A lot of times on Reddit, I see people give the advice of "you can't define yourself by a woman" or "If a girl doesn't like you, just move on."

This is definitely all true, but I think people who are successful at picking up women, have a hard time putting themselves in the frame-of-mind of someone who isn't successful. If you have your pick of women, it's easy to have high self-esteem and not be too caught up in a specific one.

Personally, when I was in high school I had a lot of trouble with girls, and now at 25 I am great at picking up girls, so I can see both sides of the token, and just wanted to give some long form advice to younger people, since I remember what it's like to be them. Some of this will definitely be repetitive, but hopefully I can tie everything together in new way that will be interesting.

It's easy for me to tell you "A woman can't make you happy, only you can make yourself happy." But I remember being a virgin, and all the anxiety it caused. I remember how much importance I put on finding a girl who truly liked me. The fact is, until you are sexually confident, and know you can be loved (from experience), a woman IS necessary for you to love yourself. You can't suddenly read something and stop caring about this.

A lot of times, inexperienced/unsuccessful people think if they JUST CHANGE THIS ONE THING, suddenly super hot girls will want their dicks (I see this misconceptions constantly on Reddit). It may be remembering to make eye contact, or a good ice breaker, or wearing the right shirt. But the fact of the matter is, if you suck, you need to change yourself, you can't just be trying specific strategies. (I feel like a lot of times on reddit I see the equivalent of "I don't know how to talk to women, how do I pick up super models at clubs?" Walk before you run.)

Anyways, So you have this kind of catch-22 in which you need to know women can be attracted to you to be confident/happy/attractive, but you have to be confident/happy/attractive in order to get woman to be attracted to you.

In order to break this catch-22, you need to really do 2 things at once. Improve yourself, and get dating experience.

The first thing you need to do is start working out and eating healthy. Reddit says this all the time, but its absolutely key. Girls are as superficial as guys. And further more, it causes hormonal changes that will make you more confident.

Simultaneously you need dating experience. At the end of the day, dating is like any skill - practice makes perfect. YOU ARE GOING TO SUCK AT IT FOR A LONG TIME. Just keep doing it. A girl will criticize your kissing, or the way you dress, or will storm out because you said something stupid. Even if she isn't love at first sight, if she's decent, escalate physically. You can't hook up with a 10 if you've never hooked up with a 4/5, you're going to freeze, and get nervous. I remember when I was younger, I used to like only one girl, and make the moves on no one else. At the end of the day, I think it was because I had a naive opinion on love, and since I was sexually unconfident, I only want to do things with someone I completely trusted. Break out of this mindset. With one of these girls, you'll have you're first serious sexual situation, and maybe you won't be able to get it up, and maybe you'll get depressed for a few months after. Doesn't matter, improvement isn't always pretty.

Over the year or two, you will notice the girls you talk to get more attractive VERY SLOWLY, so slowly you don't notice. One day you'll realize you now magically know when to kiss a girl, and you're confident enough to have sex. THIS ALL COMES WITH EXPERIENCE, YOU CAN'T READ IT. You won't even notice it while its happening. Your dress will get better because more attractive people will want to be your friend and it'll wear off on you, your posture will get better form working out, your eye contact will get better because you're legit not as nervous anymore. Being more confident, you'll start doing things that make you an interesting person - exotic travels, snowboarding, sky diving, marathons, etc. You'll be great at talking to women now because you're actually interesting, and you have the experience.

This will all come very slow, you won't even notice it happening. I think when you're young and you visualize being the person you want to be, you think it'll be a binary change. "I'm uncool now, and I'm cool then." but it's actually a slow process, with a lot of 2 steps forward, one step backwards.

In 2 years you'll get dinner with a girl you haven't seen in a while. A girl you liked but were too chicken to make a move. By the end of the night, you will have hooked up with her (or, at least know you could've), and then you'll have your epiphany. You'll realize you don't even like her anymore, and you can do better than her. You finally realize how much you changed in the last 2 years or so. At this point, your oneitis will be gone, and you won't need a girl to be happy. And you'll love yourself.

I guess in conclusion really view this as a multiyear change, thats going to have a lot of ups and downs. If you're bad with women, no individual thing is going to help, and no "just stop caring" advice is going to be helpful for you. Likewise, advice on this subreddit that give your "seduction" tips is going to be pointless for you if you don't have the substance to back it up. Furthermore, if you've already been putting yourself out there and trying to improve yourself, and are still unsuccessful....you're improving more than you realize, it's just hard to see at this point, so don't give up. Don't revert back to an unathletic neck beard who smokes weed every day and does nothing but plays video games, even if the girl of your dreams STILL isn't attracted to you. It takes a while.