dating at all really, I took to it. I was watching all day long to podcasts and videos about RP while I was doing HW and such, reading the Rollo books and everything. It made logical sense to my (possibly autistic-like according to some tests and peers) brain, and I wasn't being led to spend money on anything, so I didn't think much about it's legitimacy. And add on top of that all the guys talking about how it helped them so much, and how they experience it in reality all the time led me to really believe it. I also live in a pretty liberal area where the girls aren't exactly the most traditional and often DO get with the dark triad kind of guys like RP says (and face the consequences of doing so, I've noticed many of them are depressed) so it further verified it in my mind.

Well basically I did not get a gf senior year of HS for multiple reasons that I won't get into but one of them might have been my RP upbringing.

So far I feel like RP has been basically the only source of dating info in my sexually mature lifetime...and I feel like that's warped my perspective a lot. My parents never talk about dating or sex, I don't have barely any friends since COVID hit, and they probably don't even know what RP is and are doing fine in terms of dating.

And now I feel lonely since I am not going to college and all my peers have, and my only source of maybe dating someone is from online dating, but swiping on the apps is like being rejected by 100 girls and then landing on one that responds with one word answers and then rejects me for some stupid reason like not wanting to vape.

I just want a nice girl to start a long-term relationship with and maybe lead to something more. I want a life partner, not a sex doll. What do I do? RP has simultaneously helped me see that there are so many ways to view the world, but also degraded my self-esteem, view of women, and confused me in terms of how to date.

Please guys, don't fall into this. But what would you guys suggest to help get me out of this rut? How do I learn "normal people" game?