TL;DR: Take a good look at yourself guys and see if you're good enough for yourself.

Hey guys.

I've been with this community for just over a year now. I was in a dark, dark place before discovering this place, and the things that I've learned from this community has taken me to places I never believed I could once go. I owe a lot to who I am now and what I've become to /r/seduction.

I don't post here that often and spend the majority of my time lurking, but I've read so many great articles and write-ups that still resonate in me. What I've been seeing lately has been disappointing though. I don't know what the quick fix solution to this is, but I'm hoping that by sharing my journey with you guys, I can at least steer some of you gents in the right direction.

The Beginning

I came from a position that's as similar as just about everyone here. I was frustrated with my life and its lack of girls and relationships. I thought I was doing everything right. I was nice, talented, decent looking, and pleasant to be around. Yet nothing seemed to click or work out, and I was just about damn sick of it.

I was fortunate enough to attract a few girls here and there out of sheer luck, but I could never get any of them to stay or commit. I was a virgin going into my sophomore year in college. I was jealous of all of my friends who were catching tail and in happy relationships. I never could understand it.

It wasn't until I had my heart smashed again by yet another girl that I came here out of pure spite. I decided in my mind that I was done being this nice guy who gets stepped all over, and I was going to become one of those douchy, seductive guys who would sleep with girls and never call them back.

Boy was I surprised when I actually started reading some of the things here.

The First Step

After reading the sidebar articles and just about every top link from the /all tab, I started to realize that the root problem here wasn't girls or the world, but rather it was me.

In my opinion, the very first step you can take in the journey of seduction is to evaluate yourself.

You need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. In my case, I realized that I was your classic "nice guy" who only did nice things and expected good things to happen in turn. I was never truly nice. A lot of things I did for girls was just to make them like me. I sacrificed who I was as a person to become the "perfect" boyfriend for every girl I got close with.

"You're a religious girl? Hey, I can be religious too!"

"You love cats? Awesome, I love cats too! Let me buy you lots of stuffed cats and send you endless cat emojis."

It's no wonder girls walked all over me. I was subconsciously telling these girls, "Hey, I'll be anything and whatever you want me to be," and this gave them the power to run my life. You know what's really fucked up about this? I was okay with that.

But not anymore. I took a step back guys, and I took a hard, long look at who I was and where I was. It wasn't until I realized my problems that I started to make changes. I saw my issues and I tackled them head on.

I feel like this is where a lot of new guys tend to struggle. I can't tell you how many posts I see that say, "Why doesn't this girl text me back?" "I'm bald and have anxiety, WHAT DO?"

You're bald? You're short? So what. Quit acting like bald, short guys don't get girls.

Put yourself in the shoes of the girl who doesn't text you back. Would you want to text you? What do you bring to the table that would make you want to reply to your text? Are you exciting? Are you a person that's worth texting? If you can't confidently answer these questions, then there's an issue. "I think I'm exciting. I think I'm worth texting." isn't going to cut it, guys. If that's the case, forget the girl who won't text you back. You've got other things to worry about. But here's the thing, once you start to realize there's work needed to be done, it'll be so much easier to get it done.

The first thing you have to do is look at yourself and realize where you need to start working. Best of luck to you all.