(I posted this before the blackout, which was a bad idea, so I'm going to try this one more time).

Hi everyone. I'm using a throwaway account because I'd rather not have this on my normal account but that's besides the point.

I've been lurking here for awhile now. I've read up on a lot of the things posted here, various techniques and methods, terminology and whatnot but I've never actually gone out and tried it. The reason: the fear of rejection.

Now I know that a lot of you are going to post that rejection isn't that big of a deal, it's just something that happens in life and that I should just brush it off. But it's not that easy for me. Growing up I had verbally abusive parents. Me and my sisters were constantly cut down for our shortcoming on a daily basis for mistakes we made at home, grades in school, how we looked, etc. This continued as we all got older and didn't stop even now as I'm in college. To add to this, I was continually bullied, teased and picked on throughout school. Every day was awful for me; I was constantly demeaned and picked on for everything and anything I did (glasses, I played in band, I was short and weak, etc).

As a result of all of this verbal abuse throughout the years, I have horrible self-confidence. I can't find anything about myself that I find particularly good or worthy. I'm boring, not all too attractive, have no skills that would interest anyone and am generally unfriendly. I try to stick to myself because I found in school earlier in my life any friends that I made would just turn on me as the "cool" thing to was to single me out and pick on me. I have no friends to speak of and am constantly lonely.

I've had one good friend. She was a girl. Over time we talked more and more and things were actually looking up for me for once. As time went on, I developed feelings for her. I wasn't really sure what to do so I was always on edge about whether or not I was making myself look stupid, saying something dumb or was being fake with her. The fear of losing her as a friend was excruciating but the difficulty of not telling her how I really felt about her was even worse (note: this was all before I came upon /r/seduction). I eventually fessed up to her how I felt about her and she laughed in my face. Literally. I thought of her as a friend and when I told her I wanted to be more than friends she laughed at me and told me to never speak to her again.

After that I fell into a deep depression. I didn't talk to anyone outside of my sisters for 7 months. It was more pain than I've ever felt. The harassment that my parents gave me was nothing compared to this. The 8 years or so of constantly bullying was child's play to the hurt I felt. Since then I haven't even tried talking to a girl. I know that it's self-damning to do so, as it's doing nothing to help my situation, but I can't bear to feel that pain again.

So I'm asking you all: how can I get over my fear of rejection? The fear of rejection that I have is ruining the best years of my life. I have no friends to speak of because of fear that they'll reject me. I have no female friends (shit, not even female acquaintances) at all. I have horrible self-confidence and because of it I fear that I'm never going to get out of my slump or feel better about my life.