Day 234:

This was mentioned by other GQers on the forum. I also really struggle getting out of bed when my alarm rings. What works is having some kind of a commitment to other people to get me out of bed immediately, but that doesn't happen daily. The other thing that worked was being a gaming addict, but I don't consider this a viable solution for this problem anymore!

I won't dwell on this too much, as I think it's a symptom of my (I think so far too stationary and shut-in) lifestyle. I stay in bed and masturbate (but not ejaculate). This week I really managed to pack with social activities, so I'll try to keep being social and see what changes over the next few weeks.

Related to that, I want to form a bigger number solid IRL friendships and find my next girlfriend. I'm also putting more effort into how I dress and I'm getting the first custom haircut of my life tomorrow. I think it was about time that my exterior reflects my interior, at least to some degree.

It's been about a week since my move and I still feel somewhat cumbersome with taking responsibility for cooking and cleaning more, but I both cooked and tidied my room a bit today, so I think I'm doing okay for starting out again. I had a blast on Iceland while taking care of myself.

As for today, I was supposed to teach in the hospital complex, but a shooting took place there just few hours before I should've had showed up, so the classes got cancelled. I took the unexpected day off and did a few productive things instead:

I unpacked the stuff I brought from my parents' yesterday, did Duolingo, read Gulag Archipelago, put an hour or two into my uni homework and took a walk in the dark around the neighborhood for an hour. It gives me the kicks to go alone somewhere I've never been to before!

Some yesterday's and today's events on the forum reminded me the importance of healthy doubt and experimentation.

No Ejaculation: 8 days

Day 233:

I packed a few more things from my parents' house to use in my college flat in the morning. I went to check up my ears to the hospital to see if they were blocked. To my surprise, the doctor said that everything was alright.

The classes were a bit of a struggle today. I could say I wasn't able to maintain the focus I normally do, so I was less receptive and less creative than usual. I hope this passes (preferably overnight? ? ), because I have this damned cold for the last week and I'm looking forward to getting rid of all its symptoms.

I did a bit of shopping, wrote, caught up on Mandalorian and got my schedule done for the week. I did not read today, but I read about 60 pages of Gulag Archipelago in the past two days.

@Phoenixking Wonderful post. I'm not sure if I would be able to compose a better answer than you did, had the questions been handed to me. I'm still gonna drop my thoughts on marriage, sex and religion/philosophy.

I think today it's hard to justify being married and not having kids (on the way) at the same time. As it is, it really is the "paper for official breakup" (the two likely hate each other at the point of no return), perhaps a bit more financially convenient (though some countries have good benefits for "fake" single moms). I think the only legal certainty of marriage therefore lies in that the child has to be taken care of by parents. At least that is how the situation seems to me in central Europe.

I don't think marriage is bad or good. I think it's a tool, that unfortunately gets misused my most people. I believe they use it as a gun barrel pointed to their head, loaded with social stigma, so they rather stay in a bad relationship than to divorce. After all, I believe if that wasn't true, I think this forum would not have to exist, because our childhoods would be perfect and we all, with the help of our parents, would squash our gaming addictions in their infancy. I think @BooksandTrees made a similar remark at some point regarding family.

I want to get married some day. But I'd rather use marriage as one of the many reasons, rather than THE reason to stay with my wife and solve our problems together.

Sex is great. I want it, because I didn't have it for several months and there's nothing like it. But it really creates such emotional connection between the two that it blinds them to virtually anything else. I think if it doesn't affect them emotionally and doesn't glue them together (for some time anyway), then there's something wrong with the person. It's a point of no return and if you think about it, it is exactly that for any other animal but human, because we invented contraceptive methods. So while I want it, I know I have to wait for the right time and the right woman.

I considered becoming religious after quitting games (because "coming clean" for the first week felt like a religious experience), but the more time passed by, the more I thought I can set up better rules for myself, rather than to use some particular book as the main source of them. I think as long as I am conscious of "what I sow is what I reap" (which is on the same level as is the believer being aware of his sin on his way to vestry - he sowed poorly and reaped badly), I'm good to go.

Day 232:

Staying over at my parents' for the night, as I had to charge my battery in the car for the winter and they have the charger.

Other than that, the day was okay. I even felt bored for a bit, so it might be a sign that I might want to become a bit more organized, be more active and go past the basic maintenance. I got a bunch of events I am gonna attend the next week, so I should have a good one, especially if I manage to throw in the uni homework.

Day 231:

I think I was in my bed for about 10 hours, which is a fairly long time for me, but it's hard to get up and start the day with a stuffed nose.

I have been watching Twitch here and there the past couple of days while eating. I thought of this and figured I'd probably be better off watching some "motivational kick" from Peterson, Willink or not watching anything at all in the mornings. At home, I'd just turn on the radio in the kitchen and sat there until I finished my oats, no matter how long it took, so I'll have to think of something similar here.

I did Duolingo, wrote a bit and then went to attend a guided tour, organized by a student organization. It turned out only me and the guide showed up, so we talked a bit and we went to check out the residues of the coal mining activity in the nearby area. He was knowledgeable about biology and chemistry in general, though I admitted to him that my strengths lie elsewhere, so later on we got talking about more general topics. In the end, we were surprised nobody else showed up, but it was an interesting walk around the surroundings regardless.

I also set up my FB feed in a way to show me potentially interesting seminars, debates and other things in the area.

No Ejaculation: 5 days

Never had the idea you were such a lucid dreamer! I can hardly ever remember my dreams and if I do, they are vague enough to be described in a few sentences.

I think you can be a great leader (if you've already lead big clans) and a great achiever (if you were the best in NHL) IRL, just because you've achieved both of these in the virtual world. You might hate both these achievements nowadays, but I think if you can transmute these achievements into reality, you will fulfill your ambitions and rightfully garner the respect of men and the love of women.

Day 230:

I wanted to go out after the classes at school, but while I don't feel horrible, I have a runny nose and I have to blow it every couple of minutes, so I decided I would not go out. I read for about an hour and just stayed indoors and warm.

42 minutes ago, Icandothis said:

This is awesome! How do you like it so far?!

I caught a cold at the start of the week and I'm still under its influence. I will go out for a beer tonight and see who I can find to chat with though.

On 12/5/2019 at 7:06 AM, Vidar said:

The challenge people like us have is that we attract narcissists and we also are attracted to them. More healthier women, who don’t emit sexual energy or invoke desire gets passed on. I’m trying to change my ways but it’s so difficult. 

There's a great book on that called "No More Mr Nice Guy" by Robert Glover.

The comparison I'd make would be that if one is addicted to gaming, they'll go out of their way and subordinate everything to it. Nice guy is a man who does the same, except the fact he substitutes gaming for a woman. It'd explain why @BooksandTrees or I ended up with fairly manipulative, controlling and even dominant women in the past. They couldn't help to manipulate us and we couldn't help not being manipulated.

I think the counter to that is simply having options. You have the option to play games, but you don't have to (and you'll be fine). You have the option to date the woman you've had sex with, but you don't have to (and you'll be fine - although this one is a bit trickier, as we have to deal with our sexuality somehow). I believe as long as one has options he can conceive of and realistically carry out, then he's good to go.

Welcome to the forum!

When I wrote "no real benefits", I meant the additional job worries that seem to pervade into your free time. I didn't mean it in the way that you should quit it and live off of welfare or get a shittier job. Good thing you are improving and that you are aware!

Day 229:

I spent about 7 hours total yesterday and today finishing my uni homework. It was a chore, but it's done.

I had an intro English class with one girl in the department store. By a chance, we managed to run into my mom! It was funny, but it didn't derail me. The girl seemed somewhat introverted and shy, I'm used to more talkative women.

10 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I was curious because you're going to university so I wasn't sure if you were older than a traditional student or not. I think it's good you're trying to fix these issues at your age.

I'm new to this concept, but I am likely correct to say that this is not about age. It's about getting started and never stopping until death.

In this specific example, I think I like to be in control of my environment too much, so I need to create opportunities for myself to escape my safe spaces and just let things happen.

I'd say that you give too much of a damn about your job, without getting any real benefit out of it. I currently work about a dozen of hours per week and it still makes me feel important, validated (both socially and knowledge-based) and even successful. It's my opinion, but I think your job safely got into the #1 spot of your life, influencing everything else, and if you aren't enthusiastic about that, then your relationship towards it likely needs a change.

3 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

How old are you if you don't mind me asking?

I'm 22. What made you ask that?

Day 228:

I've officially moved to the uni dorms. No more excuses about not being able to attend a seminar, a party or whatever else, because it's too far away and it wouldn't pay off.

I respect your ability to be honest if you think things are shitty. Just make sure you don't use your anger too much too consistently, otherwise the stress will kill you.

6 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

That's great. I have tried this, but it did not last long as I enjoyed the sensation so much that I'd just masturbate a ton and then just go back to porn. I think it's because I had nothing exciting in my life and nothing to deal with stress. It's tough to decipher. 

 

2 hours ago, DaBest said:

Same here as @BooksandTrees. I've gone that route and eventually I'm back to old habits, though that's more similar to you as it's more fantasy than porn for me. Personally, I like the extra energy and extroversion I have when I'm on a streak. I also have zero interest in women when I'm masturbating, which is bad. I'm just feel empty or dead. It's weird.

It's hard to trick the body to really ejaculate every day and enjoy it at the same time, at least for me. From my experience, it takes at least 5 days from ejaculation to ejaculation for me to truly enjoy it again.

I think I could compare ejaculation to consummatory reward/behavior and whatever I do to get to it as approach reward/behavior. Consummatory reward is nice, but once I get it, it's gone. It's drinking water, having a nice hot bath or getting a diploma at school. Approach reward is better in the grander scheme of things. It is becoming good at something or progressing. It's approaching a woman and the sweet moments anticipation, whether it's the last time I'm talking to her or whether it's the beginning of a beautiful relationship. It's becoming better in English and being able to describe my life with even more colorfulness than before.

I also feel more energetic and outgoing after not ejaculating as much. I think I could also add my expanded knowledge about relationship dynamics and sex in the past month to that.

Thanks for sharing yourself!

Day 227:

The few next following rows might be interesting for @BooksandTrees , @DaBest and other people on the forum who currently deal with their sexuality on their down.

Even though I never watched porn as most people understand it, I was at some point dependent on other visual stimuli when masturbating, even when I was having sex with my ex-gf. Over time and after a bit of back-and-forth, I figured it if I used my own imagination, I could let it produce something novel every time.

Yesterday, so after about 18 days when I was free of intentional ejaculation (and before or after one of the most suggestive sensual/sexual dreams I've had in a long time), I decided to just focus on what makes me feel good. I didn't watch anything or imagine anything. I was in the present moment and I simply jerked off. Finishing "No More Mr Nice Guy" yesterday made me think about shifting my perspective. Be it imaginary or real, I think I focused on pleasing the woman rather than myself and perhaps even boasted about it. I'll try to put myself first the next time in sexual matters.

As for other news, teaching went well today and I am moving tomorrow to the uni dorms.

Day 226:

I was teaching today. I was a bit anxious, but also somewhat enthusiastic. I read a bit during the day and pulled out some interesting quotes that resonated with me:

Spoiler

"You cannot be an attractive and life-changing presence to some woman (I'd probably write "anyone" here myself) without being a joke or an embarrassment to others. You simply can’t. You have to be controversial. You have to polarize. It’s the name of the game. And getting good at the game is learning to open yourself up enough emotionally, learning to express your honest self enough and be comfortable enough with your vulnerability to take those embarrassing moments with the moments of passion. A willingness to polarize is not easy. But it’s necessary."

"Once the sex begins in relationships, the learning stops. Sex creates such a powerful bond that it is difficult to accurately evaluate the appropriateness of a new relationship."

 

Day 225:

Feeling a bit under the weather today, as I have a sore throat. I read more "No More Mr Nice Guy" by Robert Glover, did a bit of paperwork and put together my schedule for the next week.

No Ejaculation: 7 days

It's kinda weird to admit that, but I have troubles getting out of bed because of this. I do have more energy throughout the day overall though and I think that's an improvement overall.

23 minutes ago, Artemis said:

I agree with a lot of your points, but I disagree with about everything in these two paragraphs. While good-intentioned, I think there are a lot of assumptions that come off as foolish. For example, I have zero desire to have children. When I talk about youth, I meant more like I want to be out running and jumping and learning before life is over.  In no ways was I referencing a biological clock. 2nd I'm definitely not looking for a leader ha ha (????), just a partner. 3rd, terms like "henpecked" seem often used to justify one's own bad behavior. In this case, I've mostly ever observed this kind of term to justify their own slothfulness. Not saying that is what you're doing, but name-calling strongly communicates that to the listener. It also categorizes people instead of behaviors, which can be counterproductive. I also don't think my partner has "lost his baseline identify" from being in the relationship. If anything, I'd say that gaming filled the opportunity of gaining that, but I even hesitate to put it that way. People aren't out to absorb other people's identities. At least not anyone I want to interact with. I agree, that doing actions to attract someone is important. I think some of the goals mentioned are great (having a sense of self, having balance between everyone's wants, actively nurturing a relationship instead of only doing "damage control"), but the reasoning to support the ideas could improve.

I only ask that you never go around again explaining what women want. It's incredibly patronizing and comes off as inexperienced.

I've heard the term man-splaining, and I never understood it until reading that. Ha haha XD (We all say dumb stuff, for example, my blind friend was helping me when I dumbly said blind people wouldn't care about a dark restaurant - she kindly pointed out that many blind people still have partial visibility and great lighting makes a big difference for navigating a space independently - I think that'd be called able-splaining ha haha). Ask, don't tell, I guess! 

I still appreciate the advice and I hope you will take some of mine too! Thanks for sharing your experiences. 

My observations and opinions are mostly based on the fact that most women decide to HAVE children. I'd rather take the stab in the dark and put you in the approx. 85% of the women who want to have/have children and take the 15% of making myself a fool by doing so, rather than to write something 100% ubiquitous without any real depth to it. Back to your case, I hope you've made it known to your SO about your intention of not having children.

When I wrote "leader-less man", I meant a man who is out of touch about the realities of living a balanced life. If your SO has a job, gaming and the relationship with you as all there is to his life, his balance is (as you can already feel, because you seem to actively encourage him to do other things) fairly volatile. I don't think you are out there to "consume" him. What I'm thinking about is that I was in a relationship with a woman myself, where I let it define me from a large part, and whether there might be a chance your SO is doing the same with your relationship.

Finishing the loop again, women who have children at least like to have the feeling that they can lean on men who have their backs, especially when taking care of the infants, in case they need the support. I've never heard, seen or read about a woman whose life goal was to be a single mom.

I want to have a family eventually and a LOT of my worldview revolves around that, as you can see above. You decided to not have a family. We all have different worldviews and those create friction. I hope you can understand mine better now!

3 hours ago, Artemis said:

I think this is really, really great advice. I have been thinking a lot about what initially attracted me to him since you mentioned it. I try to focus on those things. I was also thinking about listening better to his interests outside of gaming. My instant thought is (I have been listening, but he says he doesn't have any.). Now as I think about it, I think he has mentioned some things, but they're genuinely not interesting to me, so I have not even been seeing them as other interests. He actually used to play a lot more! He'd play 12-14 hrs every day, 7 days a week before we got together. Then he stopped playing pretty much all together (except when playing together). That lasted a couple years (he'd play when I'd be gone for a few weeks here or there traveling). But now it's just becoming a big part of his life again. He did bring up that he does see himself going to games when stressed (and it's been a stressful summer/fall). I should check out the "reclaim" program. I guess I'm kind of questioning if I want to reclaim the relationship. He used to pay a lot of attention to me with all his availability, which made me feel so special and attracted to him. He also was very creative. He still is, but I guess I'd like to see him use his creativity in other ways, but I'm not sure he is interested in that after a lot of heart to hearts. He's really content playing games it seems. He's very supportive of my ambitions (even financially). So do I stay with someone who supports me in my ambitions 1000% because they have none? I'd just like to see him in some new contexts though to like, spice things up (which I've explained several times). He's stopped gaming when I'm awake/at home. But hasn't seemed to quite figure out what he wants to do yet. Thanks again for the great advice! I think figuring out what I'm attracted to about him is the ultimate answer.

I don't think you necessarily need a lot of shared interests, though it's good to have a couple of them. I think what attracts a woman to a man is that she thinks the man's life is able to incorporate both her and the possible offspring into his life WITHOUT losing his baseline identity that made the woman attracted to him in the first place. One could say women are by and large attracted to security and trust. If he's ambition-less, unwilling to make any changes on his own and malleable (i.e. he will do everything to not lose you, but nothing to gain you), it's a rare woman who is willing to stay in a relationship with a leader-less man, who has no other options than to be with her. They call these men henpecked.

Don't worry too much about your age. Yes, women are on a tighter biological clock, but I think it's not up until after 40 when they might start having issues having kids.

It sucks to write that, but if you're already questioning whether to blow a couple of dollars on Reclaim, then you probably got your answer whether or not to stay in the relationship. I don't write this easily, but I think I was in the same relationship, just on the side of the male and despite the flaws of my ex, I believe she made the right decision when she broke up with me for both of us.

If you're interested, a compact version of my story comparing the months before and after I quit gaming is here, to give you a hint about how I slowly began to turn my life around in a more meaningful direction. I'm content my insights have helped you so far ?

18 minutes ago, Icandothis said:

Nothing makes sense anymore.

What makes you think that?

Day 224:

I spent the most of my day in an English class, ran by my friend. I had a good chat with him afterwards as well. I spent about an hour on Twitch, while I was eating. Good day overall.

Day 222:

I did a ton of errands yesterday. Emails, setting up a small car repair and paperwork. I exercised for a while too. I had to go to a bank and I listened to a podcast. I also visited my brother and talked with him for a while.

I went outside afterwards, but I found out I got myself into a sports bar rather than a club. I chatted with a few guys and watched football on the TV. The ratio of guys/girls was about 5 to 1, so I spent about three hours there and then decided to go home.

Day 223:

I went to school today. The classes were quite nice.

No Ejaculation: 5 days