There's a guy I know.

Lets call him Nick, he's your typical beta, bad posture, horrible confidence and a non existant frame. He had met a girl during the summer who lived across the country from him, about an 8 hour journey and essentially got oneitis for her.

It then led to him travelling there multiple times and spending more than 500 pounds on her, as you may predict, she didn't reciprocate nor did she even care to read his messages. He opened up to me about it and I gave him general but true advice, essentially that he needs to move on.

That was one year ago.

During this year I find that he is considering to defer from our course, curious to find out why, I do ask and to all my belief I find out that he is still in contact with the same girl and because they had an argument he's throwing his goals away.

He had the belief that his issue was that girls didn't like gentlemen anymore. The absolute inability to recognize his biggest flaw stunned me.

He didn't care about himself.

He didn't respect himself.

and that essentially means that he didn't love himself.

For myself, I believe that one key way to progress in any area of your life whether it be girls, goals, you name it. Is to respect and love yourself. It may sound like geniune common sense but people don't practice what they preach.

A man who loves himself doesn't need validation from others, isn't afraid to pursue what he wants and is always striving to improve his quality of life by all means.

A man who respects himself doesn't keep company with people who treat him like dirt, he doesn't sit by idly while people piss all over his standards and most importantly, doesn't put a woman over his dreams and career prospects whether she likes him or not.

Ask yourself, What standards do you have for the company you keep?

Are the people you're investing in giving you the same back?

Whenever there are exceptions to these questions, you have oneitis.

TL;DR: Learn to Respect and Love yourself, I believe that is the most important thing I've learnt here and I wish it was the first.