I was raised by my mother until she died when I was 10, then my dad was pretty non existent so I never had any male role models. I'm 20 now, and reading about the "getting validation from attachments" I realized I do this subconsciously in nearly every aspect of my life.

Where do I draw the line between for instance, "if I learn this wonderful song on piano my peers/future prospective women will be impressed and think I'm great" vs "Im going to learn this song to prove to myself I can do it". I can't seem to make the distinction between things like this. Even when it comes to lifting how do I know I'm doing it for myself vs trying to look good for women?

It likely comes from me being unpopular in school (not kissless virgin level though) and thinking that I'm not good enough. I've become much more confident in the past year but I can't seem to shake my old habits. I tried doing LSD for a more introspective trip but I was fucked up and couldn't really figure things out.