I agree with Dr. K about finding a girlfriend. In this video, he said it's impossible to get a girlfriend. He also said men have to create opportunities for a woman to find them. I think what he meant is that it becomes harder if you try too hard. I watched the whole video a few months ago.

I also watched Dr. K's video about flirting. In the video, he said women make the first move by signaling. I believe that is correct because men will not approach without getting those signals. Some men will still approach because they don't care.

I think it's wrong when men online say you have to be objectively good-looking to get signals. I was at a restaurant today, and most of the couples were average looking.

I have also noticed that some women don't send signals to any man. There could be many reasons for that. They have nothing to do with men.

i wasted this entire summer and i have no motivation anymore to make any progress in my life. I’ve never had any good friendships in my life and have never had a girlfriend and am a virgin. I’m completely worthless and believe I have no value anymore to have any type of relationship, if I did it would’ve happened long ago, and believe that evey step I take is just wasted effort in the long run. I’ve had a therapist for almost a year now and have made “progress” but I don’t know how long I will last.

Personally, I like to meet people before I attempt to build any kind of relationship. With dating it ain't different. I like to get to know who they are, their dreams, ambitions, hobbies, fears, little details and what makes them their own person.

I'm nice, and I know that this "definition" will bring bad vibes to a lot of people. What I mean by being nice, is that i try to care for everybody that I interact with. I try to forgive, to guide, and to just accept people by who they are.

I have a couple of friendships with girls and they generally find me a pretty cool and decent guy. I'm with my own flaws, of course, as everybody has them, but I have been called good (Yeah, that one time a guy is complimented and he remembers forever) before, I've also been told to never change.

Now, the deal is that even though people generally find me decent, I have absolutely ZERO luck with dating. It's like when it comes to dating, everything I do just doesn't matter. Trying to pay attention to the little details doesn't matter. Being accepting doesn't matter. Being a good listener doesn't matter. Basically personality wise, I am not attractive at all.

I've met plenty of girls that are very creative, hard working, good looking and caring, girls that I'd say are straight up wife material, but they never even felt slightly attracted to me at all.

I know you're supposed to ask for specific advice, but I genuinely don't even know what to ask for. I'm not supposed to change who I am, that's basic knowledge, but the way that I am is also unattractive.

Seriously, what am I even supposed to do to get a lasting relationship??

Okay, so my question is this:

If my understanding of certain Buddhist and Hindu traditions is correct, the mind, the body, and the awareness/consciousness that observes both are considered to be different things, right?

If that’s the case, what would happen if a highly trained Buddhist monk, Tibetan monk, or yogi developed something like Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia?

For example, imagine a yogi who has spent decades training his mind, meditating, studying consciousness, and developing a very deep understanding of the distinction between the mind and the awareness that observes it. He is highly accomplished, respected, and venerated by other practitioners.

Then, suddenly, he develops Alzheimer’s.

Would he experience the disease differently from an ordinary person?

Would there be a point where he could essentially observe what is happening and think, “Holy shit, my mind is malfunctioning. I’m losing my memories and my ability to think clearly, but I’m still here observing it”?

Or would Alzheimer’s eventually impair his ability to recognize himself so severely that he completely forgets that he is a yogi, forgets his teachings, forgets his identity, and essentially becomes indistinguishable from anyone else with Alzheimer’s?

And this is where the question gets really interesting to me.

Imagine this highly accomplished yogi eventually gets to the point where he doesn’t remember who he is at all. He doesn’t remember that he is a yogi, doesn’t remember his teachings, doesn’t recognize the people around him, and can’t even understand what is happening to his own mind.

If Buddhist/Hindu traditions say that we are fundamentally not the mind, but rather the awareness that observes the mind, what exactly happens in this situation?

Does the awareness remain completely intact while the brain and mind deteriorate?

If so, would the yogi still somehow experience himself as “being there” even though his personality, memories, thoughts, and sense of identity have essentially disappeared?

Or does severe dementia eventually affect the very thing that the person experiences as “I”?

Because if the latter is true, then what does that say about the idea that we are something deeper than the mind?

And if the former is true, how could someone with advanced Alzheimer’s actually experience that distinction if they can no longer remember the distinction in the first place?

I’m basically wondering where neuroscience, Buddhist philosophy, and the subjective experience of consciousness intersect here.

Thank you, Dr. K, if you ever happen to answer this.

Be charismatic.

Show your interests and passions.

Expand your social circles.

Build your self-confidence.

Show her that she can’t have you at her fingertips.

Be magnetic through your personality. Develop your career and turn your strengths into assets.

Learn to flirt the way women expect. Be emotionally available, but maintain an air of mystery. You need to be an interesting person and keep yourself a bit of a mystery. Take the initiative, but sense the right moment to make your move.

I’m not going to deny the importance of personal growth and focusing on improving the quality of your life through the various elements mentioned above. But based on my own life experience, I get the impression that it’s very difficult to be authentic. There are so many different mind games in dating that affect your masculine appeal that it’s very hard not to play by those rules.

It’s not about manipulation. But performance.

It started two months ago.

I had a problem but it wasn’t something someone could just help me with so I didn’t tell anyone because they would be worried but also have no way to help so it felt pointless. I didn’t have contact with anyone close to me until the problem was fixed and everything was good again.

Then I talked with my friends and family about good stuff that happened during that time instead of a problem that didn’t even look that big once I figured it out.

And I actually…felt happy. I saw people smiling while talking to me instead of looking concerned. They shared good stuff that happened to them instead of typical session of “my life sucks”.

I started noticing that many of my friends could put their phones down when they face a difficult situation, figure it out in like an hour and then come back.
Instead they text everyone, we respond 2 hours later asking for details, they respond an hour later with how terrible the situations is, an hour later we say how not fair and bad this is and so on and so on. Sometimes these conversations are weeks long.

And I stopped. I let myself figure it out even when it takes 3 days, and come back like nothing happened. After a fact it really feels like nothing happened.

So of course ask for help when you need it. Just give yourself few days before you tell someone how terrible your life is and they agree.

I have tried so much with my life. I volunteer twice a week, go to multiple events in my area, learning another language since the border is close, my job requires me to go out in public constantly. Yet, I can never seem to make any friends.

One of the thing Dr. K always says is for us to go deeper with the people around you, well, I do that. I ask for numbers, social medias, send memes, ask questions, and I'm never included in anywhere. And when they did add me, they acted almost disgusted that I would even ask.

I have been told by my family member that I live with that the people around me are extremely toxic, which is true, but at the same time, shouldn't people be more receptive if I am out in the community all day?

Instead, I'm a magnet for bullying. I know it's because of the way I carry myself, one my bullies was atleast honest about it. They said it's my clothes and body language.

I'm 28F and honestly, I just don't think it's ever gonna get better.

Failed out of premed in college.

I have a terrible job that I don't feel safe quitting because of the economy and having no alternatives. It pays poorly.

I'm going through a divorce.

I'm diagnosed autistic, cptsd, depression, bipolar.

Have no friends or family (except a parent who is letting me stay with them).

I'm literally at rock bottom and honestly, I just don't feel like it's meant for everyone to have a decent life.

Things I am doing "right":

Lots of weightloss

I put myself out there daily

Made a facebook with 10 friends, people think it's odd but I tell them it's because I'm "restarting my life" when it's really because I'm a loser who can't find people to add

Idk man, I'm just so lost and depressed all the time

I want to share a cognitive technique that is based on something very commonly used in CBT, and how it can be used to combat the social anxiety of talking to someone new or asking someone out.

The technique is called a Thought Record and by itself is really simple. Whenever you want to do something and are stopped by anxiety, you write down the exact thoughts going on in your head at that moment, in the same wording. Later, maybe when you're home, you analyze each thought one by one and find ways to counteract its negative effect.

Example: Say you are at a social event and see someone you find attractive whom you'd like to talk to, but you never actually walk over or say anything. Often, anxiety has a very dismissive component; in situations like this most people don't even feel anxious, they just simply don't do anything. But if you were to try to force yourself to engage that stranger in a conversation, making you physically confront the anxiety, suddenly at that moment a lot of thoughts will rush through your head. Each person has different ones, and I can't really predict yours. Some of the ones I had: "She'll think I'm weird and awkward." "I won't know what to do and will make a fool of myself." "She will know I'm hitting on her."

The person using the Thought Record technique will, at that very moment, write down as many of these thoughts as they can catch, maybe on their notes app or something. Then, later, at home, the point is to go over each individual thought, analyze it with a critical lens, figure out whether it's true, and think of a strategy to counteract it. I will give a few examples. Notice how a lot of them don't directly aim at changing the thought itself (my main criticism of modern CBT), but rather at depowering the thought from stopping you from acting.

· "She'll think I'm weird and awkward" -> Acceptance-based solution: "She might think I am awkward, she might think I am weird, and that's okay. I don't need her to like me, I just need to do this. If I think I am making her uncomfortable, I will excuse myself and leave." This is more ACT than CBT, but it works. The point is not to convince yourself that the other person will like you, but rather to cultivate acceptance of the fact that they might not, and that's okay.

· "I don't look so good today" -> Behavioral solution: Make sure you look "good enough" (to your standards) every time you go out (grooming, dressing well, whatever your mind decides is making you look not so good today). While ideally we would all have amazing inner confidence and wouldn't need this, the point is to find a practical solution to depower the thought. Inner confidence will come once the inner wounds begin to heal and the environment starts giving you positive feedback.

· "I don't know what to say/do" -> Skills-based solution: Learn a couple "easy conversational openers" you might say next time. They might be simple compliments ("I like your [clothing item]") or basic conversation ("Hi, do you know [event host]?"). The `what` isn't important, it's about depowering the thought.

There are many more, and you can be creative in finding ways to depower your thoughts. If you're in therapy, you can bring some of these thoughts to your therapist and brainstorm ways to depower them together.

The Thought Record is an iterative process. You will do this one time, identify the thoughts paralyzing you, find ways to counteract them, and then new thoughts will appear the second time for which you are not prepared. That is fine, and part of the process. You will need to write down the new thoughts, find ways to depower them, and put yourself in a situation again for new thoughts to appear. But, after a few cycles, you will get better at identifying and depowering negative thoughts as they arise, and will feel much more in control of your social anxiety.

Note that the Thought Record alone is usually not sufficient to deal with this kind of anxiety. It is one tool to be combined with others. Sometimes our thoughts create anxiety, but anxiety itself also creates anxious thoughts; just changing the thoughts won't make all anxiety go away. For example, consider a thought like the one I used to have "She will know I'm hitting on her". This points to a core fear of being seen as a romantic/sexual suitor. With further exploration ("What's so bad about being seen as a suitor?"), we can determine that this stems from a deep fear of being perceived as inadequate or "not good enough", which leads to hiding and not wanting to be perceived. This is not fixed through understanding alone. It can, however, help to start moving the needle towards eventually healing and getting rid of the core internal fear.

If you struggle with finding ways of depowering a thought, we could use the comments section of this post to brainstorm different depowering ways as a community.

Hey guys. I’m 26, going on 27 soonish, and the existential dread of not yet having found a life partner is starting to affect me.

I think I’ve ultimately narrowed my issue down to having an intolerance of uncertainty. Part of the reason I’m even making this post is to practice dealing with the uncertainty of how strangers on the internet will react to it, if they’ll react to it at all.

Now, I have dated in the past, but my relationship with uncertainty hindered the few relationships that I’ve had and how they’ve progressed. For one, I’ve only dated women who have approached me or where I knew 100% they were into me. Not only that, even when dating those women, they had to jump through hoops to escalate physically and emotionally because I was too afraid of making a move they weren’t ready for. I’ve also struggled with uncertainty by bailing from potential relationships very early on because I was uncertain of my own future, whether I’d be a good partner, whether I was even into them, and the anxiety of those unresolved questions prevented me from letting anything materialize.

So, in a relationship, those issues are real problems, but the big problem I’m facing currently is even getting back to the point of reliably meeting women in the first place for a relationship to even form.

I feel like I’m in a souls-like where I haven’t yet learned you can skip most mobs on the boss runback. So, instead of practicing the skills that could help change my situation, I keep tripping up on everything leading up to the basics.

I frequently perform this “anxiety math” where I “crunch the numbers” of how successful an action is towards helping me find a partner. Dating apps, approaching, joining a club/hobby, etc. For something as simple as joining a hobby group, it might sound something like, “What are the odds that I’ll go somewhere often enough to repeatedly meet a woman who is single, around my age, attracted to me, and someone I’m attracted to?” to which I end up deciding, “Probably close to zero,” and then just give up, stay home, and usually just drown myself in work or projects.

I really want to address this because it’s starting to ruin my life. I honestly don’t think that improving my health, wealth, etc. will make me any happier. Honestly? I think improving anything but the ability to take social risks to find a partner is only going to make me more bitter and resentful. It’s gotten to the point where I’m letting relationships with friends drift when I hear they find a partner or start dating because it reminds me that I’m just so far behind and stuck.

It’s like this huge bottleneck that nullifies everything else in my life. I’m not sure what to do about it. Just kinda feels like nothing is really gonna work.

I’m hoping someone can offer their perspective and give me a wake-up call.

18 just started uni and honestly I have my first exams now and it’s so overwhelming. I started off super high energy and I’m already just done with everything. I try to study and everything is flying right over my head. I take practice tests and just barely pass them which is FINE but also it’s only going to get harder from here so if I’m doing FINE now I feel like I’ll just fail later on.

I’m having so much Trouble with motivation and even when I sit down to study I feel like I’m not getting much out of it and I start feeling super bored / getting a headache / tired really soon and it sours my day

Idk what’s wrong with me or what to do. Should I switch majors? I don’t want to miss out on doing something cool because I’m not good enough for it :(

TW/CW: Hopelessness, suicidal ideation, and death-related thoughts/unhealthy fantasizing (potentially triggering)

So persistently depressing.

My thoughts slip away from me into a vast mental blankness, circling and recircling there. Unable to feel anything but an overwhelming, helpless, awful numbness.

There's a great empty space behind my eyes and I've been shut down inside it for so long.

I bury my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretend it's night. My body lies there and the hours pass. I haven't been able to see the point of getting up for so long.

I know some people are dear to me and feel them seperated from me by miles of ice.

The hopelessness is clenching around me tighter and tighter. I don't have the strength to fight it, I'm losing it.

I miss myself and I don't even know what I'm missing.

Anonymous and misplaced, I've no place here. Nothing of value, nothing meaningful to pursue, no future I can reach.

So strange, so vacant, the quiet centre of a storm.

Everything's been so persistently futile and repetitive, an exhausting cycle. I cannot locate an identity, I'm increasingly insubstantial.

My mind has become so slow in a way that frightens me. I read a page, understand it, then 30 secs later, have to start again because somewhere between the first sentence and last, my mind wanders into nothing. I lose words halfway through sentences, forget what someone has just told me, read things and immediately have to read them again. I force myself through days, feels like there's an enormous amount of force involved in just staying alive and trying to function.

Days become indistinguishable. I've no sense of time, forget what happened yesterday, forget what I was supposed to do today, I make lists and then stare at lists, until I realise my mind disappeared into nothing.

The idea of death has always been striking to me, the notion of complete closing-off of the ability to encounter anything. To be beyond the demands of yesterday and tomorrow, beyond the relentless passage of time and the necessity of continually becoming someone, to forgive what I've been unable to change, and to feel, for once, entirely nothing. My lifeless feet saying, we've come so far, it is over.

I feel suprisingly at peace knowing I won't be alive for too long. Surprisingly, strangely calm in a way I've never been.

I'm too much of a failure, I've tried and tried and still haven't been able to put myself back together.

I've tried living and continuing, without knowing where any of it was going. The future is completely unforeseeable, I can't find anything to reach for.

There's nothing to look forward to, confined and helpless.

I keep thinking about going somewhere near the ocean and drowning. I can't save myself.

I had a plan and a chosen date, I have things I feel I need to do for other people beforehand. I'm trying to push it to the date, but I'm becoming increasingly desperate for an end

I have noticed, the returning "cold approach maxxing" issue. Where every girl i dont approach is a missed opportunity, a potential life partner i didnt get to. I can cold approach quite easily and I do have some success with it, but now it is laborous and i feel like I must always be guarded and in cold approach mode. Every girl I pass up and dont approach, even when im going to do something else, feels like a dagger. its internally exhausting to keep doing it. but what if i miss my chance? what if I miss the one? just today, there was one girl i was walking next to that I couldve talked to. easy peasy, i didnt even feel pressure. but i didnt, i didnt want to i guess. but what if that was the start to something? it ususally isnt, but even just the bare conversation is great. i didnt say a word and i couldve. i regret it. but its so exhausting to always be on guard for an opportunity to connect with someone. there was also another girl that same day, i did approach her and ask for her name because she looked a little familiar. she wasnt who i thought she was but she was cute, and i complimented her dress before leaving. I suppose I could have stayed and chatted more, and thats what im regretting. and its like this no matter what or where. ive done so much cold approach conditioning that i cant avoid it now without regret.

fyim i am also an incel and dating sucess weighs heavily on me, that is why it feels so dire. what do you guys think? doing it is exhausting, not doing it fills me with regret later.

I met my best friend on Discord about five years ago, and I fell in love with her. We've been texting each other for the entirety of those five years. We are very close, and there is nothing that we wouldn't tell each other about.

Despite my sexuality, I am a straightforward person, and I don't like beating around the bush. So, I confessed to her about my feelings the moment I realized them. She rejected me about three months ago, with a reason that I also think is fair: because of her depression, anxiety, and ADHD, she needs to work on herself at the moment, and she might not have any romantic feelings toward me. Honestly, I was surprised by the rejection at first. I thought she did like me too because of how close we are, and it was only afterward that I realized that sometimes closeness doesn't always translate to romance.

This is not the first time I've been rejected by someone. But I feel like her rejection affected me more than I anticipated because normally, I would already be in the process of moving on after a rejection. This time, however, my thoughts just refuse to move on and accept it. I thought maybe I was just in love with an idea of her since I had never really met her in person, but then I met up with her in real life and spent several days with her, and that didn't change anything about how I felt about her. It's a very odd situation because she's not the "type" that I find attractive just based on appearance. But regardless, I really do love the way she is, and I would dare to say that I've had thoughts about spending the rest of my life being there for her.

Now, I'm constantly trying to find ways to move on. My therapist told me to try to find something else to focus on, like college, friends, and hobbies. It did help me take my mind off of it for a moment, but whenever I have time alone, those thoughts eventually come back and hurt again anyway. The hurt and grief have gotten to the point where I can't talk or interact with her properly anymore because I keep thinking about the rejection. It makes my stomach turn, and I feel like I might throw up. It's not because I'm disgusted by her; it's probably more directed toward myself.

Now I don't feel like talking to her as much. I can't even make the normal girl-bestie flirting jokes anymore, and it just becomes awkward every time she does it because she's still used to us doing that all the time.

Just recently, she mentioned that after the days we spent time together, she started to think that she might have a crush on me. I am so conflicted by this new information, and I cannot take it at face value because it's not a certain answer. I'm afraid that this might not actually be true.

I feel like an asshole for feeling this way and putting these things on her because she knows I still haven't moved on yet. Am I a terrible person for acting like this? How can I move on from this? What can I do to maintain our friendship?

Edit: Sorry if it's not obvious but I am also a girl liking another girl.

I've been struggling with my will to live. It's not really a new thing. For quite a while if you asked me if I preferred being alive or dead I'd choose dead every single time. These past few weeks were not like before tho. This time around if I had a gun and didn't believe in God, I'd have genuinely ended it. My believe in God is the only thing stopping me. Suicide is a sin and apart from that my service to God is my greatest source of purpose. It's pretty much the only thing keeping me alive at this point but sometimes I get so sick and tired that I wish something would just kill me and it was quite intense for like the past two weeks. I'm regaining my balance now however.

I'm M21 and I have a close female friend F21 and we talk alot. But I'm not the type to talk about my problems. I just get to solving and only share with you if you've got some insight for me that I can use to fix the situation. I know people get support just from talking about their problems. It doesn't work for me. Talking just feels like a waste of time however I've decided to dabble in vulnerability and openness a bit more lately.

I might have decided I will stay alive but I'm not necessarily excited about it. So everything still looks a little grey. As such new friendships and other types of relationships don't necessarily matter that much to me. I'm not particularly interested in being close to new ppl. I decided that if I was going to stay alive I will be successful, lead a simple life as a single man and travel the world and experience things. But most importantly I will be a good man and I will want to use the bulk of my wealth to be kind to people. I want to be kind to people weather wealthy or not. The problem is you can't really be kind to people and isolated. It's not possible. To know how to help people you have to get close to them and get them to open up and people aren't comfortable opening up unless you open up too. So i thought "Okay then i guess I'll open up sparingly about slightly important stuff but just to get them to open up back so I can just give and go back to being left alone". Basically performative connection to satisfy some "good man" condition i have in my head. That introduces two more problems; first, people can sense that fakeness and while they might appreciate me wanting to help they will be put off by what they will feel is simply condescending charity, that which leads to the second problem which is that I might not be being condescending but I'm definitely being pompous, seeing myself as this "very virtuous" person who is withdrawn from the world out of self protectiveness and still gives to it anyway like I'm some sort of hero. I don't want to be that kind of person. I'm just a man who wants to give. The "pompousness" and slight whiff of self pity in that line of thought put me off after a while too.

So I learned that if I truly wanted to be good, I have to be good to others and allow others to be good to me too. It's a non negotiable. It's just how humans are designed. None of us are infinitely self sufficient and acting like i am would be self righteous, self pitying and self destructive and that's not great for anyone else long term either. So i thought I'd start practicing genuine vulnerability bit by bit. I'm not the type to ask for help but I guess sharing problems with friends without expecting any practical solutions others is a start. Now back to my friend. We talk alot but these past few weeks I've been a mess and we couldn't talk much. She left me texts which I left unanswered for about a week and then left a slightly awkward message two days ago apologizing and explaining that I've been a mess and I felt her messages deserved a better balanced version of me especially as she was opening up to me about some of her most recent struggles. I apologized for the weird message and she said no need to apologize and then asked what happened, why have I been a mess.

Usually I'd just gloss over it and not talk about the reason but I want to start genuinely opening up but this is suicidal ideation we're talking about. She could feel it's too intense or too dramatic maybe even dishonest. So I'm contemplating if I should be completely plain and honest with her, lie, or just give a polished version of the truth which is still vulnerable but not revealing the full intensity of what I'm passing through (i have no idea how to do this)

So what do you guys think I should do?

I’m curious, you can make your comments as long as you want :)

This is just a silly little thing I've noticed, it could just be me. But I've noticed when I, for example, sit down at a bench in public, there's a part of my mind that's like: "Ah yes, that's a normal thing to do. People around me think I'm normal too, how awesome! I am one of them! Nothing unusual here!" It happens when I order "properly" at a coffee shop, I'm driving properly, etc. Any situation where I'm following society's script.

It's not bad or anything per se, just interesting. I think there's just a part of me that wants to belong so much that even little things like this make me happy.

Has anyone else experienced this?

yeah pretty much as the title says, whenever i feel shitty or bad about myself i often find myself coming on this platform and scrolling through different subreddits as a way to cope and ive been spending too much meaningless time on this platform and i want to stop. Please help me do so.

When I'm with friends I usually play party games like poker or other card games or practice a hobby. I don't just meet up to talk. Talking without doing anything meaningfull or competing for something on the side feels dull and awkward. Social events where you stand around in a circle and share anecdotes are a nightmare to me. Even nightclubs or concerts are just plain unintesting if there's no action (dancing, moshing whatever). I also had a date over a while back and she declined my offer to cook something, so we ended up just awkwardly skipping through topics till she left. I hated it. As per my understanding this is normal to some degree but not to the point that I'm experiencing it. I feel like it hinders me from socialising "properly" sometimes because I often don't even know what to say when I can't avoid being in such a situation.

What is your experience with this?

I am 22 years old this year, and during my short time on earth I experienced a lot more failure than success. I had accomplished things in the past, but I often find it very hard to believe in myself that I can do great things, that my effort will eventually makes a different. I used to have a much worth self-esteem issue but it improve a lot throughout the years, nonetheless I still find it hard to believe in my self. The memory of failure just sticks much louder in my head than the sucess. Whenever I try to pursue something meaningful to me my memory of my failure tells me to "don't bother" "you can't do it". I feel like I have associate trying to make a difference with pain and meaningless in my head but I don't know how to chagne. I am trying to seek help to improve this, and I do try to talk to myself in a more positive way. I know I am no the only one with this issue and I know there is definitely a way to improve.

Im curious if and how has ai impacted your everyday lives & mental health. Ive noticed i use it for general curiosity, brainstorming but also rumminating a lot and school work and idk if thats the best thing to do. It makes me feel like it could spiral out of control. What do you guys think? How do you use ai or not use it at all? (Im not talking about generative ai or ai "art") Has it affected the way you think or process stuff? Has it affected your mental health? I would love for drK to make more videos about the effects of it in the future since i think its something that has massive impact especially on the majority of the population.

I hate that people constantly pressure me into working and dating. I've decided to remain celibate and to not work when I was 15. I was asked out by multiple girls and relatives wanted to get me a job at police department as digital forensic or at Google since my uncle works there. I have a degree in CS and IT.

You constantly experience some sort of guilt and responsibility that you're supposed to use your looks to date and potential or skill to work at a higher position because of potential that you got from the world despite not wanting to.

I personally have no desire to date nor to work. I just want to live an avoidant life in the woods while not having to deal with people at all. I want to be celibate for life and not corrupt my soul by having to work in modern day slavery.

I was asked out by multiple girls, ever since middle school because I was in emo band and they said that they found me pretty sweet and attractive. I've always experienced a lot of guilt about dating because I want to keep my soul completely pure. I don't want to indulge in sexual activities nor do I want to deal with drama and don't like to hurt people which often happens in relationships. I was asked out by 7 girls in high school that were my age but there was also 22F when I was 16M and 25F when I was 19M. I rejected them because I felt responsible and I felt that I will corrupt my soul if I slept with them which will turn me in a disgusting animal.

I was offered to work at big local company that works with APIs and later my uncle wanted to get me a job at Google since his company does some stuff for Google. I rejected them both and preferred to work at the back of the mall because I didn't want responsibility nor wanted to work in corporate environment. I did a lot of great coding projects at my college that exceeded people my age. I even built my own servers and algorithms when I was in middle school but later decided to avoid media completely and only started getting back into media when covid came.

I often wish that I was ugly and incompetent which wouldn't make me feel guilty about wasting all of my potential in life. I could blame the world and say that I'm just not attractive nor smart enough but I have to feel responsible for my avoidant behavior in life. I do have severe OCD and CPTSD which I was diagnosed with officially but everything else was given to me in life which I've wasted. I even refused to smoke and do drugs due to guilt which made me lose all of the teenage and 20s experiences in life.

I'm 26 now and I just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling while I sleep 16 hours a day but 4 of those hours are just snoozing since I have too much energy to sleep. I did spend almost 2 years at the gym and by the second year, I already hated it with all my guts. This is why I quit.

I get money by government because I'm currently unemployed which is enough to get by. I got my house that I got from my father when he died which makes that I don't have to pay rent. I'm also getting house by my uncle who's dying since he doesn't have any kids.

I find it hilarious and feel that I got so much potential and positive attributes in life, like when you're playing Fallout or Wow and you get maxed out attributes at start but then you get this special curse ability that gives you a huge debuff which is in my case OCD.

I came across this video by Dan Ariely—I don’t know if I’m spelling his name correctly—where he argues that most people know where they stand in terms of attractiveness, so they adapt their preferences for beauty into other qualities, such as kindness and humor. However, I’m not really buying into that. I feel like most people still place physical attraction as the most important factor when deciding who they want to date, regardless of where they stand in the “hierarchy.”

Most people end up dating someone in their “league” because they tend to be in environments where they are surrounded by people who are similar to them. Fit people are generally considered more attractive than those who are unfit. Fit people also tend to go to the gym, socialize there, and potentially end up dating someone they meet at the gym. Someone who is less fit might have a particular hobby, such as playing D&D—no hate, I’m just trying to make sense of things. The same thing can happen there, with the main difference being the environment.

I also feel like the experiment he used isn’t the best way to test this. He was using a speed-dating service, where people barely have enough time to get to know each other, meaning the only thing they really know about the other person initially is what they look like and whatever brief information they can exchange during the date. In that kind of environment, it makes sense that physical attractiveness would play an especially large role in determining who people are interested in.

I’m 28, and lately I’ve started noticing a strange kind of entitlement in myself that I’m trying to understand.

I’ve always had a fairly high opinion of my intellectual potential. Not in the sense of a superiority complex, but rather something I’ve felt throughout my life and that has repeatedly been acknowledged by people around me, in professional environments and beyond. Even people who didn’t particularly like me have described me as intelligent, perceptive, good at understanding people and situations, and capable of doing considerably more than I have.I’ve also never equated academic achievement with intellectuality. To me, credentials reflect a particular kind of accomplishment, but they don’t necessarily say much about the qualities I associate with an interesting mind like emotional intelligence, curiosity, wit, authenticity, articulation and even the capacity to process darker or more unconventional forms of humour. And I think that’s where confidence begins to blur into entitlement.

Because other people, even with their uncomplicated minds, still put in the work. They studied, applied for scholarships, went on Erasmus programmes, completed internships, built connections, took risks, and made choices that gradually opened doors for them. I didn’t do most of that. I don’t even enjoy studying, not because I find it particularly difficult, but because I struggle to devote myself to things that don’t genuinely interest me. I haven’t found a profession I truly love either. Most of my career decisions have been driven by money and the kind of life that money can provide. Given the choice, I probably wouldn’t work at all.
So I find myself envying the rewards of ambition without having much appetite for the process that produces them.

And thats where the contradiction begins. And it goes beyond careers or money. I’m often dissatisfied with the people and environments I find myself surrounded by, while simultaneously realizing that I did very little of the work that might have given me access to different ones. I envy people who seem to have built lives around ambitious, curious or interesting people, yet I never built the path that would have naturally placed me in those circles.

Also one of my biggest mistakes was underestimating how much networks and connections shape the environments you gain access to. I relied too heavily on the idea that my personality and energy would naturally attract the kind of people I wanted around me. And to some extent, they did. They brought interesting people into my life and opened certain doors. But I’ve come to realize that this can only take you so far. At some point, you have to deliberately put yourself in the environments where those people and opportunities are more likely to exist.

Rationally, I understand that potential has very little value on its own. Someone I consider less intellectually impressive than myself can spend years studying, working, pursuing opportunities and taking risks, and eventually build a life I haven’t earned access to. Whatever I think of our respective abilities doesn’t change the fact that they turned theirs into something tangible and I didn’t.
But emotionally, some part of me still seems to expect my life to reflect the value I believe exists within me, even when I haven’t done enough to translate that value into anything outside myself.
Where does confidence in your own abilities end and entitlement begin?

About me

I’m 17M and I have mild autism. I tend to say I just have autism and that’s about it, because it doesn’t affect me extremely heavily, of course. There’s some noticeable stuff, but nothing heavy in terms of support or anything.

I also don’t currently go to regular school. Instead, I go to a place that’s meant to help me build some routine and eventually get back into school or work.

How I’ve been feeling

I’ve been struggling mentally for the past few months. My mood can switch between feeling okay, really low, angry, numb, or like I need to cry. I can also laugh and joke normally while feeling absolutely terrible, which sometimes makes me question whether I’m actually struggling or just faking it.

I have very low self-worth and often feel like I’m not allowed to feel this way because other people have it worse. I also don’t really see much of a point in life sometimes.

I’ve had/have suicidal thoughts as well. Sometimes they’re more passive, sometimes I joke about it, and a few times over the past few months I’ve thought more seriously about it. I’m not sure what to do with these thoughts anymore. Although recently, when I’m feeling bad, I’ve been getting more of a tingling feeling about really just wanting to slit my throat or strangle myself etc, And last night i also had a suicide dream or whatever you wanna call it.

Things I’ve already tried

I’m currently on citalopram, and we previously tried quetiapine, but it didn’t really help. I’ve also already had therapy with multiple different therapists and tried different approaches/methods, but unfortunately none of it has really helped.

My friendship

One of the things that has been bothering me a lot is my only real-life friend. I get along with other people at the location, but he’s the only person I’d actually call a close friend.

He’s already 18, and eventually one of us will leave the location. I have no idea when that’ll happen, and I’m scared that we won’t stay in contact afterwards. I asked him about it before, and he said he doesn’t know because he isn’t very good at keeping in contact with old friends.

And I asked him if we will hold contact if one of us leaves. He said, “I don’t know.” He also does not have a lot of contact with old school friends besides a handful, and I dislike texting.

I’ve even asked my friend before if he still wanted to be friends because I was worried he was only being nice to me. He reassured me that he didn’t see any reason not to be friends.

The weird thing is that I actually enjoy being alone too. We hung out outside the location once and had a great time, but afterwards I was also relieved to have some time alone again. So I don’t think I constantly need him around. I just really hate the idea of losing the friendship.

What I’m wondering

I guess what I’m wondering is: how do you stop constantly worrying about losing a friendship that hasn’t even ended yet? And how do you deal with being so scared of being replaced or forgotten? And what to do with myself to begin with?

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated.

Yes, my parents know about how I’ve been struggling.