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seriousjay
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Posts posted by seriousjay
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@BooksandTrees Have you considered looking for a therapist? If you feel like you have nobody to talk to about your shit, a therapist might do the trick for you.
Also, have you ever tried creating a competition with yourself? Track your progress on things and keep trying to beat your PBs. If that's not enough, you could look into lifting competitions or endurance races. Those are obvious sources of competition and really do stretch you to the limit. It seems like those would be a great way to fulfill that need of yours while also being something keeping you occupied and burning your negative energy off, since you'd need to be training at the gym on a regular basis.
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12 hours ago, Ikar said:
I don't know you, but it's better if you know yourself instead! As for confidence/anxiety (extroversion/neuroticism), it's decided even before any touch takes place; if you are in a place with new women, do you walk up to them to talk to them or vice versa? How often do you meet new women? Grabbing a woman by her hand and dragging her somewhere within an hour of meeting her doesn't necessarily mean success, as they make it out to be in the articles you are reading. As long as you do your actions to get the results you want, it's fine.
I agree with Jay on this one, just because if "women of my age aren't exactly prizes", you blame the women and absolve yourself of the responsibility to ever date one again. I would even argue it is easier for a man in his 40s to land a date than for a man in his 20s, assuming they have the same skill-set/personality/competence level, just because the age is a indicator of maturity, even if only a physical one.
To your first point above, I don't even want to be that type of guy. That's what I mean about being so atypical. I think the tension between what I want and what I've been told I should be has caused me a great deal of stress and anxiety. I recognize that most women won't approach men and not doing cold approaches will limit my options. I'm at peace with that.
To your second point, I also believe a lot of people, not just women in the 30-40+ range have gotten past the whole "fairytale romance" stage, where they won't settle for less than prince charming with the perfect personality and Brad Pitt looks sweeping them off their feet within 10 seconds of approaching them. Most reasonable people in that age range should at that point recognize that everyone is flawed and you're going to have to accept someone who is flawed. That doesn't mean dropping your standards, but to expect it to go perfect from the get-go is completely unrealistic.
7 hours ago, ceponatia said:I'm not saying that there are no attractive women out there in their 40s, that is demonstrably false. However, finding one who doesn't have kids (complete dealbreaker for me) or some sort of disorder (like alcoholism) gets harder the older you get, because most well adjusted people are married by now. I'm no catch myself. I have a lot to work on and that's also a contributor to why I don't actively date that much. It's not that I don't ever get offers for dates, it's that the offers I do get aren't appealing. I'm not giving up, that's not what I was trying to say. I'm just saying I get the same feeling Jay gets about FEELING like I'll always be alone even though I logically know that's not true.
I have to wonder how much of how you see yourself is being projected onto women. You realize you're not much of a catch and you develop the idea that most women around your age aren't either. It's a defense mechanism you adopt, perhaps subconsciously, to ease the pain of not being in a committed relationship yet. I'm not saying that's you, but it might be worth it to do some self-reflection and figure out if that might be what's going on.
There are plenty of high quality women available in the 30-40 range, and they are available for various reasons.
Last, if the offers you get aren't appealing, then the answer is to make yourself better in order to attract higher quality people into your life.
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22 minutes ago, James Good said:
Also this is so accurate, thanks for putting it into words! Forcing yourself to get out of bed as soon as your alarm goes off makes so much difference.
I'm really going to have to get disciplined about this lol.
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2 hours ago, WhatAboutToday? said:
Hey @seriousjay! May I ask you how easy it was for you to let go of the "passion" you had for sports?
I totally agree with you that the best way to watch sports is to be detached emotionally from it. That's something I sometimes think about because I know people that no matter the disappointment that their team gives to them (from game results to corruption scandals) can't leave this cycle of watching sports - getting disappointed - going back to watch it again.
Honestly I didn't find it that hard. I wasn't really too attached to it to begin with. I think I watched sports more as a social thing. My cousins and I would get together to watch it. Unless it was baseball I rarely watched it on my own. My inner editor is cringing at the amount of times I typed a variation of the word watch in this paragraph LOL!
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19 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:
Alright, here's a fucking rant.
FUCK THE BOSTON BRUINS.
I'm so tired of watching fucking sports and especially this fucking team. Sports is the biggest let down for me. I watch EVERY Boston Bruins game during the year. It's 10 preseason games, 82 regular season games, and minimum 4 playoff games if they make the playoffs. Last year it was roughly 30 playoff games. The games last about 3 hours each and take up most of my might after work. Usually I eat dinner and watch the game.
I don't even enjoy watching anymore. I've watched every game for the past 25 years. I'm 29. I've been committed. I've seen one championship and I've seen them lose multiple championships. I get FURIOUS when we lose games. I'm not even happy when we win anymore. I'm complacent when we win and just sit there. I get so angry during the games when they mess up. Even if we win I sit there angry when we miss a pass, can't clear the zone, can't score, give up a lead, go offsides. It's so stressful.
I have a stressful day at work and come home and just get even more angry. When the Bruins lost the cup to St. Louis last year I broke a bunch of shit in my house and screamed. I then went into a depression. When we lost to Chicago I did the same thing. Fucking pathetic, dude. I get so angry.
Tonight we lost 6-5 after leading 5-2. We had 2 shots on goal for 35 minutes. For non-hockey fans the average period has 10 shots per team and 30 shots total per game. We had 2 in 35 minutes. It wasn't because the Philadelphia Flyers were good. It was because we made mental mistakes. We couldn't clear the puck at all. We kept missing passes and turning it over on lazy plays. I'm glad Philly won. They deserved it. We didn't care about winning.
THAT'S WHAT FUCKING KILLS ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE DON'T CARE ABOUT WINNING, BUT I DO! I'M NOT PLAYING THE GAME!!!
Why is that a good investment for me? Sports is like a toxic relationship where you are dedicated, committed, you'd never cheat on them and root for another team. You care so much about them and give them everything. And they don't care about you. They don't acknowledge your support or fandom. They don't win for you. They win for them.
Sports is a neglectful relationship over time. You just give everything and get nothing back most of the time. My grandfather waited 84 years to see the Boston Red Sox win the World Series in 2004. 84 years. Do you know what percentage of the Earth's population lives to 84 years???? Sure they've won like 4 championships since 2004. But dude. 84 years. Cubs waited over 100 years.
Some people enjoy it, whatever. I'm fucking tired of this. It's a waste of time for me now. I'd rather have fun and relax. Fuck this bull shit.
When we lose it makes me want to watch porn. I'm not going to do it. Fuck that.
Long ago I told myself I'm not going to invest myself emotionally into sports anymore, and it seems you're taking that same path. You've realized the truth. They don't care about you. They don't win for you. Whether they win or not, it doesn't affect me in any way at all materially. I'll watch the occasional game from time to time but only to enjoy the game itself. I don't care anymore who wins or loses. It's a waste of my emotional energy.
Then there's also the 3 hours per game, minimum to watch them all. That's a lot of time spent!
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I think it's important to take what other people say they do for their morning routine with a grain of salt. Not everything is going to work for everybody. I do think it's important to discover what DOES work for you, but don't feel pressure to do it any certain way. YOUR morning routine is unique to YOU, whatever that ends up being, and you shouldn't feel bad because you don't do it that guy's way.
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45 minutes ago, ceponatia said:
I have a lot of the feelings you described in your first post on the Match situation. Even if I don't care about the girl whatsoever (that sounds mean but I just mean when it comes to online dating, they don't even really count as people to me until I've been talking to them a while) I still start swirling into a vortex of "why did she stop talking to me?", "What am I doing wrong?", "Am I going to be alone forever?" etc. Sadly, as I've gotten older the "Am I going to be alone forever" bit is starting to have some truth to it... mainly because single women my age aren't exactly prizes. Again, sounds mean, but I'm just being honest. Funny enough I've even had that "maybe I should just become one of those 'alpha males'" thought but it's not really something we can just decide to be, unfortunately. I don't have any answers for you, just letting you know that you aren't alone and I understand how you feel. On the bright side, I have had a lot of girlfriends in the past so if you keep working at it, it DOES happen.
Thanks for this. It doesn't really help either of our situations but it's comforting to know I'm not struggling alone.
I refuse to subscribe to the belief however that single women my age aren't prizes. I mean, I know I'm a really awesome person and I'm single, so there's bound to be women who have gone through a similar path in life. Or they've moved on from a bad relationship themselves. Etc.
Yeah, you're right that we can't just choose to be something we're not. At least I can't. I wouldn't be able to last very long putting on that kind of face. It would be very clear to the other party that I'm just faking trying to be something I'm not. However, I'm not going to try to hide or reject who I am anymore. I think that might be causing me more grief than anything else at this point. I don't fit into society's box of what I should be and that's going to be just fine with me.
Thanks again!
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So yesterday I googled "how to date a virgin". I don't know why I did it. I found this: https://www.wikihow.com/Date-a-Virgin
Reading that was really challenging for me. For the last year or so I've been constantly told that I need to be the confident, aggressive man that pushes things along. I need to touch her confidently. I need to just go for it. None of it ever sounded or felt right to me. It just wasn't me. That isn't to say I'm not confident, but I never identified with the typical role of a male in a courtship. I've mostly just been telling myself that I guess I just need to suck it up and do the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable.
I think I'm done with that. I don't want to apologize or feel ashamed for how I think anymore. Yeah, I'm not the typical male, and I don't believe there should be anything wrong with that. Maybe it really limits my potential matches, but I don't want to settle for an unsatisfactory relationship where I'm always having to put on a face just to please society's idea of what I'm supposed to do. That doesn't make any sense and I'm not going to try to fit into that box anymore.
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45 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:
I've been dealing with lots of anxiety the past few days. Nothing I can really do to relax it. I just get this pulse of energy up the back of my spine near the base of my neck and skull and start to feel distress. I woke up this morning after not feeling well last night. I made breakfast and wrote on the forums a bit. My friend came over and we made the cover art for our podcast and then published it and got lunch together. That was fun. I then watched some football and had a snack. I was very tired after this whole ordeal of a week. I took a small nap before dinner and had trouble falling asleep even though I was exhausted. My mind was racing hard. I woke up, made a nice dinner, called my dad and talked for about an hour, and now I'm here.
I have lots of pressure to enjoy my free time. I have to be realistic, though. I don't think it's smart to start learning a difficult process before bed when my mind is already racing. I'm going to bed at 11 PM and it's 9:30 PM. I want to unwind for at least an hour before bed, which includes reading, watching TV, taking a shower or stretching. Something along those lines.
I am happy I could work on my hobby and socialize at the same time for over 5 hours. I should be happy about this. There's just so much I want to do with my 3d modeling, climbing, studying etc. I think this goes to show that working the 60 hours last week really debilitated my weekend and mental strength. It's a lesson that I'm going to keep close to my heart as I know I can never repeat that again even if it's necessary.
I busted my ass to finish everything for Friday and my boss didn't even review it. I won't be busting my ass again like that. 8 hours a day that's it. Last time this happened I got very stressed, but I do want to say that I improved a lot this time. Instead of freaking out and finishing it on the weekend before it was due, I finished it over a week before it was due. I just thought they wanted a week to review it. I was mistaken. So that will be my lesson learned here. I'm proud of myself otherwise.
I wanted to touch on my porn binge issue. I was actually forcing myself to watch porn a lot of the time. There were moments where I was stressed or depressed where I wasn't aroused and I forced myself to watch the porn multiple times in one night. I ended up spending 5 hours between YouTube and porn. I would get angry that I was staying up late and then go to watch porn and force myself to watch things for 30-45 minutes at a time. Then I'd get frustrated and watch YouTube or walk around to clear my mind. Then I'd get annoyed that I was thinking and watch porn again.
This is similar to what happened when I finally quit video games. I would keep playing and playing, forcing myself to play. I didn't want to play. I wanted to write my cartoon or exercise or something. I knew I was upset and I just kept forcing myself because I was so upset and wanted to feel worse. It was this ocean of self destruction. I've entered that phase with porn.
I actually broke down and cried on Saturday morning around 5 AM because of the situation I was in. I felt like I've made no progress in my life because I was in the same position I was when I decided to quit video games.
For people struggling to quit video games or any other addictions, please learn from this if you've been in a similar situation. This pain should never be accepted. You should always remember this pain. This pain was the reason I never went back to gaming and am almost 500 days removed from gaming. Obviously, I still have this pain with porn. I'm tired of it now, though. The pain I've felt from forcing myself to watch porn, lose sleep, ridicule myself, torture myself...it's not fair. I'm fucking tired of it. I'm making this commitment. I might masturbate from time to time, but maybe not. I get so addicted to the idea of seeing certain things in porn. I'm not even focused on the woman or romance. I'm just focused on certain things that appeal to me and forcing myself to see it over and over. I need freedom from this. I'm going to try and be a role model for people quitting porn like I have with people quitting games. If I can quit games I can quit porn. I can do this.
It starts with defending myself.
This is a great intention that you've made here. I can relate to the idea of forcing myself to do something I don't really want to be doing simply out of habit. Right now for me it's fast food.
The most important part is to not get down on yourself in moments of weakness. Try to take a compassionate approach with yourself. People fail and they get up. It's how you bounce back that matters.
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1 hour ago, Icandothis said:
This is where boundaries come in. You can be their friend and confidant. You can do other activities outside of gaming. But you have to draw the line at games.
It’s tough when they are disappointed, but you should not internalize their feelings.
Have a beautiful day my friend.
Totally agree. The problem with even thinking about giving in to them is that it gives them justification to continue doing what they're doing. If they're there because they recognize that they have a problem but the person helping them has the same problem, it makes it hard to take the help seriously.
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6 hours ago, Chitemple said:
Well, I would like to be in a position where I don't have to worry about making rent, or looking for work, or worrying about going to work the next day.
I'd like to work in an atmosphere with creative individuals doing creative things. Making good money, and being able to do what I want when I want because I have the financial freedom for that.
I would like to have the professionalism to be able to lead and operate business.And I would like to have a large level of peace and tranquility.
pS. Still going strong. Day 12.
Those are some great goals. Do you have any idea what kind of work you'd like to do that might align with those goals? What kind of things do you like to do that you might be able to make a living off of?
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On 1/6/2020 at 9:43 PM, Erik2.0 said:
Day 44 NF 13 Sober 1yr 4months
”A Fork in the Road.”
So my clients I have now both want me to game with them. One of them pretty much begged me to play with him today. 😭. I feel like I don’t know what to do. If I play games with him then I lose this forum. And this forum has helped me become more serious about keeping on with my hobbies and pushing myself to join social groups. I felt happy quitting gaming until now . . .
If I game with my clients they’ll be happier and work will go better. But who knows what’ll happen to my personal life. I could easily become addicted to gaming for hours a day again. Even if I moderate I don’t know if I’ll be happy. This site has been the only thing that ever allowed me to quit gaming and do nofap. 😞If I stick with GQ though my clients will always have some discontentment with me because I don’t game with them..... it sucks. Either there’s a rock in my shoe at work or there’s a monkey on my back at home. I guess I’ll go with the rock in my shoe.
The pressure from my client to game is really causing me significant distress. I need to be medicated. My anti anxiety pills are supposed to arrive in a few days. Trying to keep it together while I’m recovering from a suicidal episode is heavy.
p.s. I tried to talk to my mom about work stress. She shamed me for being on gamequitters and finding support here. She said, “That’s weird you rely on a forum for support. I only rely on myself.” Sometimes I really can’t talk to her about things that don’t fit with her view of the world. I think being in an online community is just too new age of an idea for her. Oh well. What can I do. This is why I have no relationship with her. She’s always putting me down and doubting me.
God bless
Erik
Erik what is the nature of your counselling work? Is it specifically addicts helping addicts or something? It seems to me there's a lack of respect for what you do from your clients. They don't seem to understand why they're there. Are they there voluntarily? I'd love to hear more about this.
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On 1/8/2020 at 2:30 PM, Netzwerker said:
the best way to remove urges is stop watching/thinking of games .
I agree in principle but it's a lot easier said than done unfortunately! Take it from me! 😄
If you have the discipline for it, when the cravings come, try to distract yourself from it. Do something else entirely. Go for a walk. Read something.
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14 hours ago, Ikar said:
@seriousjay From what you wrote, it does seem you have anxiety well entrenched in your life and it just happened to manifest in this scenario. I don't know what you've been through in life, but it seems like you indeed have severe anxiety. Spiraling from "a girl didn't write me back" -> "I won't have a partner in my life" is pretty brutal. Your feelings might not be your fault, but they are your responsibility. If you think you need a psychologist/dating coach to help you out in these areas, then by all means do it.
@Amphibian220 What a quirky way to meet women! How did that work out for you?
Yes. Thank you for understanding. I'm going to use my time with my online counsellor to talk about this. I don't really think a dating coach is the answer because I actually think I do fine in dates. Maybe I'm not the sexiest dude in the world and I don't sweep women off their feet but that's just not the type of person I am. Like I mentioned in other parts of the forum, I prefer to just be the real me during dates. If they're gonna fall for me, let them fall for who I actually am so there's no resentment later.
Anyways, I wrote another journal entry about this, here it is. I feel like doing it this way makes it easier to sort out my thoughts:
QuoteSo, about anxiety.
I'm beginning to think I have some unresolved issues from my childhood that are leading me to have severe anxiety about being alone in the future and generally about being loved and needed. I fantasize a lot about performing the violin in front of people especially lately and it makes me really happy. Before that I was fantasizing about doing public readings of books that I published. And I also sometimes fantasize about making Hollywood movies about the books that I publish.
All this stuff is actually pretty important to me because I want to make a difference in this world. I want the world to be a better place for me having existed in it. And I want to touch peoples' lives, give them hope and inspiration for the future. I believe these are all worthwhile endeavours and they are ultimately my life's goal.
I just don't know if I want these things for the right reasons. I tell myself that these are meaningful things that will fulfill me, and I really believe that. I just wonder if my anxieties are playing into it as well.
I don't really have any strong feelings about my childhood these days. Neither positive nor negative... it's just a thing that happened. During most of it, I never really felt loved by my parents. I think the closest thing I felt to love was from my aunt, who I did see pretty often, but I was not the greatest kid in the world either. There was one time where I was lying in a tent during a camping trip bawling my eyes out because my uncle yelled at me after I told him off for smoking, and my mom laid there with me trying to comfort me. That's the closest thing I can think to ever feeling truly loved back then and knowing what I know now, I'm not sure if it was a comfortable situation for her.
Until I started on this journey of self-development, my only feelings about my childhood were negative. I had and still have a very hard time recalling happy moments. I'm not even convinced there were that many of them. There was one time when we came home from a talent show at school I think it was and we found presents under the Christmas tree that weren't there when we left. I actually believed it was Santa. That moment was pretty cool.
So yeah... I wonder if the lack of love from my childhood is being projected into the present day in the form of these negative thoughts and feelings. For a VERY long time, I hated myself. There were times where I wanted to die. There was a long time where if I wasn't playing video games, I was just perpetually miserable. I remember my elementary school getting a social worker for me because they thought I was thinking about suicide. As far back as I can remember until I was 26, nearly all I remember is misery and depression. My parents fought a lot. They got divorced. My dad yelled at me for bad marks. There really wasn't much that I can remember that I was happy about.
I'm not really sure what to do about this, but I know I need to address it or confront it. I have to do something. Because I don't want this anxiety anymore. I mean, I haven't wanted it for a long time but now I'm starting to understand how crippling it is. It is getting in the way of me becoming the best possible version of myself and I've got to change that.
@Amphibian220 I'm going to be honest I didn't respond to your idea sooner because my initial reaction was about how weird it seems. I am legit shocked that you found a girl that accepted receiving a proposal that way. I have a hard time believing such a woman might exist in North America. However, I am not religious in any sense of the word so maybe this is more a religious thing. Regardless, are you still married to this person you proposed to? I actually think it's VERY cool that such alternate forms of "dating" exist. This world needs more options for people who don't conform to the usual ways of doing things.
Also, I get what you're saying about religion but I still associate it with Christianity, Buddhism, etc. I am none of those things. The closest thing to religious I can say about myself is that I believe in the law of attraction, of a living, breathing universe that responds to your energy. That's about it.
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To be honest I'm not afraid of rejection. Not consciously anyways. I've long since accepted that rejection is a natural part of this learning process. I don't LIKE rejection, but I don't fear it.
I don't know what it is. Like I said, I think it runs much deeper than just dating. Sometimes getting a text makes me jump and my mind races about who it is, etc. Sometimes I'll check my e-mail or journal or whatever I'm focused on at the time several times to see if I got a reply.
It's really annoying.
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1 hour ago, Amphibian220 said:
Hey Jay, will try be to as articulate as I can reflecting on what you said.
Dating was like a nightmare for me even before I was old enough to date. Women attracted me, but this same attraction terrified me from young age. I avoided dating but at some moment peer pressure kicked in (movies and stuff were giving me the false impression that I will miss all my chances and be left single). Also movies drew false unreal expectations (like I have to be a super hero to be liked etc)
Eventually I got to date and I felt like I was going to throw up right there. Even before the date I had very bad feelings about this and nothing could work to kill this strange spell. When I walked away, I was thankful I didnt faint, that’s how nervous I was. This was at age 15 I think. I never dated again.
I then developed animosity to this thing until some time later, I realized I am by nature a religious person.
1) When you go to a meeting with a woman, its necessary to take a friend on your side (and she takes as well). I cannot go without this trusted friend.
2) When I am going to meet her I let her know I am meeting to consider marriage.
3) The trusted friends are present for the entire length of the meeting. You come together, you leave together.
The trusted friend made it surprisingly easy for me. The terror was gone. My first meetings were where I kept big distance (how big? The friend did all the speaking, passed her questions on and shuttled between us. Maybe I looked at her once for the whole time). In the next meeting I spoke very carefully, but after a few I was a lot more confident. What’s interesting is that I was completely unafraid to ask her trusted friend questions about my potential spouse (from meeting number 1).
But when I addressed her friend, most of my focus was about my potential spouse. Otherwise the situation could turn very bad. Both the friend and potential spouse understood and respected my approach.
(I can expand on this to explain how self criticism gets neutralized when you are meeting to consider marriage)
For me this was the only solution. I could never stomach dates or girlfriends.
Thanks for the reply.
I am not religious though so I can't relate too much about that. What I can say is that dating itself doesn't scare me. In fact, I'm pretty much never nervous going on a date anymore. None of that is the issue.
The sole concern right now for me is this damn anxiety. I think it cuts a whole lot deeper than just being single.
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11 hours ago, Ikar said:
Dating anxiety is like any other anxiety and anxiety is too much attachment what others think if you fail at something.
If you just started skiing and you are a beginner, you have to face the fact you're gonna suck at it for a while. You'll be afraid that you ram into a tree, that people will make fun of you, because you fall too often/have bad technique etc. But in reality, those things happen far less often than you think they will and simply because you'll get better at anything over time.
@BooksandTrees put it well. You have to realize there are so many stages to a relationship between "girl didn't reply to my message on an app" and "truly functional relationship" that the rejection rate is truly 99%. It's not about you. It's a statistic. Don't be anxious just because you wanted to take it one step further and she didn't respond to that.
I recently read "No More Mr Nice Guy" by Dr. Glover and "Models: Attract Women through Honesty" and both are great books on the topic.
I'm going to be completely honest I don't really think what I'm experiencing is normal at all. I just spent half the day today in the abyss. I wrote a journal entry on BetterHelp that encapsulates my thoughts on the matter so I'll just post it here:
QuoteApparently last Sunday was dating Sunday. I got an email from Match about it so I checked it out. An interesting girl viewed me so I sent a message and got a response. My response to her has been unanswered and I believe this has triggered my dating anxieties from before, with today being particularly brutal.
I get all sorts of stupid thoughts and images. Things like what am I doing wrong? I start analyzing the message that I sent. What did I say that made her ghost me? Then I think maybe I don't deserve a partner. Maybe the type of person I am just isn't conducive to a relationship. Maybe I should just become one of those "alpha male" types even though the thought disgusts me. I think about getting a dating coach and I fear being told I'm too pathetic and docile to be interesting to anyone.
None of this is voluntary, though I sometimes allow myself to get caught up in it. Occasionally, in my worst moments I even sometimes think some of it is true. I'm so sick and tired of this. I know in my conscious mind that none of it is true. I know I'm an amazing person. Why does some part of me think otherwise?
I need to stress that none of the negative things I feel are voluntary. They just come out of nowhere and sometimes when they do they don't stop. Unless you experience this yourself you'll probably have no idea how debilitating this is.
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Just to be clear about something, it doesn't actually matter all that much to me if she responds to my message or not. At least not in my conscious mind. When it comes to online dating specifically, I've already accepted it for what it is, both good and bad.
I am specifically focusing on the anxiety it's triggering and what, if anything I can do about it.
I actually ended up playing Heroes of the Storm for a bit. It was a game I was going to use as an alternative for when I got food cravings but I never ended up doing it. I specifically chose that game because matches within the game only take about 30 minutes max and historically I never really liked that style of game much so there isn't much risk of me getting addicted to it. It actually helped significantly to calm my anxiety down and I feel OK now. Maybe I'll continue with this, we'll see.
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19 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:
You have to look at women on dating sites as numbers unfortunately. If you get remotely attached to a woman online then you're leaving yourself vulnerable to being let down, which will cause insecurities to form. The same applies to women searching for men. I'm not being an incel.
Anyways, some women just ghost people instead of telling them they're actually not interested. Men do it to women as well. These people are known as cowards who can't express themselves or confront people because they have no spine. Other reasons could be she's busy, dating someone else, or died. You never know to be honest.
Dating requires lots of patience and logic. Just be excited you got a message back and move on. I use the website Photofeeler to test my photos. You can set it so only women rate your pictures and you can view photos of men that look more appealing and see how you can learn and adjust your photos to get better results.
Take a deep breath. If you think logically, the only reason you should ever feel crippling loss or anxiety with insecurities due to a woman not talking to you would be if it was your girlfriend or wife. That's it. These people are random and mean nothing to you right now. Separate yourself emotionally from these people or else you won't succeed.
I appreciate the feedback but it wasn't really my point. I truly mean no offense by that.
I want to get past this anxiety. Whatever it is. Dating anxiety? I don't know. I don't like the fact that I feel this way at all and I want to do something about it.
It really has nothing to do with dating specifically. If looking at an apple triggered this I would still feel the same way. I want to figure out what the root cause is and try to eliminate it if I can.
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So on Sunday I got an e-mail about dating Sunday from Match so I went and checked out what was there. Turns out an interesting girl viewed me so I sent her a message and got a response. I messaged her again and I haven't received a response yet and my previous anxieties about all this are starting to creep up again. Why isn't she messaging me back? Etc.
Is this normal? I feel like there's no way it can be normal. Even if it is, I don't like it. I feel like if I don't get this under control, when I do get into a relationship it's going to manifest as jealousy, etc. For all my self-awareness it does me little good with these thoughts and feelings that I can't seem to get control of.
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11 hours ago, Icandothis said:
So proud of you. To accomplish the pinnacle of your career in your 20s is really brilliant. You have got this text. You have the experience, education and studies. We believe in you.
This is my humble advice, but yes I would hold off on dating until your test is over. Take some time to heal from your childhood trauma. Unhealed trauma will be repeated over and over again in relationships until it is fully healed.
Have a beautiful day my friend.
Yes, many people repeat the same patterns over and over again and never realize that something about THEM is causing that. In order to change your circumstances, you must change yourself first.
3 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:Thank you! I agree. I don't want to date for a while. Healing will be important.
I am not done with the day, but I got to go home. I think I found out a stressor at work. I'm in charge of people for certain tasks, but I'm not the overall project manager for the project. I sometimes worry about higher level things regarding budget, hours, and project management.
My assignment is to do higher level tasks (mid level), answer questions from the lower level task members, report to the project manager, and just do my job. When I stress about other people's budgets and them wasting time it makes my work worse. So I'm just going to do my thing, assign people their work, and if they don't do it then I just deal with it properly. This will help me not stress at work when doing my work.
Good news from yesterday is I got very happy doing my 3D modeling class. I'm extremely eager to learn more and wish I was better at the software. This feeling sort of causes anxiety because I have so many ideas in my head to create stuff. Once I sit down and start the tutorials to learn the software and create stuff this anxiety goes away completely. I become immersed in the software and enjoy learning it to the point where I don't really want to stop. I spent like 3 hours doing it yesterday and really had fun.
This is a good sign and I'm happy again to have found a hobby. I'm getting a lot better at it. I'm working on a helicopter animation that I'll post on here once I'm done.
This is such a great thing you've realized! MANY people suffer from worrying about things they have no control over. It is the ultimate energy sapper because... you have no control over anything except your worrying! Consistently feeding that worrying only exacerbates the problem.
Well done!
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3 hours ago, Erik2.0 said:
@seriousjay I’ve spent some time looking at pickup artist advice too. I don’t really do that kind of thing just because approaching women was too uncomfortable for me. I don’t really have a conclusive opinion on it all. I just haven’t been approaching girls lately and am trying hobby groups. I think if a girl likes me she’ll kind of let it be known. Trying to force the issue doesn’t seem like a good idea for me for now.
sounds like you’re wanting to just be yourself and not worry about pickup advice. I think your working on yourself thing is working for you.
I'll be honest I'm not a big fan of the whole pickup artist thing. It falls into that category of cheap tricks to use to attract a woman. If you're an awesome person, are confident, etc., then that really should be enough.
Unless your goal is to have sex with as many women as possible with no strings attached. Then by all means use all the tricks you can think of.
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3 hours ago, Erik2.0 said:
@seriousjay sage advice. I see the community here seems to be pro working on yourself and less seeking fulfillment from partners. It seems healthier.
Well some people say it's impossible to truly love another if you don't love yourself first. I believe that.
I really think if you're happy with who you are and what you're doing in life, there is very little anyone else can do to disrupt that.
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22 hours ago, Erik2.0 said:
@seriousjayThanks Jay! Keep up the good work. We're happy to have you in our community here ? I'd like to hear more about your experiences with living a fulfilling life being single and what your current perspective is on dating.
Hmm, what can I say. I don't actively date and I'm not too sure if I ever will again. At this point I'm much more focused on improving my life and I believe the right people will come along as a result of that, including my future life partner. I'm really not too worried about it either way.
As for my experiences? I'm not really sure I have anything worth mentioning. Only that I think it's so important that each person does what makes them happy and follows their passions. Your mind intuitively knows what you want, and it's then up to your conscious self to follow through on that. Ultimately each person is responsible for themselves and shouldn't look to someone else to fulfill them.
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Jay's Epic Journey
in Daily Journals
Posted
OK so some backstory: I've started seeing the woman from Match that I thought ghosted me. Turns out she almost immediately responded to me and I just didn't get an e-mail about it. My bad. Our second date is tomorrow.
Today I got pretty bad anxiety about this whole thing. Everything seems to be going very well so far, yet I still get these really stupid thoughts.
"She's going to dump me because I'm too much of a headache with my anxiety."
"Why didn't she respond to my text about feeling a connection with her more enthusiastically?"
"She's going to cancel our date because she's just not that into me."
Etc.
I know in my mind that all of these thoughts are lies. There is no basis in fact or reality to take them seriously. Yet they constantly pummel me. I can fend them off at first but eventually it just cripples me. I spend so much mental energy trying to fight them off.
Today I tried a new technique of just listening to my music with earphones on. The idea being to drown out all the mental noise with actual noise that inspires me. I found this really, really helped. Within 10 minutes I was calm. It feels kind of weird to lay in bed staring at the ceiling with headphones on but if this continues to work then I'm willing to live with that. I may even bring earbuds to work to do the same thing, since all this shit usually starts during the day.
I have no idea how I'm going to tell her about this stuff. On top of being clueless about how to be a boyfriend, I'm dealing with all of this. At the very least I need to let her know it's going on so if I say or do something that seems kind of silly because of it, she'll at least know why. On most days I can keep it controlled but there will probably be especially bad days where it's going to come out, or she'll pick up on something being very wrong because I'm terrible at hiding my emotions.
I am legitimately excited to see how things go with her but at the same time I'm worried that she'll just think I'm too much of a burden to date. I guess there's nothing I can do about the latter, and if she doesn't want to deal with it then I guess she isn't the right person for me anyways. I keep telling myself that I'm an amazing person that deserves love and respect, and I do believe that to be true. I guess we'll just see where things go from here.