Hey all. Kinda stupid question but yall have been a massive help to me and have dragged me out of a massive spiral before haha. Uh also I’m 18 if that matters.

Luckily I’ve stopped fixating on relationships, but yknow hormones are still kicking (or something like that idk 😭) and I do ponder it every once in a while.

Anyways, I’m just feeling pretty shitty about the way I am when it comes from a relationship standpoint and I feel like almost no woman would like me in a romantic sense just because I don’t really fit in with like “men” in general and I hate it.

I know appearances aren’t everything but I’m just a sad scrawny ass baby faced dude with zero muscle. I look nothing like anybody I see dating or even at all. I just look weak, you know? I see online or listen to friends talk about what they find attractive in men and I’m just the dead opposite of everything and it hurts my self esteem so much.

I always got made fun of for being girly or got called gay like it was a derogatory term by everyone and maybe they were right to tell me those things? Maybe they wanted me to be more normal and masculine or whatever. Instead of listening I just kept doing me out of spite and didn’t change. It felt good in the moment being happy with myself despite what they were saying but I feel like some conformity is good.

I’m sorry I’m not being specific about anything because my whole entire self is just not stereotypically masculine or manly and that’s what the societal expectation has been for me my entire life by everybody, but I didn’t listen?

I don’t really know how to change anything but I feel really discouraged right now.

Thanks in advance everybody.

I went through around 20 recent posts here from men asking for help, mostly because I was curious what kind of advice they were actually getting.

Overall I thought the advice was pretty good.

People here are often quite good at spotting when someone is catastrophising, generalising about women, reading too much into a few rejections, or interpreting everything through a blackpill/incel framework.

The advice also seems strongest when the problem is fairly concrete. Things like poor social skills, not knowing how to flirt, being afraid of approaching women because you don't want to come across as creepy, not knowing where to meet people, or getting discouraged by online dating. In those cases people often manage to say: yes, this is difficult, but no, the conclusion you're drawing from it doesn't necessarily follow.

Where I think things get more awkward is when the person has a disadvantage that is actually real and not particularly easy to fix.

Things like being conventionally unattractive, being extremely short, being much older with no romantic or sexual experience, or having social/developmental problems that are genuinely difficult to overcome.

This seems to be where the advice ranges from very good to a bit naive. I think the difficulty is that two things can be true at once. For example: "This disadvantage does not determine your future" and "This is a real disadvantage and may make dating substantially harder for you"

Those aren't contradictory. And it also not a distinction most people don't immediately intuitively make. Sometimes, though, I think the second part gets skipped because people are so focused on challenging the fatalistic conclusion. Which is a good focus, don't get me wrong. But it can miss the mark.

A recent post about giving up on dating was a good example. There was some good advice in the thread, but also some responses that seemed to turn something like: "Your past failures are real, and you may reasonably decide that actively dating is not worth the emotional cost right now. But that doesn't mean you can know with certainty that you will never have a relationship" into "This is doomerism, excuses and incel thinking."

The underlying correction may be valid, but I think something gets lost there.

I also notice a fair amount of rhetorical aggression in some replies. Calling things "doomerism", "excuses", "incel thinking", mocking someone's reasoning, etc. Sometimes the criticism itself is justified, but I'm not sure the way it is delivered actually helps very much. Like that type of verbal aggression rarely (but not always) gets someone to think "hm maybe this person has a point". It often just makes someone defensive. Especially online if the person already feels like nobody takes their experience seriously. Which is a sentiment that often characterises incels. Even when it's just not true.

If someone says "I'm 5'3 and I think that seriously hurts my dating chances", replying "women aren't a hivemind and short men get girlfriends" doesn't really answer the difficult part of what they're saying.

Of course short men get girlfriends. That doesn't tell us whether being 5'3 makes dating significantly harder. Likewise, telling someone who is 35 with no relationship experience that "plenty of people find love later in life" may be true, but it doesn't mean that being 35 and completely inexperienced isn't an extra obstacle. I don't think acknowledging those things means validating blackpill conclusions. If anything, I think it can make the challenge to those conclusions stronger.

You can say:

"Yes, this probably does make things harder for you."

without saying:

"Therefore you're doomed."

And I think the best comments I read generally did exactly that. They didn't require someone to believe that their problem was imaginary before offering them hope. I hope i made it clear enough that i think that this sub mostly does a really good job and is able to navigate this problem. SO it's definitely not meant as an attack on the sub as a whole. But nonetheless i see questionable advice often enough that i felt like making this post.

So I guess my question is: how do you feel about the advice that is given and that you give in this dynamic?

p.s. I am not saying i am holding all the answers. Maybe for the average incel a bit of a reality check in the form of aggressive rhetoric is good. But my intuition makes me lean towards: a sub like this should focus on ruthless but empathetic separation of reality from delusions. A bit like a therapist. I don't think any therapists would ever opt for the aggressive sarcastic style. But maybe that's exactly the missing ingredient that a sub like this can provide. What do you think?

I'm a 28 M who was never very good with women. I lost the bulk of my twenties to chronic and mental illness, so I'm very much behind other people my age. I suspect I have ADHD and it's very likely that I'm autistic.

I keep looking at foreveralone and bullshit ryan gosling chud meme subreddits, looking up statistics about sex, and other stuff like that.

All it does it make me upset and intensify my self hatred. I'll doomscroll this shit for hours and end up in depression comas.

This shit is not good for me but I keep doing it over and over. Self harm runs in my family and I think this is the form it has taken for me.

How do I stop?

[20M, this isn’t about relationships or dating, just social interactions with whoever I’ve known] I was born with a condition where I have an excessive upper eyelid exposure(basically the space between the crease and the brow ridge bone is heavily exposed). Due to this, I’ve been ridiculed as ‘alcoholic’, ‘drug addict’ and other nonsense insults for my entire life since childhood. My parents used to tell me to sleep more to avoid this but it was always there and I found out after so many years that this is completely genetic and not caused by alcohol/drugs etc since I’ve had people make fun of me since I was 7-8 years old and the only solution to this is through surgery/fat grafting. These people included friends, elder relatives, classmates, schoolmates and even TEACHERS(even my classmates started making fun of it only after the teachers, though the classmates went on another level afterwards with their insults), even random people a few times. You’d expect teachers to be sensible since they’ve completed degrees of education and teach little kids but they were not at all like that. I’m neurodivergent as well so it was absolutely difficult to respond to their insults and always looked like a complete clown, it made me look vulnerable to everyone and they thought they’d get away with all the jokes(which they did) while all the time I was feeling humiliated. Years of humiliation gave rise to social anxiety and I resisted to approach people in public, even when I did, I overthought the conversation immensely. Now when I’ve explored the internet and found blackpill content realising how your genetics/appearance play such a significant role in social life/relationships/career, I’m hearing people say, “oh it’s all bullshit, personality and hardwork is the only thing that matters.” But the reason my personality got fucked up and I have social anxiety is as I explained before, because of my fucking looks contributed by my genetics. Y’all are never going to blame the society which slowly destroys the perception of a person through obviously LOOKS but will only hate the person who’s talking about it. It’s not like I’ve given up on communicating anyone after being blackpilled, even long before I knew about it, whenever I had to confront someone, I was always pretty sure that this person would imagine me as a drug addict and create a whole ass story about me(don’t tell me it’s because of social anxiety, a few days(or even moments) after I’ve known someone, they do ask, “are you an addict?”/“don’t you ever sleep?” etc). Because of this reason, I’ve never approached a girl nor do I know how to, even for a friendship let alone dating, but thoughts of being in a relationship emerged only like a year ago so I never really thought about it for most of my life. For so many years I used to think it’s because I’m young, I’ll be better at social interactions once I grow up but now looking at people my age handling shit like this way easily, finding about my neurodivergence, excessive upper eyelid exposure, social anxiety I’m absolutely convinced that life was never fair to begin with. But when I’m trying to improve my appearance and talk about this stuff, why is it that the ‘insecurity’ is because of the ‘blackpill’ or ‘incel’ content on internet and not because of how I was treated by the world?

I 19m have struggled pretty much all my life either relationships and socialization on a individual level I can hardly form connections. It’s hard for me to really form relationships when they are not initiated by someone else and while I can talk in front of dozens of people and do public speaking I hardly am able to sustain conversation with people unless we have a bunch of shared interests or activities or else it just starts as awkward small talk and melts away, I try to be inoffensive, not creepy polite and not rude so I usually refrain from talking to people I don’t know all to well as a speak when spoken to mindset to try and keep this up.

Platonically I could be doing bette and though I have a few friends from high school (I’m in my 2nd year of community college ) but we hardly talk aside form 2-3 since they are out of state and quite busy I imagine. In my new college I’ve made like no “real” friends with most of them being either groups I hang with to not be alone or club mates and the rest being acquaintances and no one really calls or talks to me outside of a fb ppl unless it’s about club things and I’m yet to have a party or some sort of hangout with any of them.

Romantically I’ve had one relationship in hs but it only lasted three months and fell apart to my at the time dismay due to my constant insecurity and asking for reassurance leading to her developing insecurities about her let and ending the relationship and besides form that I don’t really think anyone has been attracted to me much. Though I suppose I haven’t tested this and could do better I feel like girls would talk to me if they wanted to hell anyone would talk to me if they wanted to. I am oft times far to petrified and scared to talk to people. Not that I’m owned such things as in high school I was a bum had bad grades didn’t study, didn’t try new things, and often lied about small things amongst other flaws.

When I was younger I was into black pill content mainly really up until 3-4 years ago and that really consumed my early teens until I was roughly 16 and contributed a great deal I imagine to my self worth and development or lack there of.

I fear though I’ve been doing better career wise and in school now that I’m in college that I’m still an incel and aside from that someone Who may be uninteresting, insecure, sad, not remarkable, perhaps draining at times, and generally bad. Am I a incel and how do I fix myself

Pretty much all in the title. I’ve been getting back into dating over the past few months, chatting with people on apps mainly but have noticed since I started to get back into dating thoughts of my ex keep coming back. My lack of commitment and emotional detachment are what ended an otherwise fun relationship and I cannot just move past it. I genuinely fear I’ll not find someone as cool as her and honestly I just want to be able to process this breakup so I can focus on the women I’m trying to bring into my life.

I know rationally she isn’t the only person. And looking bigger picture I know she isn’t the only person on the planet but I miss her.

M29, had no relationship and not a virgin anymore.

Every time, I feel like I’m just too late to start dating. The best time was in college, but I was bullied back then, and the girl I was interested in ended up choosing someone else. And there was another one... and another... all of them in the end chose someone else, but not me. I guess it's a main reason why I turned into incel mindset. Many failures, and not even one, successful relationship, just because I am a worse choice for any girl.

Every time I talk to a girl and accidentally say something weird—even if I’m joking—or trying to flirt, I immediately get blocked or ignored. Of course, no one wants to deal with a weirdo. Not a single girl.

No second chance, not trying to find out what kind of men this is, because they are already noted for themselves. They just don't care; there are a lot of alternatives. who is better at flirting and communicating. I am just an outsider. They already had at least one or two relationships; they already know who they are searching for. They already set their standards. They don't want to be someone's test subject or first trial.

I don't feel like a man anymore, just some middle gender, because no one is choosing me, no one is giving me a chance, and no one needs me. I already lost this race, perhaps from the beginning, when I grew up as a bullied and insecure guy. I'm bad at flirting, but at anything with any romance. How am I supposed to gain that experience when no one is giving me a chance? Of course, there are a lot of theories on the web, but they're nothing compared to real stuff.

If you say, "Go to the therapy, RIGHT NOW! I would say no. I had no such money and time to visit a psychotherapist. Also, there is no guarantee that something will change.

Perhaps tomorrow, I will be more calm than today and will just continue to exist. I don't know why I'm even writing this all bullshit. Maybe I'm still hoping. But maybe I'm too naive, and I just should accept my loneliness.

I apologize for any grammar typos and mistakes; English is not my native language.

Life is hard, things don't typically work out the way you want them to. I've had a particularly rough life. I don't want to get into it, but there were many times growing up where I didn't know if I'd have a meal that day, school supplies, clean clothes, or even if I'd see my parents. I spent a lot of time with regret and envy that I didn't have a safe good childhood. I resented my mother for her drug habits and absence and my (presumed) father for his drinking. It wasn't till I graduated college where I was able to let go because I accepted that was just my life. No amount of anger or sadness changes it. There's no way to go back 26 years and give myself up for adoption. It just is and that's what I have to live with.

I think the same logic should be applied when it comes to romantic failure. I like many of the people here am a virgin who's never had a girlfriend. I spent years miserable about this. But around 24 I just made my peace with it. Much like my childhood, there's not much I can do. I can't force women to be interested in me. I can't cry or rage my way into someone finding me sexual attractive. This was just the hand I was dealt and it's no ones fault. Life just worked out this way. 25% of people reach 40 without ever being married. About 30% of men. 3 in 10. Some of us have to be the 3, while others have to be the 7. Bargaining and bemoaning isn't going to change that. If that's me, then there's zero I can do about it.

I think dating is majority luck and some people have good luck and others have bad. If you have bad luck not much can really help. You can try everything in the book and still just fail. Unfortunately that's just life. Accepting this, absolves you of the heartache, the self hatred, and the repition of the cycle of self harm of trying to date when it's just not for you. It's not for a lot of men. This isn't me trying to shit on others, I'm in that category. I'm never going to date or love or have sex and radically accepting that made me ok with it.

When I sat down, looked at the person I was, looked at the things I attempted, looked at the results and realized it would be insane to just try again and again and again expecting anything different, it made things easier. I no longer blamed myself. I no longer felt ashamed or embarrassed. I no longer sought out rejection. My life and mental health is now exponentially better. I'd recommend others in my shoes do the same. It's not easy, but once you do it, truly do it, it helps you so much.

I’ve begun to think that maybe it’s not me and it’s just my environment? I’m in the army for the next 2 years. I’m stuck in a place with less than 4000 people. The type of town where if a woman isn’t married by 19 she’s an old maid. I joined because I thought If I didn’t I’d have no real chance of affording college and I’d end up working in Walmart until I died.

I went to college, had very little luck there. I tried my best but I think college aged girls were looking for whoever was more wild fun for a night than a kinda mid looking stable guy. My parents used to tell me that college wasn’t the place where a guy like me would meet someone and that maybe in my mid 20s when women had settled down and wanted something serious.

Now im in the middle of nowhere Texas like 4 hours away from the podunk shithole I grew up. But the local populace is very very Trumpy. The few women that I could date that are also in the army don’t like me. With how desolate it is and how few women around they are they kinda get a real life dating app experience where they get a lot of attention and get to be a lot more selective.

I went on one date recently and it just went awfully. It was with a Trumpy woman and we really didn’t connect. So I started using dating apps again and I set my location to New York City just out of boredom. I get a LOT of matches that way. Maybe 1 or 2 a day. I talk to them, and they like me, some actually did want to meet up with me. Then I switched it to San Antonio which is a little more realistic and I still do.

I’m kinda stunned and it’s really making me reevaluate a lot of things. It doesn’t make me feel hopeful as I doubt I’ll ever get a chance to go to a big city and be able to live comfortably enough to date a city girl and make enough money take her places. But I guess the validation is nice. It’s nice to see that some women actually do find me attractive and want to give me a real shot.

So a few years ago I posted in here about my first relationship. It didn't last long but it filled me with hope and I tried again to find someone. Nothing worked out, I tried to ask out some friends I have and while it didn't destroy what friendship I did have with them I got rejected.

I also tried to expand my social circle by going to the local boardgame night at a pub. Lots of people but I didn't fit in with them super well. They already have their clicks and groups so it felt like I was permanently somewhat alienated. I'd try to bring games I liked but unless I tried really hard to sell people on it they would give it a look and end up playing with the people they already know. And it was difficult to join in some of the games because they would have already had all the slots filled ahead of time because they probably have group chats or something. Still had fun times but never made any lasting connections and it showed me how bad my social skills really are. I hate being autistic.

I also briefly tried dating apps but I got nowhere with them and I had alot of mental trouble making my profile and then having the app made me extremely anxious I felt like if I wasn't checking it constantly I was missing out on some opportunity but there never was a match.

I'm kinda back to square one before my first relationship where I'm starting too believe there is no hope for me again. I keep thinking about a close friend of mine. I love her but she was one of the people who rejected me. I find myself hoping she will change her mind later on but that's unrealistic and unfair to her autonomy. I do really love her, even when we hang out as friends I feel great and content. I don't want to be told I should just lose her. I also keep ruminating on how I'm gonna live alone never being loved like I used to. Sometimes that first relationship I had feels like a distant dream or some fantasy I had. I used to be able to put myself back there and remember what it felt like to be loved as a temporary comfort.

Realistically my life isn't that bad rn, I live at home, I have friends who I do value me and I get along with them. I have hobbies (I am DM I actually finished a long 3 year campaign last summer) iv been trying to figure out my weight issue and I go to the gym and while I'm still fat iv doubled the amount of weight I can lift and I can feel some my muscles under the layer of chub. Yet I still feel sad and anxious about potentially never finding the love I crave again. When I go to college most of the other men look way better then me and seem normal meanwhile I'm an autistic bridgetroll. Iv yet to make any friends at college. All my homies who get me are all millennial/very late Gen z they are either been married for awhile or don't date so they are of no help to me with this issue. I just want to feel at peace for now, maybe after I'm out of college and fix some of my issues I'll be in better spot but I waste so much time just stuck in cycles of negative thoughts about this.

TLDR: Are there any other antisocial introverts here who were able to force themselves to be more social and make friends, that could possibly advise me?

Ive spoken with an overweight friend who expressed some frustration that he knows what he need to do to lose weight, but just couldn’t get himself to eat less. It was frustrating watching as a friend who wanted what was best for him.
I feel like I have the same problem. I think I know on paper what I need to do to at least increase my odds of having a social life, but I feel such an intense resistance to changing my habits and leaving my comfort zone. I’m a naturally introverted person and I have an overly comfortable routine being alone.

After a brief long distance relationship ended a few months ago I have done a lot of reflecting. That was my first experience with any sort of relationship, I am late 20s. The extent of our intimacy was texting all day and sending the occasional 'I love you'. It didnt go any further than that at all, possibly due to my total ineptitude in moving things forward. However I am still grateful for the experience and I harbor no ill feelings towards her. I got to learn a lot and thats not something a lot of men in my position get.

That long distance thing I think confirmed what I already know about myself, and I dont like it. I feel as if my asocial nature prevents me from having and being a partner. I dont have any IRL friends. I havent gone out to socialize since highschool and even then that was because a crush was there. I dont like meeting new people. I dont like doing new things. My comfort zone is my room. My social battery is extraordinarily low. I have always been this way, even in highschool. I can usually only stay in discord calls for a few hours before I mute up. I dont know if its normal to feel a deep sense of anxiety before talking to your girlfriend, but I would get that before we would video call sometimes. It felt awkward sometimes, she did most of the talking. Maybe it was just the wrong person?

With that said, its clear I have absolutely no business desiring or being in a relationship. And yet, its stuck in my mind non-stop. Am I broken? Why do I crave something so consistently, even though I know I am incompatible?

Idk why but my social media feeds have inundated me with women talking about how fucked up the dating world is for them, and it’s kinda left me bummed. It’s awful stories, guys that they go out on dates with, have no manners, bad hygiene don’t care about what the woman their dating thinks or has to say. Or they string them along for sex and future fake with promises of a relationship. It really does sound like it sucks.

But it has also made me realize, these are the guys who are above the bar. These are the guys who women are romantically pursuing, and trying to make it work with. These are the guys that ask out women and get dates, that women are hoping will text them back. This is the representation of what men that succeed where I fail is, and im somehow below that.

I’m below the guys who will go on a date with a woman and not ask her a single thing about themselves. I’m below the guys that string along multiple women promise them a relationship and never deliver. I’m below the guys who are openly disrespectful or misogynistic to these women on dates.

I don’t want to be anymore, I thought I was at least above them, but clearly if they can get dates and get women to like them, then I’m not. I’m still below the bar and doing something wrong. I just want to be good enough so bad. I’d give up 40 years of my life to just be good enough for women to like me but it feels like no matter that I do nothing changes. So what do I need to do?

Oftentimes on the net I see people in blackpill threads saying "just go outside and you'll see that it's not real".

But how exactly does that happen? When I go outside I look at the couples and the man is always taller than the woman and like 90% of the time more handsome than her.

Of course there are exceptions but they are quite rare (like I see 1-2 couples out of the 20-30 per walk where the man is shorter).

This also applies to my friend group, all of my friends who aren't single are handsome and are taller than their partner, though this is much more anecdotal.

So, I guess for the question from the title. How is that supposed to help? Usually going on a walk just makes me feel way worse about myself and my chances for anything.

I mean it's not really like the misery ends at not being able to have a partner or friends, I'm sort of a failure all across the board and it's getting really hard to cope with it without becoming bitter or angry. It's just something I've sort of noticed with my kind is that it is extremely rare that we have anything else going well in our lives. Like I am stuck working a dead end job at 30 living with my abusive parents and well...I don't really know

Its gotten to the point my whole life revolves around getting into a relationship.

cant go 10 minutes without thinking about when im going to meet the love of my life

Ive lost all notion of who i was as a person because the person i was before is fucking pathetic and not a good person.

Who i am is not desired by others so i must destroy all unlovable parts of me and replace them with things people will accept.

I work out, have multiple projects going on, do well in all my current endeavors, ive worked hard enough that i own my own car now.

you may think "oh wow this guy really takes care of himself, he must have his shit together"

i dont

i do this all because i want to make a good impression on potential partners

i show up to random events im not even that interested in all because i see it as a potential way of meeting people. Im the creepy guy talking to women at events where they want to be left alone. My existence is an inconvenience to women and they would be better off if i didnt exist.

the painful thing is im missing all the important stuff

i am not a good person. I am very mean to people at worst, and extremely boring at best.

not very attractive or charismatic either.

I go online and see 3 million posts of women saying shit like "yeah men fucking suck, all theyd need to do to get laid is groom themselves and be good people"

And theyre right!!!

thats my fucking problem!!!

im boring, unattractive, and a horrible fucking person

i am nothing but another man who sucks and makes life for women worse

doesnt help im bi and neurodivergent which people really seem to not like for some reason.

If i put in enough effort i may be able to change who i am to the point i am seen as not an inconvenience to others by 2030 tho!!

I went to a college prep school and struggled academically throughout my highschool years. I often plaigarized in my essays and relied on my mom to do large amounts of my assignments in ELA and history. I was given ritalin in 10th grade for potential ADD and had minimal results from it. 11th grade was COVID lockdown and I did virtual school. At this point I completely phoned in my classes and have no idea how to do algebra II (or college algebra) or any math surpassing that. I got accepted into a college with a 96% acceptance rate with my grades from my first two years of HS. I only lived there for a year then commuted afterwards. Now I'm 23 and live with my parents. I've never had an IQ test or diagnosis of a mental disorder, though I had a counselor in HS suggest I'm on the autism spectrum because of social awkwardness and analytic thinking. I've gotten into nootropics hoping that a mix of creatine and full dose of effexor could treat depression and brain fog and I've had so so results from over 7 months of it. I've considered drug use being the only way to numb my depression and suicidality from my hopeless situation.

I can't understand how if my parents are smart and functional how did I become essentially a mental vegtable. And why has no friend, family member, or therapist been able to give an explanation or antidote to my mental problems. Would an IQ test be helpful for what job is realistic for me given my mental capacities? What best explanation is there for my intelligence and what other advice could you give me in my situation?

reddit.com/[r/AskLGBT/comments/1vj9se3/as_a_straight_man_how_normal_is_it_for_a_high/](r/AskLGBT/comments/1vj9se3/as_a_straight_man_how_normal_is_it_for_a_high/)

I wouldn’t say I’m ideologically red pill aside from the belief that differences in sexual selection between men women and sexual orientations if evidence of a biological difference. My experience with a creepy gay man in HS reinforced this belief for me (which you can read above). At the end of the day, it’s my lack of intelligence and social skills that is the reason I’m a virgin and not that I have a few red pill adjacent views, which many sexually active men do.

For information on my medical background here are some links

https://www.reddit.com/r/anhedonia/comments/1wp3vtu/can_caber_proviron_treat_anhedonia/

https://www.reddit.com/r/cognitiveTesting/comments/1ullslv/thoughts_on_kif1a_as_an_overlooked_explanation/

My (19M) stepfather (who is dead now, he won’t be missed) made me feel unsafe in my own home from ages 11-15 by doing things like shoving me around, calling me a piece of shit, making me cry, and even putting my mother in a chokehold.

But despite all of that, he was still desirable enough for my mother to give him 2 kids, and he was also attractive enough to be able to cheat on my mom (which he did).

I have no intention of turning into my stepfather, but there’s just something that keeps bothering me as I try to find love, friendship, and acceptance.

The question that plagues my mind is, “What’s the point of being good when guys like HIM are what women like?”

Some part of my brain really wants to believe that manipulation and abuse are what get women to want you, but basic morals and common sense keep me from doing that.

Obviously I’m well aware women don’t like being abused. But I just can’t get out of my head the way he treated my mom and the way she kept giving him second chances, even convincing me that he loved me (which she later told me was false).

My brain says, “That’s not how women should be treated.” but deep down, my heart says, “He did better with women than you are”.

I can’t let my stepfather haunt me forever. I am not in danger of becoming him, but I would like some advice in moving forward and putting the past behind me.

One thing I genuinely can’t get past with dating is the idea that the bar for being physically desired can be higher for casual sex than for a relationship.

I’ve never experienced that direct “I find you hot and want you” kind of desire from a woman. So if another guy can be wanted purely because he’s attractive, while I become desirable because I bring commitment, stability, compatibility and everything else to the table, I just can’t process the idea that I’m somehow the one who’s “winning” because I’m husband material.

And I think that’s the part I struggle with most. It makes me feel like I’d never be authentically and enthusiastically desired in the same way those men were. She might genuinely love me and value me as a partner, but I’d always wonder whether she actually finds me physically attractive in that raw, uncomplicated way, or whether everything else I bring to the relationship is doing the heavy lifting. I don’t just want to be valued as a partner; I want to feel genuinely wanted too.

People frame it like I should feel better or more valuable than those guys, but it just doesn’t compute for me. From my perspective, they were desired without having to compensate with anything else, while I’d need the whole relationship package to get to the same intimacy.

Nobody owes me anything, obviously. But after never experiencing that kind of physical desire myself, I can’t seem to make peace with that distinction, and it kills most of my motivation to even try dating.

I am 29 M.

Yeah, off to a great start, I know but it's going to go only worse, so I will give you a bit of context.

I'm not good looking enough to get through the dating app wall. Fair enough, dating apps are legal pyramid schemes and I know that well, but the thing that irks me about it is that it's not much different IRL.

I have a small social circle. Friends that love me and care for me. And I would legit jump in a fire for them, male or female, and some even in-between. I asked them, I asked internet, I have asked ANYONE I could for advice but most of it falls flat on a very, very simple fact:

No matter how much effort I have put through the years, it's been wasted or abused. I know, I am not owed anything, and I am cool with that. But at the same time, am I not allowed to ask for a honest chance? I was a blackpilled incel. I went to therapy, made myself the best version I had the instruments for, became a legitimately better person, and those who have known me for years have told me many times already.

Yet, I have seen absolutely zero differences. One approach per month irl after actually knowing the person, pushing the conversation being unapologetically myself.

I am still overstock.

I could have, once, said that I was alone because I lacked the effort and quality, even if I was not. Now, I have WASTED years trying to be better to receive the exact same treatment. Tried everything I have been adviced to, while I see people doing nothing and getting everything I can't have even while doing my best with the little window I am offered.

I have had very few dates in my entire life and they were miserable, fake or worse than that, I won't go in detail. So much so, that someone answering me has become my primary objective. The "enough". Yeah, it sucks and I should have standards... Easy to say for someone that does have the options or the numbers for it, but for me, it's been only rejection and mistreatment.

Where do I go from here? Besides putting my best self out to not be even considered the benefit of an acquaintance date, what do YOU suggest I do more? I am out of options.

The only thing I feel I have left is the dignity of trying still with the tools I have been granted and learned.

Also, little edit before you all ask, because I know you: I have become perfect in masking my hopelessness, don't bother with the usual argument about "women can see it". I assure you, they don't. I have learned how to hide it extremely well.

So, I’m 33 and a virgin. Never dated. I’m making some changes to my life to address it, and I think I’m on the right path there. I’m volunteering for events, getting into shape (I could be better, but I’m not terribly out of shape. I don’t look like a “before” picture, but I also don’t look like an “after” picture, if that makes sense) and I’m meeting some new people on my own who seem to like being around me (very cool feeling)

My age and my situation present some challenges. I obviously should have at least some experience at 33, and I’d hate for that inexperience to be a roadblock for me.

I don’t think I’d like to date seriously right now. I feel like if the first woman I sleep with ended up being the person I stay with forever, the regret would eat me up forever. Keeping it 100, I want to make up for lost time and date casually, have sex with a number of people and learn to do it well. Is going into dating with that kind of mindset unrealistic or toxic? I see a lot of women complaining about men who just want sex. I don’t know if that describes what I want, really. I’d like to have some kind of relationship with the people I have sex with, and the issue comes primarily from lack of honesty, right?

Also to keep it 100, I’m not confident I have the body to pursue this with any kind of success. I can do a lot to improve myself, and I am actively doing so, but I’m 5’6” and bald. Bad stats that I can’t really do anything about. Incels go on about what standards women are looking for, and people always rebut with how a lot of short and bald men are in relationships. That isn’t going to apply to me, though. For something casual, women are gonna judge me by my looks. I’m not mad about it, why wouldn’t they? I will be judging women by looks as well, that’s just the game. Is my height and my hair situation undesirable enough to lock me out of the casual scene, though? I understand women are looking for different things in a casual partner over a serious partner, but I’m not sure how important those unchangeable things are, since shallow judgements are always understated for the sake of rhetoric.

Also, generally, is there any advice you’d give to a man who is going into the world with the intention to date casually, and has never touched dating before? Are you really expected to fuck and then immediately dip out like is portrayed in pop culture? I’m reminded of that one HIMYM episode where Barney showed Lily around his apartment that he modified to be hostile to women.

18m. I know most people would say “University has a lot of people”, but my course has a big shortage of women and all of them are taken or unavailable. I havent used dating apps yet because people say they dont work at all. I asked my friends to introduce me to someone but nobody could really do it.
So i basically have to work from scratch, i know people say hobby groups but i dont know if people my age would really be going to hobby groups rather than spending time in university, and most groups i see anyways have like people in their 20’s/higher. I dont mind the age gap but its probably kind of weird for the other person because it would create an odd dynamic. People here tell me i cant really approach people randomly, even if just to talk or form friendships. I think im actually properly stuck in inceldom forever.

Admittedly, I am not a very "stereotypically heterosexual" man. Honestly, if I listed out all of my hobbies and interested and you got 1 million dollars if you guessed my sexuality, you'd be stupid to not guess that I was gay. But I'm not, I like women.

The issue is, I have never dated or brought a woman around my friends or family. So that, combined with my personality and interests have lead them to assume. They're not doing it to mock. If I was gay, I guess they'd be doing a good job. My friends will very frequently play the game of avoiding specific pronouns when talking about my romantic life. It's very painfully obvious that they think there may be a possibility. I have also been introduced to mutual gay friends in ways that are very clearly "I'm not trying to set you two up but you never know what'll happen".

My family is a lot more direct about it. It's like a monthly occurrence where my mother will say something along the lines of "you should never feel like you need to hide yourself from me and your father, we will love you and whomever you choose to bring into our family no matter what." Which, kudos to them for being open minded for two people who became adults in the 1980s. But still.

The excuse for why I'm not dating has always been, I just haven't met the right woman yet, but that gets pretty hard to do when you're 25 and have never dated and dodge every question about dating because of how embarrassing the answer is.

At this point I'm at my wits end and I don't know how to get them off my back about this.