Ikar

Got it. Thanks for bringing up the stats. I was interested, since I realized that about a year ago when I was addicted, I almost never hung out with anyone besides my ex and I likely really overburdened her by my desire to be social. I was teetering on the edge during those several weeks after the breakup and before coming here to GQ, even though I was obsessed by getting her back, rather than just sinking deeper into the addiction. Going down the route that humans were worth fighting for eventually made me realize that there are more things to life than gaming and her, but they were like 95% of my identity back then. I'm glad to read that you got this covered and have a sensible plan for the next couple of months!

You know what to do. Good luck, learn along the way and enjoy the initial infatuation 😄

Day 279: Yesterday, I put a few hours into working on the paper, worked out and went out in the evening for a beer. There were three of us, each from a different country and we discussed history, politics, religion, psychology and we had a good time overall. At one point, I got to mention my former addiction. I said that if there was one thing I missed about it, it was to get completely immersed in the task for hours with laser focus, however with the ability to discipline myself into using it on the right things at the right time. Related video to the topic is in the spoiler. Day 280: I put a few hours into my paper again and managed to finish it, so that means now I can study for the actual exam on Monday. I read and did Duolingo as well. I stepped up my workout a bit, so now I do 20 pull-ups "over", 20 pull-ups "under" and 100 sit-ups, with bike cardio in between series and stretching. I manage that all in about an hour. I think that working out scratched some unconscious itch I had, since I got into it very easily, I have no issues working out every day and I am not sore.

I believe that everyone who consciously wants to get into a relationship does not want to ever break up afterwards and hopes to live happily ever after. Results vary, because you can seek for a relationship after five shots of vodka or while walking down the street or while in a library or while being anywhere else and all of these options have their pros and cons. Unless you meet in a very unlikely way, you will always have visual feedback on the woman get to your subconscious first and that will affect your behavior towards her, even before any of you say anything. I'm not sure how do you define arousal, but I have a certain primary purpose for everything I do. If I go to the gym, I work out. If I go to the library, I borrow a book. If I have classes, I take notes and pay attention. If there's a nice looking girl at these places, cool, I can talk to her. But as @seriousjay put it, there is a difference between appreciating beauty and getting aroused, having an erection and imagining being sexual with the woman you are seeing in front of you right now. Appreciating beauty does not take your focus away, whereas you need to invest all of it if you are to do the second. I know you met your wife in a very specific way and I'm extremely curious how do you interact with other women, if you suggest others to willingly reduce communication (how much?) with women for a week. As it's not related to the diary of @BooksandTrees , feel free to just PM me the reply. I have read something similar and I think once a week seems ideal for me as well. I can attest to that being single and dealing with my sexual and affectionate parts of my nature is more difficult than when I was in a relationship. I miss the emotional charge which came while expressing these towards one single person. It's from the book "No More Mr. Nice Guy" I wrote about before, but how do you keep in touch with other men?

No problem, from the way you wrote it, it seemed like you wouldn't enjoy this change too much, though it depends on what options you have available to deal with it. Try making male friends first, ideally some you can admire for particular traits or things you'd like to learn and they are better at. The idea is that you can have as many as you can handle (while you likely have only one girlfriend) and it is good insurance in case you break up with a girl, because you still have a lot of your social circle intact. Be wary of not asking out girls you like soon enough though - the popular catchphrase with what happens to guys afterwards is "friendzone", meaning the girl you like noticed that you are comfortable just listening to her all the time and you have no sexual drive towards her. I employed a fairly simple dichotomy regarding the above; make friends with guys and make love with girls. Girls have a knack of saying fairly early that they have a boyfriend or are otherwise uninterested at that time. That's not to say you shouldn't talk to your female coworkers in relationships anymore, but that you should look for a girlfriend elsewhere and not dwell on it. Where and when to look for potential dates depends on your personality and hobbies, but don't be afraid to explore new possibilities, especially if you think you have next to none.

Day 278: Yesterday, I decided to fast for the whole day which is something I have never done before. I noticed that I wasn't feeling hungry in my stomach, however I noticed that I wanted to constantly chew something and that I got a few bursts of saliva in my mouth throughout the day. I went for an interview, got through emails, checked on my finances, worked out and put a bit of work into my paper. I noticed I could hardly focus in the evening, because everything I did during the day was productive in one way or another and it seems that I actually use food as a way to relax. I decided to go sleep very early afterwards. Fasting for 24 hours was definitely an interesting experience and I woke up before midnight to eat a normal meal.

Damn, and there I am on a board game event, talking about reading Solzhenitsyn and working out daily. On the bright side, it filters out people quickly for you. I think there is certain resilience and experience a man must build and have when it comes to interacting with women romantically/sexually. You can have all the plans for an A-bomb, but unless you actually build it and observe what it does, you won't really know what it is. Be skeptical. Double-check in the next couple of days after the romantic/sexual incident happens. If she was out of her mind/drunk/high, she'll flake. If she was genuine, you'll meet again. But being stuck for three months because of this? Both @BooksandTrees and @seriousjay bring up great points. Good job on the no-porn streak! Gym is tricky, because you can frame it both under being sexual and legitimately appreciating a woman with a shared interest and taking care of herself in the same way you do for yourself. We're wired to appreciate good looking woman. I'd argue the worst response you'd get from her is that you are a "jerk" or a "creep" for expressing your natural sexuality freely. I'd hazard a guess that you are, as a married man, in a different situation. I'd probably be a borderline eunuch around women I meet if I knew I had sex with my wife/girlfriend once or twice a week. Sometimes clothes can make a woman even sexier without showing skin. I think if lingered my way through life, looking into the ground, I'd be hardly ever able approach or even attract any woman, just because eye contact and body language are more important than actual words.

I agree with @BooksandTrees , as he brings up good points. If the relationship between you and the father of your kids is not working, then it is madness to continue it. Despite the financial security he provides. Despite some bits of affection he still might have for you. And, worst of all, despite your kids. I'm unsure into how much of a life or death scenario letting him go puts you, but it is obvious from your entries that every day you spend with him costs you a bit of your sanity, a bit of your honesty and a bit of your dignity and those are all valuable things to have.

The only people you should try to make happy are you and your bride, even if that would mean upsetting someone else. After all, you want to ideally marry only once in your life, so you might as well do it the best way according to you! Stay on the path 🙂

Do you have to take these hours? The rest of your post is just worrying about the negative effects of it. I wouldn't want to do 40 hours a week, despite the fact I enjoy what I do.

Day 277: I felt somewhat tired throughout the whole day, but I didn't let that affect me, except for getting up a bit later than usual and taking a nap in the afternoon. I worked out, read, visited my grandma and went to one seminar called "What is happiness?" in the community center I've already been to a few times, so I already knew the people. I coined the idea I perhaps could lead some English classes there every now and then (like once every 14 days), though it is still in the works. First, I need to figure out how my schedule for the next semester looks like on the uni, then make that work with regular job opportunities and perhaps then try to incorporate this into my schedule. I'm also putting in more work into the uni paper tomorrow.

Thanks! I generally socialize through my hobbies and interests, because the event itself screens for people who have at least a bit of a shared interest. Socializing on an event without a particular agenda is difficult for me, because there's no natural continuation to it, unless I really push for it. I'm not the guy to just crash into a group of 6 people and bring up a whole new topic. I feel a lot better when I can single out someone and talk to them on my own. 6 people in a group generally do not introduce one after another to the group 😄

Day 276: I got up, got Russian done, read a bit of NMMNG, baked a chicken, worked out, went to take the stats exam, read a bit more, went to do the groceries, sorted some small things around my paper I need to do by Monday and meditated using Headspace somewhere along the day. The exam went well and I felt overall quite happy about my day. I wanted to be social today, so I decided to get a beer on my own and hang out in the student's pub. I met a couple of people I already knew from before. It was an interesting experience to pick myself up and go somewhere to just primarily meet people.

I managed to uninstall the YT app from my phone and that did the trick for me. I can still use my regular Internet browsers to access the site, but it's much more time demanding.

That's right! In the army, they used to say that a gun is a soldier's mistress. If you treat her well, she won't give you any trouble.

About the whole texting thing, I could be biased, since I texted with my ex for about a month before we met in person, but I use messaging to just set up meetings nowadays, with the exception of friends abroad. I don't think it is desperate to text first or to wish good morning and good night (it's actually cute), but I'd just rather spend all the time texting with the woman herself in person. After all, if I am serious about my future date, I have more than enough revealing text on me here that I'd show her. I think there is a certain knack to be had when it comes to revealing these things. They have to come out naturally, in relation to the matter already being discussed. If they are not linked at all and you just start out with those, you are just trying to impress ("I gamed for 10 years 10 hours a day, but I don't anymore."), win sympathy ("My dog died yesterday.") or trying to get yourself an advantage in another underhanded way, even if the things you say are true. However, if somebody randomly asked me about my past, in order to be honest with myself and with them, I'd have to mention my addiction in the first couple of sentences.

Day 275: Today I cleaned my room, studied for the stat exam tomorrow, read and did some minor work on my webpage. I am also planning to get a gun license during spring; I talked and thought about it ever since I left the army and I think going to a shooting range from time to time would be a nice hobby for me. I went to an intro lesson to a course of classic philosophy in the evening. What stuck with me was that the lady there mentioned that Socrates thought that "astonishment is a stance of a man who truly loves wisdom". I was actually astonished by her gesticulation as she was lecturing. I have recently found out that I am easy to impress by people in things I want to be better at myself and that I do not mind being a fool by starting out (badly).

I agree with @ElectroNugget . It all goes back to the idea that you held yourself to higher standards. You are no longer a doll that gets pushed around by others indefinitely, just so it can ultimately get to the addiction's tit. Chances are that at the point you snap out of the addiction, not a lot of people surrounding you will appreciate it, because you will start standing up for yourself. But you will also get the opportunity to make new and better friends from (thus far) strangers and people currently at the fringes of your social network.

Day 274: I got my events into Excel for the next week, worked a bit on a paper and studied, worked out, read, took a nap and watched Reservoir Dogs in the evening.

I also like to write here and give my insights even for an hour or two, but it makes sense in my view, since if I am interested in something I reply and if I am not, then I do not. I also found out I could scavenge some cool ideas from the topics I've commented on in the past and use them as an inspiration for my blog, so I always know what to write about, even if a lot of the topics end up intertwined. I'm in a sort of a semi-auto mode. I know what I'd like to do during the day, but I don't have set times. I'm at the point where I would feel weird to not read anything for a few days in a row or to not clean my teeth before I go to bed. But I passed up a workout recently in order to be social without any feeling of guilt. I think this is an idea from NMMNG, but I think it was coming together for me even before I read about it. How do your male FRIENDSHIPS look like? Back in the day when I was gaming and watching Twitch all the time, I could not connect with anyone, because my interests were too narrowed to a bunch of niche games and just about everything else felt like a chore to me. Since I quit gaming, I found out that connecting well with men is the cornerstone for connecting well with women. If I ask a guy about his interests and he mentions IT, paragliding, watching Netflix, economics, biology and attending medieval tournaments (that is quite a big list of passions to just mention off the top of your head), I will have a bad time connecting with him, because I don't do any of these. Since I am not trying to impress him, I can easily leave and let us both find ourselves a better fit. Ideally, I think I want to create this more intellectual connection with a woman, but there's always gonna be some sexual tension, for better or for worse.

Yesterday, I managed to lock about a two second long gaze with a girl when I was standing at the till. I got chills up the spine instantly, as people do not hold eye contact this long and I play the game of looking passersby in the eyes quite often. Even though that is all there was to it in the end, I noticed this social interaction between me and her. I'm aware and vigilant. Day 273: I got up late. I worked through my mail, wrote, worked out, visited my father with my brother and had a very brief glance over a couple of Excel files for the statistics exam on Tuesday.

I think it was Glover in NMMNG who mentioned the idea of just focusing on the act and enjoying process itself. It seems to make sense to me, because that is how it is with everything in life if you want to be good at it and not hate it. We're wired to want sex, but it is much more than just ejaculating or having an orgasm. Then there's the dilemma that when I eventually switch from masturbation to sex, I should suddenly NOT be fantasizing about anything, because I will have this woman in front of me. I would feel like I disrespect her if I wasn't into her at least physically, so I don't see a point to be fantasizing. Since I know you are in a committed long-term relationship, I'm quite interested about your opinions and experience on this topic, if you decide to share it either here or in PM 🙂 Haha, since you already mentioned the word "primate", I will use it as well! If quitting games was the most liberating experience I had up to that point, realizing that we are akin to other animals (primates) was the most liberating experience I had up to this point. Sure, other animals did not invent atom bombs, computers or the European Central Bank, but they can still plan ahead, feel pain and be overall conscious, if to a lesser extent than us. I like your thinking. I hope you will be able to connect with a woman who will support your lifestyle and goals soon!

Yes and no. It's not as much about what it actually is you masturbate to, rather than your relationship/attachment towards it. Not watching porn while masturbating is good, but not fantasizing while masturbating is even better. You want to focus on the act itself. But to be truly in the moment... that is an art.

I am not sure if it was Manson who wrote this, but I remembered that if something over time can turn into a light version porn, then it will, because then it is more likely to capture attention. But it's already been established that the best way to sell something to someone is by identifying their insecurities. I guess the most resilient to this are people who are in good long-term relationships that are based off of something higher than primal instincts, but these people will always be in the minority, as putting that relationship together must be extremely difficult. After all, when some women find out that their partner is watching porn, the relationship is over at that point. Do you plan to not masturbate forever? What are your plans? How do you define success? I love the attack chopper by the way 😄

Day 272: I did my laundry, worked out and went out for a class of English conversation.