Background: I'm 18 years old, and about to graduate from high school. Highschool for me was hell, not just with girls, but, definitely with girls. I'm not here to share my stories of drug dealing, running away from home, or being abducted by aliens, I'm here to talk about all of the pathetic and ignorant shit I did / thought throughout the past four years, so that I can hopefully impart some knowledge on you boys and hold myself accountable. Going into highschool, I was an anime-obsessed, wanna-be skateboarder who played way too much starcraft and had a lot of emotional issues that were built-up from a lot of mental and emotional abuse I went through, not to mention, the way I socially isolated myself. I had little to no self awareness and absolutely no idea what girls were attracted to. I was extremely mentally ill for large portions of highschool, which played into my lack of results (I got one girlfriend who used me to get with my friend - it lasted a month and she dumped me over the phone), but regardless of that, here is my story.

So, where to even begin? The stories of cringe have no end. There was the girl who I learned to hold eye contact with and create tension with, who I never kissed because I was too much of a pussy, who proceeded to flake on me numerous times before I quit talking to her. There was the girl in Language Arts that I wanted to talk to and never did because I was too fucking scared. There was the girl in History who I wanted to talk to, who I would literally follow out the door, all the way through the halls (we did walk the same way, though) but never talked to because I was too nervous. There was the one girl who I actually DID hit on, who happened to be a lesbian, but it was my first real approach. There were the girls I hit on at work, one of which was 13, one of which was out of state, and one of which was a lesbian (but I approached in front of her mom and it was actually hilarious and I got her snap). There was the girl that I tried to talk to in the library who I got about two sentences out of before fucking off. There was the other girl in the library that I sat in front of for ten minutes before trying to talk to, before having a near panic attack at my own awkwardness. There was the girl who stood at the bottom of the stairwell who I was infatuated with for MONTHS before awkwardly trying to talk to, and then never talking to again. There was the girl in my Government class who I hit on like a complete serial killer because I was so out of the loop. You get the picture. I am not good with girls.

Yes. I said it. I am not good with girls. I am trash. I am unattractive. I am not what girls want and never have been. But I'm trying. I'm trying so fucking hard, and it hasn't worked for me yet. But maybe, just maybe, one day it will. And I figure, hey, I'm at least more wise than I used to be, and that's got to count for something. I'm hoping that maybe there's a kid out there who was like me who'll read this and sort himself out a bit quicker than I did. I'm writing this for that one kid who's lost. If this helps even one person, I've done my job.

So without further ado, here is what I've learned

1. It all starts with self awareness and figuring out what girls want. That much is obvious. Looking at the way I was living my life four years ago makes me infuriated. I didn't value my health. I didn't value how I looked, or, rather, just had no sense of what actually looked GOOD. I didn't care about educating myself. I didn't care about living according to higher standards. I was just some nerdy kid with no guidance and a lot of unanswered questions. Had I been taught these things by my father, maybe things had been different, but I didn't have one, and maybe you don't either. If you're like me, you have to do that work yourself, and that takes a lot of effort and self reflection. Get to work soon or you'll end up with a lot of regret, like me.

2. Faking confidence is impossible, but becoming confident is. YOU HAVE TO LOVE YOURSELF For a long time, I thought that I was just on the bottom of the totem pole and that I'd never be able to change. I thought, "this is how it is". It's my genetics, it's my upbringing, it's my friends, etc. I was certain that I'd always be a loser; I was convinced that I should just kill myself (literally, I actually almost did it once). Sometimes, I still think those things. But looking at myself now, I've made a lot of progress. I'm a lot healthier than I've ever been. I've got a little bit of experience with having a short term relationship, I've worked jobs, I've partied. I know what I'm passionate about now. I've grown up, so to speak. And no, I'm not confident. Confidence is what you get from knowing that you can succeed. I've never really succeeded except for the instance where I basically had the work done for me by a girl who was even more clueless than I was. But I'm slowly but surely becoming more OK with myself. I used to have no identity because I was never really into anything more than gaming and being invisible. I'm changing that with time. A good rule of thumb is that if you're not confident in yourself, it's because you don't deserve to be, because you haven't worked for it. At the same time, you can't hate yourself like I do constantly. I know that a lot of people find me physically attractive, in some sense. I know that I'm somewhat funny and I have a nice voice. I know that I'm good at a lot of things, and that if I could just get through the mental barriers I have, that I'd be fine. But I'm not fine because I hate myself. When I look in the mirror I see something different. When I hear my voice I hear something different, too. But I wake up in the morning and repeat mantras, so that maybe one day, I'll believe them. Seek validation if you have to. Anything to make you believe that you're worthy of being loved, because if you don't think that you are, nobody will.

3. You have to stop falling in love from afar and stop fantasizing. God, I still do this. All of those girls who I never talked to? I didn't even know them. All they were to me were projections of my affection; manifestations of my subconscious desire for literally ANYONE to be attracted to me. For all I know, I might have hated them. Come to find out, some of them were really, really weird, and I wouldn't have wanted a relationship with them anyways. However, that didn't stop me from putting them up on a pedestal so high that it seemed my voice couldn't even reach their ears. I'd go home and think about how awesome it'd be if I talked to them. What she might smell like, what kissing her would be like, what our sex would be like. What just cuddling with her would be like. You wanna know why? Because I was painfully lonely, and fantasizing was my way out. Once I had gotten rejected by my "target girl", or the year would pass and we'd change classes, it's amazing how quickly that target switches. It was never about the specific girl. All I was doing was taking a girl who I found particularly physically appealing to my taste, and forming a phantom personality around her. It's fucking sick, and the only way to get around it is to break through that wall and talk to them.

4. You must learn to be brave. Fucking talk to her you dumbass! There is NO DOWNSIDE as long as you're not trying to micro-manage the interaction because of what Julien Blanc and all of those weirdos told you! Learn to control your anxiety; every time you run away, the anxiety grows. Every time you run away, you will become MORE LIKELY TO RUN AWAY AGAIN. It will not be any less scary tomorrow, so just do it. Give your friends money and tell them to keep it if you don't. ANYTHING to force yourself to make a move. You will hate yourself a little bit more every time you reject yourself. She is not medusa, she is not a princess. She is just a girl with her own life and her own family and her own interests and her own insecurities. I know your fear, trust me. It's really hard to be brave when years of abuse have you convinced that you are so worthless that everyone on Earth would be better off with you dead. But it's not true. It's really, really, not true. You'd be surprised the nice things people say about you when you open up to them. One thing I've learned is that you really NEVER have any idea what the other person is thinking. Most of the time, you're just projecting your own insecurities. Get over it.

5. You have to get involved. Cold approaching girls in highschool will not work. It's a social circle environment. You have to join clubs. You have to play sports. You have to be very outgoing. You have to be popular. That is all there is to it. If you aren't, you will be in the 60% of losers in highschool who never get laid, and it's pathetic. You have to stop playing videogames all day, stop sleeping all day, and go make some plans. Go make some friends. Get out of the house. Go be social. Start somewhere, and start asap, because if you're a couple weeks into the semester and nobody knows you, it's already too late. You will not change your reputation junior or senior year. You will not get that girl if you waited to talk to her all semester. Trust me, she won't be impressed.

6. You have to accept that at the end of the day, you are responsible. If you really want this, you have to go for it. Period. There are guys out there who have got it worse than you, and there are guys out there who never had to try. It's not any of their faults. It's yours.

7. Getting girls is not everything so stop thinking so much about it. There is more to life. Family. Friends. Health. Experiences. Contributing. Learning. Growing. Dreaming. Grasp onto life. Don't you dare end it and don't spend all of it wishing it were something it's not.

So that's it. I'm hoping that going to college will change these things. It's going to be a long tough road but I'll never give up.