My question is whether or not it’s too late for me to ever meet women. In that regard I’m in sort of a unique scenario, and if it is out of the equation for me, I’m willing to accept that it’s the case and move on. I figure that it’s better to come to terms with a solitary and celibate life than to spend the rest of my years wanting something I’ll never get.

To give a brief summary of my background and situation, I was raised Catholic (points off the ‘social competence’ category), homeschooled (more points off) until I was sent to an all-male Jesuit high school (even more points off), then spent two years at a community college (points off) and studied at a real college for a year before my education was interrupted by a global pandemic. The whole while I was living at home with my parents and siblings, where I still live today (which would be more points off if I wasn’t already at rock bottom). But don’t think I’ve been completely unsuccessful - I met the World’s Most Boring Woman and somehow got tangled up in a two year, emotionally and physically unfulfilling relationship where I had sex zero - you heard me right, zero - times.

I’ve known about this subreddit for some time, and about pickup artist theory for even longer. When I was in high school I watched a lot of Simple Pickup on YouTube, which did me absolutely no good whatsoever. Frankly, I’m pretty convinced that the whole PUA concept is manipulative and misogynistic, so let this post be a testament to my pure desperation. I have no idea what’s going on anymore. I guess that for all its faults, this is a place where people seem genuinely willing to read each other’s posts and make an attempt at giving advice.

I thought that I might have some modicum of social success at my current college, but that proved to be fruitless. I thought that maybe I’d be invited to a party at some point, but that never happened. I thought that surely, I’d make at least one friend to hang out with, but it never happened. At community college, I was able to blame it on my peers (who I still believe were super lame) but once I started at a real college I realized that the blame laid solely on me. I’m so terrified of judgment and rejection and making a bad impression that I can’t even bring myself to start a conversation with a classmate sitting next to me. Oddly enough, I was a fast-food manager for a while (quit because I was losing my mind) and then a cashier at a customer-service heavy store (I lost that job to the pandemic), and I had absolutely no problem talking to strangers then. I even enjoyed it, especially when I got to talk with people my age.

I’ve boiled my problems down to the following four. These, don’t forget, are all on top of the normal problems that every other loser like me has - fear of rejection, ‘approach anxiety’, all that jazz.

  1. Lack of social experience. You read it up top - I simply haven’t had the same opportunities as most other people. My understanding is that you fumble around like a moron in middle school, start to figure it out in high school and refine everything in college so that by the time you’re in the real world you’re golden. I get that that’s not the case for everybody, but I think it’s safe to say that the average well-adjusted human has had at least experienced some part of that formula. I had none of it. Just years of frustration. I didn’t speak to a girl from second to tenth grade. I have no background or context to look back on now.
  2. Lack of things in common with others. I simply can’t find common ground with most people I met, not to mention the very very few women I’ve met. And believe me, what with all having-no-friends and the not-getting-laid I’ve done, I’ve had time for hobbies and interests. Live music is probably my all-time favorite activity, and I love music in general. I even play the guitar a little bit. But I rarely meet people who are into the same stuff I am, and I can count on no fingers how many times they’ve been women. The same goes for my other interests - classic literature, religion, nutrition, and a few other things. I know I sound pretentious but I promise I’m not. I can’t even really discuss that stuff with people I don’t know because I don’t want to look like a dork. Please believe me, I’m not that weird. I’m also pretty interested in politics and suffer from overwhelming addiction to bad news. It makes me miserable and jaded but I can’t stop. This leads into the next Reason I’m So Lonely,
  3. I don’t want to be a sexist, the same reason I’ve been so hesitant to post here. Social norms are shifting in unpredictable directions and the popular ways of thinking are more and more influenced by feminism. I do believe that it’s for the best. Everybody is starting the realize that gender roles can sometimes create unbalanced power dynamics that create unfair situations if you’re a woman. I’m just scared of accidentally doing or saying something wrong, and it’s hard to tell what’s okay and what isn’t, especially considering my lack of social experience. Sometimes it seems like the only right thing to do is to stay alone. And like I said, if that’s how it needs to be then I can accept it.
  4. I’m not attractive. I’m just a real average lookin’ fella. Nothing about me would ever interest a woman. Until March I was going to the gym consistently, and I felt like I was just on the cusp of looking like somebody a woman might if there were no other options, consider talking to at a party or something. When the pandemic hit and the gyms closed I obviously stopped that trajectory, and now I just do a lot of cardio. The progress I made is gone forever, along with the few wisps of confidence I managed to snatch from Fate’s cruel hands. I’m a pasty, scrawny, boring piece of trash. On a positive side, I’m very healthy diet and lifestyle-wise, and you know that’s true because my negligible self-esteem would never let me admit anything positive about myself if it wasn’t objectively correct.

It’s not even about having sex so much as having fun and being sociable in general. Of course, on some base level I want to do that, but I can just continue to bottle it up the reproductive urge. If there’s one thing Catholicism teaches you it’s how to repress your sexual desires by chaining them to a heavy load of guilt and drowning them in a sea of religious shame.

I would just like to have more of a social life and less anxiety. I don’t want to be the person who reads two translations of a Dostoevsky novel to try and spot the differences. What am I, fucking 60 years old? This sucks. I’m socially way behind people my age, and not getting any younger. I’m ashamed to admit it but just once I would like to be invited to go to party and meet an interesting girl and have the guts to have a legitimate conversation. But I never get the opportunity and I never will, since I’d just self-sabotage on the minuscule chance that I do.

It’s all come to a head with the view of my 21st birthday on the horizon. Most people have a few notches in their headstock by now - at least my friends I know from high school do. I’ve been pretty cynical for my whole life but I truly believed that by now I’d have some semblance of success. I’ve never lived away from my parents, for fuck’s sake. I’m pretty goddamn miserable.

And of course, there’s the coronavirus which basically prohibits social interaction. Even if I had self-respect, it’s not like I can go out and try to meet people right now - in my part of the U.S. we’re still deep into pandemic precautions and the paranoia is palpable. Did you catch that quadruple alliteration?

I wrote this to ask if I have any shot at learning to talk with a woman, but now that I’ve proofread it and seen my multitude of problems laid bare it’s clear that that the answer is ‘no’. It’s too late, I’m too far behind, and my insecurities are too numerous to allow me to catch up. It’s amazing how getting everything written down gives you so much clarity. I guess this is why people journal. While you guys are meeting women I’ll be getting to know my true self through the art of the written word. We all know who’s boss now.

Now that I’ve answered my own question I guess I don’t need to post this, but I might do it anyway. Maybe somebody will drop me a sympathetic message to give my ego a four-minute boost. If you read this, all I can say is thanks.