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Is it self defeatist to say that some men are meant to be alone??
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If I could write the definitive guide to friends I would be rich and far more popular
I guess if you are having a hard time finding friends or bonding with people perhaps this is due to being withdrawn. I'm a believer in being yourself, but if being yourself means not opening up then that will have to change. I don't think everything you say should be deep and meaningful, but when the time arises try to be honest about how you feel about things and what you think and don't try too hard or be overbearing. Take the time to listen as people love to be listened too. Part of making friends is familiarity, so text people and go out and challenge yourself to step out of the comfort zone and take the initiative. Be careful trying to make friends in your professional life and if you do keep any unusual opinions or privet stuff to yourself. Don't expect too much from people, your best friends will gel with you and prove themselves in the long run, as you should do likewise if and when you get the chance. Everybody is weird in some way so don't dwell on your hangups, and try to overlook other peoples weird hangups unless they are arseholes. Stay flexible and keep trying to approach new people even if you have friends. 0 -
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pwurple wrote:Oh my lord the negativity is overwhelming.
Yes you're right it is. But although I agree it is problem and I wish I wasn't, you can understand in my position, from literally having very friends (infact none really) throughout my entire adult life and finding myself effectively 'a kissless virgin' by my late 20s to sometimes feel hopeless and in despair and that I am essentially 'a freak' (or at least that's how I felt at the time). That's why I fell into depression, and became subsequently suicidal. I was tired full stop of being me and felt embarrassed for my family to be me.
Let me make it clear though I am willing to change, or at least I wanting to try to work hard and change aspects of my life. So although you are making a criticism that it is a negative thread, and that I am being 'negative', (because that's what it is essentially is, its a negative situation) that is by no means a reflection of my attitude on how to tackle my life. I'm not writing this thread out for people to feel sorry for me, I appreciate the well wishing but I am looking for answers and solutions to my problem, which a lot of people so far have contributed which I am delighted with.pwurple wrote:Electrical engineering is a HUGE field, and it's very hard for me to see how one placement can have made up your mind that you don't like it. Try another placement surely, before commiting 5-6 years to another career you may not like. The people I know from elec eng 15 years ago are in massively diverse careers and jobs now. Throughout finance, pharma, teaching, media, software etc. It is renowned for its breadth of uses.
Dentistry is very interesting, but oh so solitary. And you are going to be pushing 34 by the time you are even qualified. Social skills are important in dentistry also. Making your patient feel at ease and confident in your abilities.
Honestly I wrote out my scenario regarding education/work life very briefly as my post was getting a bit too long and I wanted to condense it, but if you want me to expand upon it I will, because there's more to it than just "I didn't like that placement very much so screw it". For my A levels (post GCSE exams in the UK) I did Maths, Phyiscs and Biology. By the time I was 18, at sixth form, which my self esteem was so low, with no social life, I finished with grades DEE (yep that bad I had very good GCSE grades but fell apart at sixth form), I had no motivation to work because my whole outlook on life was worthless, at times I was contemplating suicide even then. I'm very much capable at working at school, and getting good grades but I need a reason for it, I'm not naturally a studious person, but under the right circumstances I can be.
I picked Electrical Engineering because thats what my a-levels were suited to, no other reason, I didn't think of 'my ultimate career' I simply fell into it, but never had any real passion for it. So I ended up doing a foundation year with those crappy grades and got in Electrical Engineering at Queens the following year. I meandered through still being a loser at uni 'who's that weird guy?' scraping 40's and 50's revising the week before, not turning up for lectures, until I was half way a through a masters (yes I did one of those to) and attempted suicide. I was a volcano waiting to explode my counsellor said.
Now I did have a placement (I actually had two) and it was only after I got help for the first time did I sit down and think what I actually wanted to do for the rest of my life, was engineering the right career or was their something more I could do? In the end I decided upon Medicine/Dentistry, they were careers that interested back when I was 18 but felt I wasn't good enough to get into. I get enjoyment from helping people and interacting with others in such a way, I see that as a positive. I did one week's work experience and honestly I loved it far more than I ever did at engineering.
It was a snap decision me picking another career in my mid twenties, but I only live life once and I felt if I am going to change career, this might be my only opportunity to do so and it is a career I prefer. I don't want to diss engineering, there were some aspects I enjoyed very much and some of the best workers I've ever come across, but it wasn't for me I didn't feel ever happy being in it.
You say I require social skills for being dentist, that's a while off I'll be 33/34. Why not use the years I have before then to improve my social skills and propel myself further when I'm in it? I see that scenario as a positive.jeremiahh wrote:Also, how frequently do you masturbate? A heavy reliance on this can have a damaging effect on your ability to approach women. I felt this struggle for a while as a late teenager.
Near daily, or once every two days. Bash the bishop with porn, meh what else :P, I certainly don't take porn as 'real' though. I prefer amateur stuff tbh. Its not a huge part of my life and I try to supress it if possible. But yes I'm not robotic I do have sexual urges.Remmy wrote:I can understand where you are coming from Thomas. While you aren't weird you haven't had the amount of "repetitions" of different social encounters that others in your peer group have so you might come across as kinda awkward which is understandable.
I totally agree. To me social situations have been or were 'unusual' and I don't behave as confidently or as normally as others do and certainly wasn't natural to me, but I have improved on that in college over the past year or so. But you say 'awkward' I totally get what you're saying but my constant fear is that everyone views me 'negatively' and that was one of my challenges when doing CBT was to try to change my thought process that not everyone (or perhaps even most people) viewed me as negatively as I think they do, and I have had success on that and that's why I'm making big strides now and not as socially avoidant as I once was and actively try to put myself in awkward social situations in previous occasions I had originally feared, which I say is great. I am making some strides but I am still struggling to make long term connections as pointed out which does worry me. 
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+ eleventy bazillion OB. Over the years I've known a few chaps like yourself TF and in every single case* the guys in question had missed out on the very important period of adolescence in social engagement, usually through external circumstance. Your story would fit that pattern to a tee. Moving from one country to another at that pivotal moment would be incredibly hard to navigate for someone who is still essentially a child**. Especially if you'd already had the social pressure of bullying to contend with. Maybe if you hadn't have moved the bullying would have continued, but you may well have struck up social interaction with others of like background, or the bullying would have tapered off. Moving into a new environment would have put paid to that.Social skills are like every other skill. They need to be practiced, honed, fine tuned until they become second nature and instinctive. One of your challenges is that you have missed out on many vital years to acquire and practice these skills so you are playing catch up.
Clearly you're as bright as a lighthouse bulb on full power at 20 paces. Clearly you can express yourself very well and what it means to be you and you clearly understand what's going on. Never mind that you've decided your goal in your career and are going for it and it's hardly an easy one to choose. You're one clued in and clever man T. The problem(as I see it anyway) is that in intellect and in capability you're a brainy and driven 40 year old, but socially you're locked into being 14. Your intelligence is seeking out its potential(and finding it), but your social brain is stuck. If I think back and remember me at 14, I cannot begin to comprehend how I would cope if that social mind was dropped into my skull when I was 30. Frankly I think I would shíte myself like an overfed goose with cholera.
That IMH/I'm not a trained shrink Opinion is what drives your self esteem thing. Your brain knows you've missed out on this step and as self protection tells you "oh oh, you'll likely come across as weird cos you've not learned this shíte, best retreat so you don't look like a gobshíte".
The great thing about being a kid and an adolescent kid is that you can fúck up. You can try on different social masks and through a process of elimination can find the one that fits you and the peer group around you. Many is the bald boring beige or maybe very cool and with it 50 year old company manager of today who was a lipstick wearing New Romantic, or a goth or a metalhead, or a punk, or a Dungeons and Dragons nerd back in the day. Kids are allowed be gauche and silly and most of all are allowed to fail. That's how we learn.
So how do you make up this lost time? Maybe look at it like being a mature student? Where a mature student goes back to university because they missed out first time around, maybe you need to be a mature student majoring in social interaction? YOu've already relaised that engineering isn't for you and dentistry is. OK then, realise that feeling socially distant is a lot o me bollocks and change courses to hanging out with folks is cool.
How is the kicker. Just my humble, but I would say the best way to learn is to just jump the fúck in. Join in. Join anything, club, gym, society, volunteer service, that sort of thing. IMH at first try to engage with fellow men. That'll take the edge off and distraction of worrying about a different gender and dating and all that stuff. You will feel awkward, you will fúck up T. Just like you would have if your narrative had followed the "normal" trajectory in your teens(oh god did I fúck up and thank the same god/fate I was born before FaceTube). Yes it may be more embarrassing in your twenties, but on the other had you have your non kiddie brain in play now. You can learn faster, you can learn from each little stumble, until you start to get it right and get it right you will.
Oh and remember this too T, this is a lifelong learning experience or should be. Adolescence is just the start. Those peeps who reckon they're "adults" at 25 are doomed to be boring if not bad company at 35 and 45 and 55. Put it another way, you're only ten years behind everyone else and more you're in the happy position of realising it. That's pure gold right there Ted as so many don't.
The Ladies? If you drop yourself into learning this stuff and you will learn it and get better until it's second nature, women will notice this and you will notice them noticing and it will come more easily to you to engage. A genuinely nice guy with a big heart and mahooosive brains, loving his career and life who isn't hard on the eyes is a bloody unicorn out there.
My 3 cents anyway.
Jayzuz that was a long one, even for me, as the actress said to the bishop.
*that didn't involve an underlying condition, say on the autistic scale.
** I've known three women who had a very similar overturning of their life just at that crossover point into adolescence(including an ex), but just going on my experience women seem to be able to navigate it better, if only on the surface. I think it's because they are generally less likely to withdraw socially. They keep that bit engaged. Plus because the male/female dynamic is more skewed to the female being a sellers market they would have men approaching and talking to them. Shy withdrawn girls are generally seen as much more attractive than shy withdrawn men. And IMHO women are better at bringing themselves up with less outside influence. However like I said it can be a surface thing. In each of the above cases they all had a major meltdown in their late teens(which they overcame) and they exhibited a need for constant reassurance and an overwhelming hunger to be liked well above the norm afterward. They couldn't be single for a start.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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+ eleventy bazillion OB. Over the years I've known a few chaps like yourself TF and in every single case* the guys in question had missed out on the very important period of adolescence in social engagement, usually through external circumstance. Your story would fit that pattern to a tee. Moving from one country to another at that pivotal moment would be incredibly hard to navigate for someone who is still essentially a child**. Especially if you'd already had the social pressure of bullying to contend with. Maybe if you hadn't have moved the bullying would have continued, but you may well have struck up social interaction with others of like background, or the bullying would have tapered off. Moving into a new environment would have put paid to that.
Clearly you're as bright as a lighthouse bulb on full power at 20 paces. Clearly you can express yourself very well and what it means to be you and you clearly understand what's going on. Never mind that you've decided your goal in your career and are going for it and it's hardly an easy one to choose. You're one clued in and clever man T. The problem(as I see it anyway) is that in intellect and in capability you're a brainy and driven 40 year old, but socially you're locked into being 14. Your intelligence is seeking out its potential(and finding it), but your social brain is stuck. If I think back and remember me at 14, I cannot begin to comprehend how I would cope if that social mind was dropped into my skull when I was 30. Frankly I think I would shíte myself like an overfed goose with cholera.
That IMH/I'm not a trained shrink Opinion is what drives your self esteem thing. Your brain knows you've missed out on this step and as self protection tells you "oh oh, you'll likely come across as weird cos you've not learned this shíte, best retreat so you don't look like a gobshíte".
The great thing about being a kid and an adolescent kid is that you can fúck up. You can try on different social masks and through a process of elimination can find the one that fits you and the peer group around you. Many is the bald boring beige or maybe very cool and with it 50 year old company manager of today who was a lipstick wearing New Romantic, or a goth or a metalhead, or a punk, or a Dungeons and Dragons nerd back in the day. Kids are allowed be gauche and silly and most of all are allowed to fail. That's how we learn.
So how do you make up this lost time? Maybe look at it like being a mature student? Where a mature student goes back to university because they missed out first time around, maybe you need to be a mature student majoring in social interaction? YOu've already relaised that engineering isn't for you and dentistry is. OK then, realise that feeling socially distant is a lot o me bollocks and change courses to hanging out with folks is cool.
How is the kicker. Just my humble, but I would say the best way to learn is to just jump the fúck in. Join in. Join anything, club, gym, society, volunteer service, that sort of thing. IMH at first try to engage with fellow men. That'll take the edge off and distraction of worrying about a different gender and dating and all that stuff. You will feel awkward, you will fúck up T. Just like you would have if your narrative had followed the "normal" trajectory in your teens(oh god did I fúck up and thank the same god/fate I was born before FaceTube). Yes it may be more embarrassing in your twenties, but on the other had you have your non kiddie brain in play now. You can learn faster, you can learn from each little stumble, until you start to get it right and get it right you will.
Oh and remember this too T, this is a lifelong learning experience or should be. Adolescence is just the start. Those peeps who reckon they're "adults" at 25 are doomed to be boring if not bad company at 35 and 45 and 55. Put it another way, you're only ten years behind everyone else and more you're in the happy position of realising it. That's pure gold right there Ted as so many don't.
The Ladies? If you drop yourself into learning this stuff and you will learn it and get better until it's second nature, women will notice this and you will notice them noticing and it will come more easily to you to engage. A genuinely nice guy with a big heart and mahooosive brains, loving his career and life who isn't hard on the eyes is a bloody unicorn out there.
My 3 cents anyway.
Jayzuz that was a long one, even for me, as the actress said to the bishop.
*that didn't involve an underlying condition, say on the autistic scale.
** I've known three women who had a very similar overturning of their life just at that crossover point into adolescence(including an ex), but just going on my experience women seem to be able to navigate it better, if only on the surface. I think it's because they are generally less likely to withdraw socially. They keep that bit engaged. Plus because the male/female dynamic is more skewed to the female being a sellers market they would have men approaching and talking to them. Shy withdrawn girls are generally seen as much more attractive than shy withdrawn men. And IMHO women are better at bringing themselves up with less outside influence. However like I said it can be a surface thing. In each of the above cases they all had a major meltdown in their late teens(which they overcame) and they exhibited a need for constant reassurance and an overwhelming hunger to be liked well above the norm afterward. They couldn't be single for a start.
Buy this man a drink. Real talk O.P. I might even print this for myself, those last 4 paragraphs are the cast iron truth.0 -
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,075 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59004
Right lads you all saw this. In black and fecking white. *takes screenshot and notes date*Adamantium wrote: »Buy this man a drink.
Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Build non romantic relationships and social circle first I reckon. Both sexes. That should help with just hanging out with and socialising with people in general, without the stress of trying to "chat someone up". Trying to do the latter without the former in place is likely doomed to set you back. You're bound to have setbacks, but everyone does, however if you're already kicking off from a place of social fear, feelings of social inadequacy and that sorta thing that's really gonna compound things for you. You may focus on the setbacks and rinse and repeat. Try and talk to someone new everyday. Postman, men and women at work that sorta thing. People are everywhere. Like rats they are. You don't need full on convos just small talk shíte. While small talk can be irritating it is a social shorthand in most peoples repertoire. Not having a faculty for it will challenge you socially.
Thanks Wibbs's that's what I intend to do. I think A has to come before B. I need improve my social life and wider circle before I even contemplate a relationship. I mean if you think about it, would any woman be attracted to a guy who has absolutely no social life? No friends? Who is socially awkward on top of that?
No chance, the relationship wouldn't last very long, so my minimum goal is to put myself out there with as many social activities as possible and increase my social opportunities, that's my minimum goal at least for the next 2 years and improve as much as I can. I'm hopefully heading back to university so I should have plenty of opportunities as long as I'm not avoidant like I was last time. Whether or not I can ever be in a relationship is another thing entirely now, a lot of other factors come into play, my overall sense of attractiveness, whether any women would ever like a 30-35 year old inexperienced guy. Also I'm not the tallest, my weakest physical attribute is probably my height. I've measured myself quite accurately and I think I'm something like 5'7.5, maybe bit over it, fairly close to 5'8 anyway. So I'm kind of shortish, and all the hype about guy's height it doesn't make great reading for someone like me. But we'll see, first things first is to improve my social life & skills as much as possible. I take your point regarding "do you dress like a 14 year old?" I do dress still like I'm a cheap student and at 28 I think its time for a revamp definitely and I shall be looking into that.Bafucin wrote:Do you have siblings?
Yes, the sad thing is my younger brother who's 26 is in the same exact situation as me. Infact he's worse. He avoided school completely from the age of 13 onwards, did very few exams. My parents didn't exactly push him or see it as much of a concern (which I think is ridiculous as that's prevented him from having ANY social skills, damaging him, so like I say he's even 'weirder' than me, but he isn't that bothered about it the way I am). My mother especially didn't push him and seems happy enough with him living in there in that house for the rest of his life if he wants according to my mum. :eek:
Thankfully though in some ways he kind of woke up at 20 and decided he needed to do something about his life. He went to college, did a HND, then got into Civil Engineering at Queens and recently graduated with a 2.2, but at 26, he's still never had a job. He's looking for one now (and is applying as we speak), but my parents aren't pushing him (I am), nor are they that bothered about it.
Another aspect is the fact that he drinks regularly on his own (I'm a teetotaller, I don't socialise so never had any reason to drink) and my parents aren't bothered about that either, they keep giving him money to do so. You see this whole angle with regards to my family was pressed on quite heavily by my counsellors and I know my parents have a lot to answer for my upbringing and my situation currently, infact they've encouraged it in many ways.
I used believe because me and my brother were both weird (him possibly even weirder) that we were a result of bad genes, my parents being a bad combination of 'genes' and that during my darkest days of depression encouraged me from a pragmatic view to kill myself. My counsellors would turn around say its not necessarily (or even at all) 'bad genes' but rather upbringing that has lead to me and my brother being the way we are.
Like when I attempted suicide that time, falling into a deep depression at 25, my counsellors asked 'didn't anyone in your family see that coming?'. And honestly they didn't, I used say how sad and lonely I felt throughout my teenage years and early 20s crying sometimes and they would respond 'you're not weird, there's nothing wrong with you' you know, like I've never a gf, have no friends, no social life and that's not a concern in anyway by my mid 20s? I've never brought any friends back ever into my house? Normal?
Look I love my parents and I don't want to overtly criticise them because ultimately I'm 28 now its my fault. I have some strong criticisms of my parents for encouraging us into this situation and I feel they haven't done the greatest job in raising us into adults (no doubt they love us, that I can't criticise) but its up to me, and it has been for a while quite frankly to sort my life. I'm not 18, its not their responsibility anymore. I do feel they've helped kept us in the 'peter pan' lifestyle if you like.ongarboy wrote:I would also say continue with the counselling and CBT. You've already said you've seen some success with it so it can work with determination and committment. Best of luck - you deserve it!
I actually stopped counselling last year. Part of the reason was we'd kinda covered the course of what needed to be said and what needed to be done, the problem is I finished my college term in june after a crapload of exams and had nothing set up (no job, few activities) and so they didn't see the point in continuing counselling whilst me not having nothing to practise the 'schematherapy' and techniques out on. However I promised I would in time put those into practise and that's what I did in college throughout last year, like I said I probably had my best social experiences ever since I've been an adult. I want to push on from that now and have a more fulfilling life.
I could go back to counselling but I think I've got enough from it in the mean time and its up to me ultimately change my situation and I see if I can ride the bike without any stabilisers so to speak. 0 -
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ThomasFlynn wrote: »Can I ask a question guys, is dating generally speaking easier for women than it is for men? Or is that just a stereotype?
I take its meant to be easier for women in online dating but for dating just generally is it?
I can't figure out why that would be if that is the case. I mean in terms of the population they're in equal numbers pretty much, in fact according to the 2011 census for men vs woman in the age group 25-44 was 717,055 and 733,085 respectively (so actually slightly more women). Regardless its pretty much 50:50, I can't understand why so many men say dating's far harder for men than it is women, its too competitive, women have it easy etc. There's got to be as many single women as there are men, but many say being a single man is much more common!
Unless there are a lot of polygamists about :P I can't figure mathematically why that would be. Maybe somebody could give me an explanation why is supposedly harder?
90% of the women are dating 10% of the men. Simples.
No well obviously its the men who generally do the approaching. Even shy girls will get approached if they're anywhere daycent looking. Plus with online dating the men far outnumber the women.0 -
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