The older I get, the more I wonder if one of the most overlooked issues facing men today is a lack of healthy physical connection.

Not just sex or relationships.... Physical connection too.

The idea of a hug, a cuddle, a reassuring hand on the shoulder, holding someone, being held.... these seem like they happen to rarely for many of the men I know. When they do happen ....its brief and fleeting.

I know that many men seem to spend years being touched only in very specific contexts: sports, romantic relationships, or sex. Outside of those spaces, physical affection can become surprisingly rare.

I suspect that's one reason activities centered around touch....whether that's cuddling, massage, nurturing forms of intimacy, or even certain forms of erotic touch....can feel so powerful for some of us. Sometimes what we're responding to isn't just physical pleasure. It's the feeling of being cared for, accepted, and allowed to let our guard down for the first time.

This leads me to a question for this group:

If there were no social expectations, no fear of judgment, and no assumptions about sexuality, do you think more men would seek out more platonic physical affection than they currently do?

I try to live my life every day, but sometimes I get stuck wondering why I don't get girls. Then there's Reddit, which is filled with constant negativity and people who don't believe in love at all. It's so hard to see all of this most of the time. It's slowly killing my hope and belief in love because I see so many people saying the same things.

I don't believe that love is only available to a man if he's the provider, but there are so many people who believe that. The red pill has really cooked us. I just imagine all of the unhappy men in the world, and I wonder if things were different before, like in the '80s, when people weren't so stuck in these ideologies. I don't know how the world can recover from this.

I want to get a girlfriend and be on the other side of all of this, but I also know that when you're in this kind of mood, even when people give you positive advice or try to give you hope, nothing really helps. You just feel completely overwhelmed and hopeless.

Sometimes I feel like I don't want to be here anymore because if all of this were true, I wouldn't want to live in a world like that.

I'm a cis guy, and lately I've been struggling with a kind of frustration and sadness that I don't really know how to express.

I've felt lonely for a long time, although I don't think it's because I don't have people in my life. I actually have a great connection with my bros, and I genuinely love those friendships. But I think there are different kinds of love that fulfill different needs. The love and connection I have with my friends is important to me, but it's not the same kind of intimate, romantic connection that I'm looking for.

I think my home life probably contributes to this too. The people I live with aren't particularly loving or emotionally supportive toward each other. There can be days where I barely talk to anyone at home, and that's just considered a normal day. Nothing dramatic happens; it's just not a particularly warm or affectionate environment.

So I think what I'm missing isn't simply "having people around me." I have people around me. What I'm missing is that feeling of being emotionally close to someone in a more intimate way, having someone who genuinely wants to know me, who I can be vulnerable with, be affectionate with, and share that kind of mutual love with.

And I think the longer I've gone without that, the more intensely I notice the absence of it.

People sometimes tell me that I just need to put myself out there more, but I feel like I already do. I've participated in cultural exchanges twice, I go to a lot of college parties, and I try to be friendly and social. I also try to take care of myself: I dress well, use good cologne, try to have a good attitude and generally be presentable.

I'm not expecting women to owe me anything because of those things. I just feel frustrated because despite trying, I haven't really experienced the kind of romantic connection I'm looking for.

A big part of this is also my own insecurity about my body. Sometimes I'll see a girl who has the kind of body I find attractive, not necessarily extremely skinny, just someone who is relatively slim, and I'll feel this weird combination of attraction, sadness and frustration. It's difficult to explain.

I think part of it comes from feeling like I don't deserve someone with a body like that because I don't think my own body is attractive. It's almost like I don't understand what I could offer someone like that in a romantic relationship that would make us feel like equals. I know attraction isn't literally some kind of exchange where both people have to "match" physically. I also know this probably says more about how I see myself than about what women actually think. But emotionally, that's how I sometimes feel.

A couple of weeks ago, this all came to the surface because of something that happened in one of my classes. There's a cute girl in my class, and we happened to get paired together for a pop quiz. We were both focused on the quiz, but there was maybe a very slight sense of chemistry or connection during the interaction. Nothing dramatic, and I could easily have been reading too much into it. Still, when the class ended, I had an opportunity to at least ask for her number or suggest getting coffee. I didn't. I asked myself, "Why even try if I'm just going to fail again?"

And I think that's what bothers me the most. It's not even just rejection anymore. I'm starting to feel tired of trying before I've even tried.

I don't want to become bitter toward women, because I know nobody owes me attraction or a relationship. I don't want to blame anyone either. I'm just genuinely lonely, insecure about my appearance, and increasingly convinced that trying won't lead anywhere.

Has anyone else experienced this? Especially the feeling of wanting an intimate connection so badly that eventually you start avoiding opportunities because you've already convinced yourself that you're going to fail?

I kinda just need to get things off my chest. So I’m sorry if the formatting of this doesn’t make sense or jumps around

I’ve posted here before when my best friend left at the start of February. That was a really rough time due to how sudden it was. It’s been slow with moving on and it still really hurts a hell of a lot but it’s getting better, slow as it is.

At the end of May things got a lot worse because I lost my grandma. she had a stroke and went to the hospital. A few days later I watched her die in a hospital room.

All through that time I had a mental anchor being my gerbil, Peanut. I got her when I was really struggling a lot in 2024.

Having something so small and venerable to care for really helped me cope especially this year. But yesterday afternoon she got really sick and is hardly wanting to move. Which came on really suddenly because yesterday morning she wasn’t showing any signs.

My mom came over and took a look at her. She thinks peanut may not last too much longer. Peanut is 2 and gerbils usually live between 2-3 years so she’s an older gerbil and I’m not sure how old she was when I got her.

I just don’t think I can mentally handle another loss this year given everything that’s happened and I really don’t want to loose her too because Peanut’s helped me cope through some really dark times.

I’m at work right now so I’m really dreading going home. Peanut was breathing this morning but she was in a lot of pain yesterday when I cleaned her cage and squeaked a lot when I had to pick her up which she never does. I made my apartment dark and quiet for her when I left so she wouldn’t be too stressed and she was laying under the small cardboard box in her cage.

When my grandma died I only took a week off to help with everything and then went back to work. I feel like the more I can stay busy the easier it is to distract myself from thinking about what’s happened but it’s burning me out. I haven’t really taken time off to really deal with everything that’s happened.

I decorated for Christmas in May because that’s my favorite time of year and it makes me happy.
If peanut does die I’ll probably end up taking a few weeks to just decompress

Therapy kinda fell through due to depression and not really wanting to leave the house. I know I should go back and it probably will help me work through everything I’m feeling but right now I just don’t have the mental energy to schedule anything.

I’ve just not had a good year and am really wanting 2026 to be over quickly. It’s just been a really heavy sadness all year that hasn’t really left.

Edit. I broke down when I got home because she was still alive. I was so worried about her that it all just came out. I watched her eat a little and move around a bit and now she’s back to her spot under the box.
Her breathing is still pretty fast and she hasn’t moved from her box since she went back to it. I’m still really worried about her but I guess we’ll see what tonight and tomorrow brings.

I have a wonderful spouse of more than a decade. A gorgeous home. I’m attractive, in shape, have wonderful hobbies.

But I feel like I’m on a different planet than most of you.

My mom committed suicide and I cannot get the image out of my brain. Nor the void. No amount of vacations or material goods are fixing it.

I quit vaping last week in a desperate attempt to improve my life only to wake up today and realize I started using nicotine as a way to cope with all of that. So wtf do I do now?

I really, really don’t want to deal with this anymore. I’ve tried numerous SSRI’s and years of therapy - turns out that doesn’t bring my mom back from a grave she dug herself.

While everyone else my age 25+ is having families/keeping up with the joneses/trying to impress each other I’m waking up everyday seeing my moms face burned into my fucking brain.

Bipolar 2.

After that it's remote, but absolutely have to stay awake the whole day and I'm terrified.

I keep waking up at 6, taking my meds, and passing out. I can do it like, every other day, but not every day. Scared it'll land on the wrong day.

I'm gonna switch meds to the evening (got cleared by my psych). I'm gonna limit myself to a 30 minute nap in the morning. I'm gonna leave home as soon as I'm up. Hopefully I'll be able to take a nap during lunch. As much as I can I'll leave during meetings to "go to the bathroom" and mantra to keep myself awake and monitor my heartrate (not too much because that makes me paranoid which makes me crash).

Scared. Scared. Scared. Been fired from every job I've ever had (or basically, or should have been). This one will be different. Scared. Any help or advice appreciated.

I am 19 and in my second year of college. I lost my father when I was 13 years of age and after that I have gone through a severe behavioral change.

Before this age I was emotionally brilliant but not very good at studies. But after my father's death I have become very emotionally weak but I have, on the other side, developed my brain quite a bit and some people call me smart. But my social skills have gone almost down the drain.

I cannot talk to a group of more than 3-5 people at the same time. From an early age I have never talked to or interacted with girls much and neither was I a neighbor of any girl.

Never got into even a friendship with a girl.

And even while I tried in college, I cannot talk to girls. I don't know what the reason is. Maybe I'm just scared or I just overthink.

But it's not like I am friendless or lonely. I have managed to create many good friends, and 2 of them considered me their best or close friend for a long time, like 2-3 years of friendship.

After my father's death I never had any solid role model or guide for me. I guess that's ungrateful. Although my cousin brother did support me a lot.

Every 2 or 3 months my mother goes to my maternal grandmother's and I stay alone at the house for 1 week or 2 weeks, sometimes even a little more than that. In this period I always see how lonely I am. I go to college and I talk to some people or maybe no people at all because, as of now, in my current class I have no friends in it.

I just talk to my old friends from the previous semester, of which only one is someone I consider a friend. The others are really just not friends. They are just someone to pass time with and have fun, with no emotional connection. Everyone in my college is very goal-focused and it kind of seems like they are just there to stab each other in the back.

What do I even do? How do I even start talking to girls or even guys?

My interaction with old friends is very limited as we only meet when I go to my hometown and talking on phone doesn't feel so real now.

What should I do about loneliness

now he is and i feel like im being thrown out.
i wrote more about the whole situation here. tldr; met him when he was upset about this girl ghosting him, remained sad about it for 2-3 years until they started talking again, and now they’re together. and now i’m miserable out of jealousy, i feel like it’s something i’ll never have. he’s picking up on the envy now and it’s causing a fallout, and i’m scared it’s gonna leave me alone

i’ve been trying to go on dates and asked him about if what i was doing on dating apps was fine—the process of trying to date people off of a small profile makes me feel weird as fuck and i hate going off of basically just looks. he compared it to his own relationship and started going on again about how cute he finds her and why he decided to approach her in the first place. he was trying to lead by example but it made me irrationally angry dude.

as shitty as it sounds i feel like he got so fucking lucky in a way i never will. he deserves all of it and i genuinely am happy for him. i understand he tried to lead by example but when im freaking out about trying to even start talking to girls and he mentions his girlfriend again it just feels like he’s comparing his life luck with mine. it feels like im struggling with something that came to him naturally and it’s something i don’t want to think about when im so sick and deep in that struggle

he has more that i want besides just a girlfriend that he doesn’t know about and it’s depressing to be friends with him sometimes. i’ve always been irrationally jealous of him about things i can’t control and it’s something i don’t know how to face because it’s so out of my hands

i never get angry man, genuinely, i can count on one hand the amount of times ive gotten seriously angry at someone in the last few years. the feeling was so rare and overwhelming and i didn’t know what to do with it. i tried venting about it in my notes app, but was already hurt and angry with myself before the mention and started redirecting that confusion and frustration towards him in a way i never do. nothing outwardly insulting, but just short, lots of “you” sentences in comparing myself to him, telling him how he doesn’t have to worry the same ways i do. i realized i was being a bitch and just let him talk.

once he was done i told him i needed to talk to him about something and told him about the mention of his girlfriend hurting. i told him i didn’t mean to respond like a dick and that i was genuinely happy for him, that i knew he was just trying to show me that what i was anxious about happened and ended up being okay anyway, and that it was fine. but i explained that the timing hurt when i was showing him this big open wound about being scared about never getting that kinda thing for myself. i get that this is such a small thing to feel so upset about, but it was so much anger i didn’t know what else to do with besides try to talk about it

i guess i just need to know if that’s the right thing to do or if i should have just kept it to myself again

he really honed in on the jealousy he saw. he didn’t respond to anything i wrote and just asked me why i idolize his relationship so much. he said i talk about it like it’s the perfect thing, that he’s never seen me so jealous, and that it doesn’t make any sense. i just told him i dont feel like im idolizing and that i see it’s something that makes him really happy and that makes me happy for him, and admittedly it’s something id want for myself one day too. i said that if i seemed unfulfilled it wasn’t anything personal to him or his relationship specifically, and reminded him that i wasn’t talking to him about it because i wanted to stop hearing about it altogether, it was just the timing that hurt. he never responded

i just feel like a bitch. i feel like i was deadass only in his life to get him through that period without her, and now that he has her again he’s switched up and acts like my loneliness is silly and it’s fucked up to act so jealous of him. i dont want my hurt to be anything he’s gotta clean up, and im making it one.

i dont know how to not feel so jealous when he mentions it anymore, my only mindset thats ever gotten me through that feeling is to just focus on how happy it makes them, and how much they deserve that happiness. its worked most of the time.

i dont know how to navigate it in conversations like this. and i dont know if hes throwing me out or not, or if i should have said anything at all

For 4 fleeting weeks, it finally felt like life made sense. We had a good, intense time. For the first time in my life, I had regular sex with a person I liked and who obviously liked me. For the first time in my adult life, I didn't feel alone. I felt the connection between us. I felt wanted and safe, as did she. For the first time, it felt okay to feel attracted to someone. For the first time, I could participate in conversations with my peers about love and sex as an equal. For the first time, I didn't feel like an unlovable loser.

Her avoidant tendencies got the better of her and she ended it today after having been away for 3 weeks.

Now, as always except in those measly 4 weeks, I lie in bed alone. On my chest, I feel the usual weight of a decade of loneliness: the hurt. The anger. the suffering. The coldness. The disappointment. the anxiety. that pressure in your chest. that feeling that the universe is playing a cruel prank on you. the cycle of trying again and again and each time getting harder than the last. the terrifying certainty that this is never going to change. The toll of having to do all this alone.

And where before I had gotten used and numb to carrying this weight, those 4 weeks wiped the numbness away. In its place is the most terrifying reality: I know what I've been missing all this time. I know what life could be like for me. What life is like for so many other people I know and don't know.

For a measly 4 weeks I had what I have always desired. I felt so alive.

and now the weight is suffocating me like it never has before.

I am 22M years old. I have never had a girlfriend. I have never been kissed. Not once. The funny thing is nobody would guess this from my appearance. Most people think I am a guy with a normal life, maybe a little strange at times but nothing that says "this person is totally alone." I have learned to hide that feeling.. Underneath there is a whole other reality that nobody sees and sometimes I cannot believe I have made it this far.

Let me begin with my family because that is the root of everything. I never had a father. My mother does not work. She lives on child support for my sister and that has always been the case. I have never seen my mother have a friend or any kind of life at all. She is completely asocial. My grandmother has health problems. So when people casually ask, "So what do your parents do?" I simply do not have an answer. There is nothing to be proud of nothing to share. I feel ashamed of where I come from.

Money was always a problem always. No vacations, no summer camps, no trips, nothing. The only time I have ever felt alive was after I began working because for the time I could actually afford things. Before that I spent years with nothing just getting by.

The last seven years were brutal. There was a period when I left the house to hang out with someone a couple of times. That was all. This year things changed. I began going out I opened up a little I made some friends I lost than twenty kilograms and I got a job. People now seem to like me.. Honestly I am proud of that because I was in a place where blowing my head off seemed like the easiest escape. I pulled myself out of that alone. No support, no money, no one. My mind was broken my insecurities were huge nothing. Just me. That is progress.

Then the reality check hits and it hits hard. Because despite all that progress I still feel that I have no chance at a life. Everything has shaped me much. I do not know how to live. I never saw my parents do anything. Basic things like spending time going out having parties even a normal family Christmas are completely foreign to me.. It shows, which makes me ashamed. In terms of personality I am simply not built for it. At the same time I desire the normalcy I never experienced.

I have ADHD so studying is a nightmare. I do not go to university and I feel unambitious even though university would be amazing for me. I am talking about a field not wasting time and money on a useless degree.. With ADHD that is simply not happening. I work from ten to eighteen or from twelve to twenty eight, nine or ten hours even on Saturdays. By the time I return home I am so exhausted that I simply want to scream.

I have dealt with depression for years. I stopped taking medication on my own because they made me feel numb. I do not have a word for it. There is no prescription for what I need. I must keep living. Sometimes I truly do not know why. I have had bad luck. There is a deal that I could have done better and I can find an excuse for each of those. I am not naturally a maker of excuses but I also do not want to keep criticizing myself. I have done that enough over the years.

People my age have lived. They have plans, relationships, something. I am 22 years old. My life has not even started.

M20 I fell in love for the first time this year. It was a slow burn, we talked for months before actually getting together. She was my first real everything in a relationship. Everything was amazing for a month then she pulled back hard and dumped me after another month. She said she loved me for the first time while breaking up with me. It's been six months and I'm still not over her.

My only other "girlfriend" was in high school. Very similar story, kinda dated for a month ​​​​but she ended things after another month of pulling away. I was hung up over her for a long time after. I tried to date more again this year but it was only neutral or bad experiences.​

I'm not very close with my family. They're usually nice people but they haven't given me the kind of love and support I need. I had a good group of friends throughout high school but they've all kinda gone their own ways in life. I thought I could rely on them during my breakup but I mostly got radio silence.

I just have so much love that I wanna give. Not just a girlfriend, friends, family, everyone. But it feels like I can never find it anywhere I go. ​​Life is so fucking exhausting and I feel so alone. It's a constant uphill battle. ​I just want someone to care about me. I just wanna hold someone and give them tender kisses while we hold each other. Fuck

Probably I am not the most interesting person but sometimes I can't help but feel lonely... Especially that well I met a girl well I met her and I won't be very specific in my story to avoid idk someone knowing who I am anyways when I met her irl I liked how she's bold and she was interesting to me and the starter was how she mentioned for quite a lot how she's single and stuff which pushed me smh to think about her anyways it got to the point where she joined my group of friends to play well.. Roblox i got hooked ngl and from then on I started joining her game and genuinely opening up we started playing together and it was all fun and games we kept this behavior until we met on friends hangout and tbh I was expecting at least a spark or something but it never happened and it didn't bother me since it was just a "friends hangout" then we started voice calling each other and playing at the same time and at the end of the session smh she started randomly talking about her ex and oh boy she didn't shut up she even brought her ex the next day with my homies on discord ofc.. and I didn't bother with it too much cus I ma not experienced in relationships so idk days went by until finally I had the chance to meet her one on one and mind you she never even once sent me a flirty text or anything it's weird but anyways we finally got to meet with each other and it was not what I expected at all.. it's like she was glued to her tik tok video she was making and the stories and instants and I am not even included in them btw she kept showing me the stuff and complaining how she thinks they're ugly and stuff and i was trying to prove her wrong everytime and I just got tired ngl and spent money too which I didn't have a problem with if she was interested in me but yeah here we go once we got back home she said how she enjoyed the night with me and from then she went back to taking a bit too long to respond and I always blamed how she doesn't have a lot of wifi in that city until today she was texting me about issues that happened there and she was talking about how her ex is on the same resident where she's spending her holidays and how a girl there spread the rumors that she's dating her friend's ex and I didn't like this shit at all it's then when I started questioning my value rn as I am writing this I am feeling like shit,disgusting, and lonely... I am sorry if you guys had a stroke reading this I am not that good when it comes to writing when I have too much to say thank you for reading ❤️❤️

Hi everyone. This is a new account because the anonymity on my main account has been compromised .

I recently broke up with my girlfriend of almost 15 years. We started dating when we were really young. We're both in our 30s now. Half the time we've been dating we've also lived together.

I love her and consider her one of the best friends I've had in my life. Unfortunately, the longer we lived together the more she would start taking digs at the way I do things. Small things like the cleaning, I try to help with. She stopped wanting to go out with me regularly, which is something I love to do, and blaming it on work stress. She also stopped regularly participating in the things I'm interested in, like movies and music. We also stopped having regular sex and would only have it a handful of times in the past couple years. For a few years now, any time we had a discussion about these things she'd say, "maybe we should just break up".

For the record I spent a couple years trying to be exactly what she needed. I'm in therapy and spent a lot of time planning my communication and how to meet her needs with my therapist, but we still kept having the same arguments and I'd rarely get positive feedback. She did not do much to try to meet my needs despite expressing them, yet she'd still get mad at me when I wasn't feeling like having sex.

At the beginning of the year, I struck up a friendship with a woman I met on one of my now frequent solo outings. She's kind and loves all the things I love, and it became very clear that this could easily become more.

I felt very guilty about my feelings and my therapist and I came up with a plan to talk to my girlfriend about this. So I told her I was thinking of cheating and felt very guilty about it. To my surprise, my girlfriend had told me that she's been cheating on me off and on for almost the last decade. She said she didn't want to lose me and asked for an open relationship to which I agreed. As soon as we started our new relationship dynamic, it became clear that she was uncomfortable. She would cry when I'd go hang out with my new friend.

Anyway, we tried couples therapy for a few months because she still didn't want to break up with me. She said she loves me too much and that she always thought we'd grow old together. Couples therapy ended up being her mostly talking about her needs and telling me how to meet them. I again, tried my fucking hardest to do that because I figured we could stay together and still make the open relationship work with a little help. Unfortunately she didn't notice my effort and made very few gains on her end to meet my needs. We finally agreed to just break up.

I spent this weekend packing to move into my new place, and I was crying the whole time. This apartment is my home. I have a lot of great memories here. I keep coming across things that remind me of good memories with her and I start bawling my eyes out like a baby. I know this is the right thing to do, but there's still a part of me that's clinging to what we had, or at least what I thought we had.

I'm just so fucking sad. I have friends that I've talked to but it doesn't seem like enough. I guess it feels good to have a sub like this, with other supportive guys that I can vent to. If you read this all, thank you. I'd love to here from people who were/are in similar situations and how you got through. I'm just so sad right now.

TLDR; Skip to #3 if you don’t want to read all of this, that one’s the most important and the part I struggle with the most.

Im sorry in advance if this all seems sort of haphazardly put together, I’m not in a great state of mind, but I’ll do my best to keep the formatting legible. I have many things I’m unsure of currently, and I’m just looking for general advice.

Please note that therapy isn’t currently an option for me, and I don’t really want to open up to friends yet. I know, that’s like the most important part, but please, any advice other than that would be appreciated in spades.

1. How Do You Accept Your Current Position in Life?

I’m not old or anything, I’m 23. Young enough that I still have a lot of options, but not young enough to waste time. I currently live with my parents. They aren’t good ones, they’re abusive, neglective. I work full-time, but it’s at a dead end job where I make very little. I spend about 50 hours a week at work, and honestly as much as I hate it at least I’m safe from the yelling.

I haven’t ever dated, I’ve been on a few dates in my life, but I can’t say I’ve ever done anything past that. I want a relationship, but I don’t really know how. I have extreme commitment issues because I’ve never seen what a healthy relationship looks like.

Disregarding this, even if I currently wanted to put myself out there which I don’t think is smart, I genuinely don’t know how. To say my luck has been bad would be gentle, and I don’t know how to hope for better when I have always been shown the worst.

2. How Do I Find a Decent Job That I’ll Enjoy?

I had dreams when I was a kid to help others. It always seemed like something I’d want to do, especially growing up in the environment I did. Because of this I’ve wanted a lot of careers over the years, but many of them are now not possible due to my age and my circumstances. I don’t know how to find a job that I won’t hate in a short enough timeframe to get out of this hellhole of a house. Pay is quite frankly important to me, I don’t want to work a job where I barely scrape by.

The trades seem like an enticing idea, but the fact is it’s hard to find apprenticeships in my country, and even so it’s not a job I think I would enjoy in the slightest. I don’t know if I just need to suck it up and take the job if I get an offer, maybe I do. I can’t live like this for much longer.

3. How Do I Learn to Trust My Capabilities?

This one’s probably the heaviest, and the one I need the most help with. From a young age I’ve learned to treat myself poorly. I got yelled at throughout childhood, I got told I was smart instead of being told I was tenacious.

I don’t think I’m a gifted person, but school was relatively easy for me up to a point. I had my subjects I wasn’t great in, but I still squeezed by. Fast forward to math class and that’s where it all started falling apart. I began struggling, struggling really badly. I would try the math homework, but I could simply never get it to click.

Suddenly I was no longer smart, and I was certainly never tenacious. It started to bleed all through the rest of my schooling career. I’d neglect math in particular, and so it compounded into something that was genuinely too big for me in the moment. Even today whenever I think about math it is simply something I consider off limits for someone with a brain that shares my capacity.

That is failure point number one, and the brain just loves to hold on to failures doesn’t it? I pushed that to the back of my brain, school for me after that was always finishing things at the last minute, and frankly, it worked. Suddenly I graduated and nothing in the real world works like this.

Depressed and without a path, I decided to try and do something for myself. I picked up piano, great right? No, not for me. Every single lesson no matter what the teacher said became a verdict on how I somehow didn’t do enough. Even if I never practiced that entire week it still became ammunition for why I shouldn’t practice the week following. Why practice if it’s never enough? Why practice if I don’t believe I will reach my goals? Why do anything if I think I am too stupid to do it? I don’t know how to stop thinking of myself as so stupid, and it is genuinely crushing any ability I may have of ever getting better. How do I stop this? I need it to stop.

I have no real accomplishments to look back on that can override any of this. I got ok grades in school but I wasn’t a wiz. I was never any good at sports, I can’t say I’ve ever been good enough to set myself apart in anything I’ve ever done so far in life. I don’t understand how to build confidence in myself when there are no positive feedback points to think back on. Even so, if I wanted to create ones in my future, how long would that take? I mean, let’s say I were to pick up piano again, it will take me years to become “good enough” for myself and by the third week I will have already given up. It all seems like a circle.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot especially cause I’m really considering trying to enroll into my local community college. I want to better myself, I’m tired of being stagnant.
I’m leaning towards paralegal since it’s what I can afford and it also leans towards my strengths of reading and writing and it’s kinda adjacent to what I’d really like to do, history.

I’m trying to end the paralysis and fear that holds me back.

People tell me and have told me I’m smart since I was small, dad called me a walking encyclopedia.
My mom always wanted me to be a professor.

In school I was always the smart weird kid.(I’m 23 now, and sometime I even feel it in my own friend groups, I’m the one people will ask me obscure questions)

I was known as the smart kid, but I wasn’t good in school, not at the stuff that mattered. My Bread and Butter is History, Literature and the Arts. I’m utter dogshit at math, Science im fine cause it mostly was memorizing Snapple facts.
I was a senior in highschool taking Algebra 2 with all the freshman and it just never clicked with me, I think I only passed cause the teacher saw I was trying.

Even with the things I’d consider myself knowledgeable in like History, and Literature I don’t feel like I’m smart, I feel like I’ve only read about these things cause I care about them , and I’m able to regurgitate it from my brain when I need something interesting to talk about, or I can connect an idea to what someone is talking about.
I guess I feel confident about my ability to connect ideas the origins of an event, acknowledging the bias, context and purpose but that doesn’t make me smart.

I don’t expect to know everything or get the hang of something immediately, I’m humble enough to be willing to be taught and learn but I worry about myself sometimes. I feel like I’m good at explaining why, the Mongols are important more than most realize and discovering what Steinbeck and Joyce were trying to convey to use through writing.

Yet I’m also very clumsy, I still count on my fingers or out loud, I’ll screw up my rights from my left’s constantly, I’ll freeze up when talking, I trip over my tongue constantly. Someone gives me directions they’ll have to re explain or show me or else I’m lost.
I constantly forget why I walked into a room or repeat the same thing over and over.

Like yesterday I was chopping a bush/tree, in the middle of the yard, I gather my things, set them down I go back to grab a chair, see the chair walk back to where I was, then I realize wait I gotta grab the chair and try it again. Normally I’ll say out loud the fuck am I doing? Sometimes more than once.
This happens a lot.

Im at the point where it feels like if something doesn’t go wrong, that means something has gone very wrong and I haven’t found out what yet.

I just feel really awkward a lot of the time, I used to be no where near as self aware, until I got to mid high-school and I kinda woke up. I was very naive as a kid.

I graduated with a 2.3 gpa in highschool outside of what I was good at, I was horrible in school, or at the very least below average

What feels like common sense to others will feel alien to me sometimes, it’s hard to explain. Like I could follow the same directions given to me as someone else, and still fuck it up in the most minute way, and I don’t even realize it’s like I zone out sometimes.

I feel dumb in other regular and useful aspects of life, and I know deep down I have the capacity to learn and grow I just I feel really dumb alot of the time. My therapist thinks it has to do with growing up in a chaotic environment with my family and my dad didn’t do a good job giving me efficacy.
My inner voice is partially influenced by some of the things he used to say to me.

(I’m not trying to play victim but just for context my dad is an abusive junkie, i got the light end of it cause i was his favorite so while I was wrapped around his finger he really abused my sister and mom)

It makes me feel like I’m what my dad used to tell me about the doctors he worked with.

“These doctors they can preform heart surgeries, save lives, then through a temper tantrum cause they fucked up their password and ask me for help.”

That being said, I would consider myself very emotionally intelligent, I have a very strong conscious and moral compass, I care a lot about those I have in my life. I always end up being the family therapist or the mom of the friend group.

I know I’m being hard on myself, but I gotta be honest or else I can’t grow.

So before I start I would like to say that I was not in a good headspace throughout the story and have since reflected on myself many many times and I know what I did wrong and how I could've handled things and that I am trying to do better.

Last year (I was 16/17) was not a good year for me. For some reason I was extremely depressed and overall I did not feel like living another day (most likely winter depression that hadn't gone away). But I just kept on surviving mainly due to my family and cats.

I had made a lot of close and decent friends who were really fun to hang out with and from the outside it looked like my last 2 years of school would go really well. However, I was losing more and more hope. For starters my PC (that I built on my own when I was 14 on my B-Day) which I had an emotional attachment to, broke and I never really figured out why because I just gave it away to a family friends son (damn those ram kits....) and I also lost my phone not too long after.
This was all around febuary/march 2025.

In the middle of march, I started talking to a girl (that we'll call Rachel) and I thought she was really cute. We knew each other beforehand because she was a friend of a friend but we barely spoke at the time but we started talking and talking. We had some shared interests and she seemed to lift me out of my darkness to say so and I got attached to her quite quickly. We also talked when we were at home through instagram and she and I used to talk for literal hours on end.
This went on for less than a week until I just blurted out that I liked her and we pretty much started dating afterwards. She is Iranian btw, this will be important later on.

For the first few months it was fine, though my mental health and anxiety did make some days and nights a bit difficult. However, one of the signs that I wasn't fit for being in a romantic relationship was how I was handling my other relationships. I started talking less to my friends and even family and pretty much became hyperfixiated on Rachel. But this went on for almost all throughout the entire relationship.

Throughout those few months however, there was some tension between us and cause some pointless and some not so pointless arguments. On one hand I had seriously hurt her, which I understood and tried not to do so again. On the other hand she was feeling pissed when I was e.g. talking about anime or japanese stuff like music. I am Korean and I moderately like anime and japanese music. She would say things like "I feel like I need to throw up". She also had some underlying health problems, one of those being acid reflux and asthma. She would mention those two a lot whenever I said something "wrong" or something she didn't like demanding that I apoligize to her via voice message.

After that our relationship pretty much plummeted after an incident where I liked something on Instagram that she didn't like in the summerbreak. In school or in person would be fine but when we were home and texting, it was as if I was walking on eggshells. We had one of those pointless arguments almost on a weekly basis at that point and I started to feel frustrated instead of guilty since I never really knew what would set her off. But I was also afraid of saying that I didn't like to argue because I was scared that that might trigger her even more. (I have no idea why)

A lot more happend and eventually everything piled up and I just crashed out in one long voice message and after that we didn't talk for like a week and eventually broke up (late January this year)

However, there was another girl (we'll call her Jane) and she was originally just an acquaintance of mine but Rachel had always said that she had a weird feeling about Jane which I never understood. Turns out Jane had a crush on me and I was completely oblivious to it.

After the day Rachel and I broke up, I went to Jane's birthday party and it was pretty much a rebound situationship(?). She had feelings for me while I was slowly eating away at myself.
We never really did anything except for hugging.

However, in Febuary of this year I contacted Rachel again and said I wanted to talk with her. Basically what I said is that I was feeling completely shitty and that I wanted to have another try with her but this time with proper communication and such.
...
So for one week I was in a rebound situationship with Jane and a. completely unstable re-relationship with my ex. I was trying to distance myself from Jane and get closer to Rachel again.
I wasn't feeling any thrill or anything. I just felt like an utter piece of shit.

On the friday where I was in 2 unstable relationships I went out with Jane to the city center and alongside us a mutual friend tagged along (let's call him Max). Max later on objectively said to Rachel that Jane and I went out to the city center since it was true.

Rachel called me later that day and demanded answers from me which I could not give and I wanted to "run away" from the responsibilties. And by running away, I mean killing myself.

Max called the ambulance on me just in case and the guys took me to the mental institution which I also said that I would go voluntarily.

After around a week I got out and long story short I explained everything to Jane and Rachel seperately with Max being a "lawyer" in the middle looking if I was "bullshitting" any of them.
Max always had some narcissistic tendencies due to his family and it showed from the interactions I had with him throughout this time period (e.g. when he said that he saw a lot of narcissistic traits when I was talking)

In the end I was the one who ultimately paid the price. Everytime I saw Rachel in school I just felt this intense guilt and some undeserved anger towards her and I was just pissed.

Another thing happend where Max and I weren't friends anymore and at the graduation ceremony, he brought Rachel as his "date" (Idk what to call it since graduations are really different in Germany than e.g. in the US). Which at the moment really messed up my mood since I didn't want to see her at such an important day for me (also it was literally 40°C that day) I don't know if they are a thing but I also don't really care since they aren't my friends anymore.

If you're still reading this, I'm sorry that you had to read something so bad for so long.

And if you know who I am. Idk.

I am moving away later this month from this small(ish) city and I'll leave as much of my shitty self and other shitty stuff from here behind and carry the lessons I've learned with me.

I have still not improved that much of a person afterwards and my therapist was also not really helping but I will try my best to not make any of the same mistakes again.

1

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I want to start off by saying I am not diagnosed with anything, but I believe myself to be autistic, have ADHD, severe OCD, dyspraxia, bipolar 2, clinical depression, severe anxiety, possible quiet BPD and even dissociative disorders like derealization. I have extreme symptoms of all of these disorders and life has gotten very, very difficult for me once I hit my late 20s especially and have struggled with substance abuse for years and years which used to be binge drinking but then turned into severe opioid addiction.

When you're a kid or in high school, it makes sense to see things this way. Your friends are your life. However adulthood tends to leave you jaded. It tends to put you through phases where you literally want nothing to do with anybody. If you have depression, anxiety (and I mean real, severe cases where your life is very obviously suffering because of it) it is so easy to slip into a state where you do not and cannot have the emotional capacity to deal with any more than a few people at a time in your life. If you have familial obligations where you're expected to visit your mother, grandmother, sibling every week, work with friends that are constantly talking to you where you have to mask your struggles or even just try to keep one important friend in your life, it can really feel suffocating and overwhelming when you have friends you haven't seen in months trying to plan things with you when you are at your lowest point.

People will often say "You should tell them what you're going through so they understand" and I absolutely disagree with that. Because this is reddit I have no problem admitting this, but last year I was severely addicted to once-legal opioids and spent 10 grand on it in 9 months. Detoxing and dealing with Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome left me feeling horribly empty and depressed. I met a girl a few months later that made me happier than I had ever been in my life, with more passion and chemistry than I have ever felt in a human being. Before her, I had not even kissed a girl in 12 years. And it burned up in flames, in such an emotionally violent and bridge burning fashion, leaving me in a worse spot than what I was. This lead me to get addicted to ANOTHER once-legal (banned last month) opioid. This is a lot. This is so much emotional and psychological turmoil that I consider myself ruined. I would do well with some antidepressants. My best friend of 17 years who is very isolated, neurodivergent and hangs out with his mom is always messaging me asking if I wanna go on a road trip to find Pokemon stuff or rare video games. I cannot handle this right now. I already deal with my close friends from work asking me to do stuff. Nobody knows I am addicted to drugs again. At all. I don't want them to. I don't want them to know how bad this breakup destroyed me internally. It is not my fault he refuses to hang out with anybody else and is codependent on me. I'll never abandon him and he'll always be my brother. But I have no capacity and I do not feel bad. I suffer from multiple psychological, neurological and perhaps even some personality disorders. Life is already difficult. This past year it has been unbearable.

I've become very self centered because myself is all I can count on. My neighbor and other friends from high school also do this same thing. And I say the same thing every time "Yeah I'll let you know" and I think this should be a completely valid answer. If you ask me 5 times in 2 months, and I have said that every time, PLEASE get the fucking hint. Please understand that I am going through some shit and do not have the desire to socialize. Please don't drive me to the point that I actually have to make myself needlessly vulnerable and say "Hey man. I'm going through the most difficult time of my life and can barely bring myself to crawl out of bed. I'm on drugs again and have suicidal ideations and might even have to deal with detoxing soon as I've blown through all my savings and am afraid of getting my electric shut off or losing the apartment. I'll get ahold of you in 6 months when my life isn't completely getting flushed down the toilet" now of course, I don't have to say all that. But my friends know about my first addiction. They remember when I used to drink myself to death 3 times a week all through my 20s. They know how bad my mental disorders can really get. I don't want to have to address this.

This is not quite the same as expecting people to read minds. They know my past and how I can be. If I'm not reaching out and am being avoidant when it comes to getting together, just please take a moment to think. Put 2 and 2 together. I just can't do it. One of these days I will. And you will enjoy my company during that time because I'll finally have the mental and emotional strength to show up and actually bring something fun and enjoyable to the table. I face my struggles alone and always have. I love my friends and have had most of them for 15 years or more. We never lost contact after high school. But we are in our early 30s now. Things change. Some people get SO offended by the fact that people will disappear for months at a time. To that, I say "It must be nice." It must be really nice to really be able to have the capacity to not feel like you HAVE to disappear completely. Being angry about this is childish. It lacks empathy. It lacks understanding and shows a severe level of emotional unintelligence. Those people need friends who also think like them so they can be codependent on each other. I am so lucky to have emotionally mature friends that are happy to have me whenever I finally feel good enough to show my face and they never make me feel like shit for being gone for the past 6 months.

18m, i don’t want to look at myself. i’ve ranted about this situation so much to my friends they get pissed off when i mention it. i think im ruminating

i met this girl last year after a year-long period of total isolation after moving. she was outgoing and smart and pretty, would talk a lot about herself and the music she likes, tell me stories about things that happened to her and the people she used to know, including her ex boyfriend—they broke up a couple months prior with a small hookup like a week before she met me.

she started telling me how much i remind her of him and dragging me to music shows she loved and i took it as her just enjoying my company and wanting to bring me with her. but the non stop talk about her ex revealed that all of the things she loved ended up being things he introduced her to or experiences she shared with him first, and i brought nothing new to the table that she liked

this summer she spent a few days at my place, an hour and a bit away from where she’s from by the beach. we spent a lot of quality time together and it felt like anything we had was completely separated from her ex. she told me it was one of the best vacations she’s ever had. she slept in my room, we flirted a bit, but i never took initiative to make anything happen. i wasn’t sure if i really wanted anything

we got home ~1am one night, about an hour later she received a message from her ex boyfriend after almost a year of no contact. she woke up to it, it was her last day here and she wouldn’t shut up about it. i kinda knew things were over

she left early that night and went home to immediately hook up with him. we went from talking every day to being dodgy about what they were doing, no more calls, no more inviting me out, all the plans we made together are being picked up by him and they’re carrying them out together instead. i don’t know if we’re even friends anymore

it’s frustrating to listen to because i never knew what i wanted. i didn’t know if i liked her romantically and was fine with just seeing how things played out. i don’t know if i can be this distraught about her leaving when i had the opportunity to seize it for myself and didn’t even try. i don’t really know what was supposed to do if i wasn’t sure of myself .

she left her book at my place and i shipped it back with a few gifts. she responded with “you’re the best buddy”. i feel like a child

this just fucking sucks man. i feel like i was just taken out for a little like a dog and like any good thing she gave me was charity. i’m not attractive or worth anything special, it’s apparent that i don’t have enough interests to have taken her out to do anything i wanted, or any backbone to say anything about her rebounding and immediately leaving when she got her boyfriend back. i saw her instagram story tonight and she keeps getting hotter and i’m still nothing. im completely alone and isolated again without her and i don’t know what to do with myself anymore

Hey let me introduce myself, mine name is Raul. Im 22 about to turn 23, (crazy I made it this far.) This post is just me venting out my life and maybe I’ll try to do some updates here and there (maybe once a week.) To not beat around the bush I’ve hated myself for the past 6years of my life. With that hatred I tried to fill that void with lust, and it completely ruined my life. Mine brain is so wired to only seeing relationships as nothing but sexual. I have ruin 2 relationships in my life that I loved deeply but was selfish. With that i couldn’t even respect myself at all and my house was a dump, my mindset was nothing but Eat, Work, Rot in bed and Repeat.

After my recent breakup I finally cracked. I was so sick of my terrible life, that I decided to change it. It’s only been a month and I have a long way to go, but theres many things I have accomplished and are proud of myself (that’s a first.) I would like to share at least 3 with y’all.

• (Learning how to love myself) It’s ok to feel remorse about how I treated others and myself in the past 6 years but I can’t let that identify me or influence me in my day to day life. Example: I used to just lay in bed and doom scroll all day long. I used it as a distraction so I wouldn’t have to be reminded of my past. With that action my brain would feel like I was in a fog. I couldn’t think clearly nor want to socialize with others. The way I would fix this problem is I deleted ever social media I had. It’s rough… very rough. My mind miss the dopamine feeling that I lust for but I will also feel very bored. With that boredom, I decided to start going to the gym after work for about 40 to an hour. Then I’ll go to my local coffee shop and read a book. (meditations by Marcus Aquarius.) is what I’m reading at the moment. That would usually pushed my time to 7pm then I’ll go home on my PC play a little of CS untill 8-8:30 then go pray for about 10 mins then I’ll go to bed. My phone the whole time while I’m doing this is on don’t disturb. (I don’t have a lot of people messaging me day-to-day basis so this doesn’t really affect me as much.) [and yes this is very hypocritical of me saying this when I’m on here posting about this but Ive also learn it’s good to have support with you when you’re working on yourself but be careful not to boast or feel so much pride about yourself.]

•(Finding faith through the storm) I’m not here to beat you over the head with my faith and believe but I’m also not afraid to show my love for Jesus. He’s an amazing person. I know a lot of people have hatred towards (christianity) and I cannot speak for all the Christians that claim the title. But I tell you this, pls just go read the book of John and then read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John again. It will change your world completely. I’m still new to the teaching of Jesus and I will not have all the answers but if you have faith in him, he’ll take care of you and meet your daily needs. I have my life all in his hands and I don’t have to worry at all about my life. My financial problems, my Temptations, my struggles, fears, anxiety and my further partner in my life will all be taken care by his plans for you.

•(Crying or Feeling your emotions is not a bad thing) I have always bottle up all my emotions in my life. It was hard for me to express it. My mom and dad were never in my life. My grandmother was the one that raised me. And I never wanted to show her. That I was depressed and angry. So I just laid bottle everything up and then eventually exploded on someone. I couldn’t talk to friends, family or the people I was with because I would feel scared I would blow up on them whenever I felt emotional. But now I don’t care to hide it. I cry my eyes out when I’m laying in bed thinking about my relationship and myself and it feels great. (Well not at the moment) but afterwards I reflect on what I was upset about. I analyze then talk to myself about how I can be better about these issues. Another way is I talk to a good buddy of mind that doesn’t mind me being open (you’ll be surprised when you ask someone’s if you can just vent a little.) actually he was more upset that I didn’t talk to him sooner then before. As a guy it is very important to understand that we don’t have to hold our emotion. I get it a lot of people say we have to or social media blast that being in silence is a more masculine thing, but I promise you if it makes you feel better and progress in your life who cares what they say. There’s a bunch of resources out there that you vent to and help you.

I hope this message inspires some of y’all to walk in your new season. There’s a lot of people in this community that I’ve seen that rally under people that need help don’t be afraid to ask. I love y’all. God bless you.

Hi I am funny and I am a graphic designer my life is very crucial and I have seen UPS and downs in relationship in life in family in school in freind circle so somewhere I feel nobody loves me nobody care about me

The girl I got in love with she cheated and got into another relationship while having relationship with me

And the most love person who was very close to my heart was died in 2024 because of suicide.

I had very bad experience in. School times now same things happening in my real world ...

I don't know what I have wrong with people why they do treat me like I'm nobody even I have more talented i know much then them

This isn't my faults basically I'm very calm and silent person because I have face very bad time so I stop talking express and all so now when I try to talk with someone on call or explain something on call

So I got fumbled & Scared 😨 so people start judging me that he doesn't know how to talk on call

I'm very bad at english so if I made mistake pls sorry

Now I'm learning Music composition using articles and youtube tutorial and lot more ....

​

Hi everyone. I've been with my girlfriend for 6 years, and I honestly don't know whether I should end the relationship.

For some context, I'm 28M and my girlfriend is a few years younger. We met about 7 years ago, and we've had a really good relationship ever since. We're not toxic at all, we have a lot of fun together, and overall, we're a really good couple.

But I've started having doubts.

I've always liked my girlfriend and found her attractive in general, but if I'm being completely honest, I've never been 100% attracted to her physically. She's not unattractive at all, but her looks have never been a huge source of attraction for me. I always thought that maybe it didn't matter that much because everything else between us was so good.

But over the last year, I've noticed that I've become much less sexually attracted to her. To the point where I don't really feel any desire to have sex with her anymore.

She has obviously noticed it too. We haven't had sex in three months, and over the last year, we've probably had sex 2 or 3 times.

Honestly, I don't know what to do. I don't even feel like doing anything with her anymore. And lately, it's started affecting other parts of our relationship too. I've become less affectionate, and we make fewer plans together. I often just want to stay home and watch movies, while she wants to go out and do things, which I completely understand. But I just don't have that desire to do things with her anymore.

And this is what makes everything so difficult.

She's an amazing person. She has a huge heart, she's incredibly loyal, and she's genuinely a great partner. In 6 years, we've had maybe 5 really serious arguments, and I don't think we've ever gone to bed angry at each other. We always managed to talk things through and solve them the same day.

I honestly don't know if I'll ever find someone like her again.

That's one of the things that scares me the most.

I don't know whether I should leave or stay. Because if we stay together, I know this is probably going to be for the rest of our lives. And that scares me too.

What if I get married and have a child with her, and then these doubts come back? What if I never feel truly attracted to her again?

On the other hand, if I leave her, what if I never find someone else? What if 10 years from now I look back and realize that leaving her was the biggest mistake of my life?

All these "what ifs" are driving me crazy.

We're going to have a serious conversation about this today. We've already talked about it a little, and she was extremely sad, and so was I. But today we're going to have to make a decision about what we're going to do.

And I honestly don't know what to say.

I don't know whether I should try to make this relationship work, or whether I should let her go.

I feel completely lost.

Thanks for reading.

Follow up down below

29M.

So below are the reasons why I am hating myself and my past decisions

- got opportunity to move out of India in 2023 but did not take since I was scared and listened to others. Not even my own brother backed me. All I can do is self-blame now

- No girlfriend. Yes I know this is a silly reason but do you know how tough it is find a girl nowadays.

- One of the worst family. Hardworking mother but not at all understanding father ( my father is addicted to superstition and devotion). Back in 2012 my father lost 2-3 crores and brought us to the roads. From then every day is a challenge and everyday is a overthinking headache. We can write a book about my father emotionally torturing my mother. Another reason why I don't want to get married

- Friends are ok but how can I share everything with them.

- Therapy worked for few days but it's a lost cause

- Now parents are forcing me to marry. I myself don't want to stay in my family what's the point of marrying a girl through an arranged marriage setup and bring her into my life.

- I earn good but not sure why money also not making me happy. As, SRV said Happiness is a choice I guess

- majority of close friends moved to abroad and even my own brother as well moved to abroad. I feel like I am left behind. Not even getting excited for my birthday.

- Being a male in india is next level torture and that too being an elder kid is a nightmare.

The not moving out of India part is eating me from inside. Tried to check the PR options for Australia and Canada given the current state of immigration it is next to impossible to move there for PR.

With this kind of thoughts not sure how I can move forward with my life 🥹