My pathetic whining about how I want a relationship

[DespondentFishdeathMasochismo]

You act like I have this problem with talking to people, I never even fucking talk to people in the first place.

This is the problem you must overcome. All relationships are built on communication. You may find it easier on the internet because you are shielded from input in the form of body language, facial expression, tone, etc.

Is there any chance that your inability to strike up conversation is born from a fear of rejection? Mine was. I had an epiphany when I was a junior in high school. Until then, my fear of rejection was almost crippling. Until then I had to have some sort of assurance that the other party was interested. Keep in mind that I'm not strictly speaking of romantic relationships, but rather all relationships. A few things changed: 1. I became comfortable in my own skin and gave up the overwhelming desire to please everyone. 2. I realized that I didn't like everyone so it was unrealistic to expect everyone to like me. With billions of people in the world, not every encounter was important knowing that there are plenty of others. 3. Understanding this, I quit forcing the idea of relationships. Relationships should develop naturally and often blossom from chance encounters.

#3 above significantly changed my expectations. I vividly recall several instances when I was in the Navy and single that shipmates of mine were despondent because they didn't get laid that night. My upbeat mood after a good night out was always challenged. I was happy if I could get someone to dance with me and perhaps enjoy some conversation. A couple of those interactions resulted in future dates, but a vast majority didn't. The same goes for male friendships. Keep in mind that I may have had to endure nine rejections for each time someone was willing to engage me, but it no longer bothered me. I was able to let go of the rejection and cherish the interactions that went well.

As with anything, practice makes perfect (keeping with Quantum's new fetish of speaking in cliche). There's no doubt that you will likely continue to be uncomfortable chatting up strangers (male and female). I assure you, this unease will pass the more you get engaged.

I've always felt very awkward when I was around other people. I don't feel like there's a time when I'm around someone in person where I can totally feel comfortable just being myself. Maybe if I am around family members, I don't really feel like I have to be on guard at all, neither with my relatives that much either. I have my own sort of middle school anecdote. I remember when I was in middle school, or elementary school rather, I had plenty of friends. I was just my normal goofy self and I made quite a few friends. Everyone is cool with each other in elementary school. Then when you get around middle school it becomes incredibly arduous to try to be friends with anyone. I still feel that sense of awkward uneasiness when I around people to this day.

You have a point about not needing to be focused on relationships. I'd love to start feeling comfortable about who I am in person. The problem though is that I've had so many encounters with people in person, really awkward encounters that've lead to me feeling a lot of regret. I don't want to explain them really, but it just feels like once you've hit a certain level of awkwardness with other people, there's really no turning back. You've damaged your image in that person's eyes and they just find you disgusting to be around. That is the sort of thing that I really dread when I am around people in person. To be honest it scares me when I am around someone and they start to think I'm cool. It's a problem that I have with displaying confidence. Displaying confidence for me takes a lot of energy, it's also not sustainable and often the longer I do, the longer it starts to feel like I've been trying to maintain a lie. 

I only know like one or two people online (and a couple who I'm hopefully never talking to again) who I actually felt like I could just be myself when I talk with them. Only one of them has turned out to be a non toxic sort of friendship, yet none of these people have been people who I've met in real life. If people like this are so hard to come by, when I talk with people online all the time, just imagine what it would be like to try to find someone in person who I'd actually enjoy being around. 

You are right about just repeatedly doing something leading to it being less stressful. Since I've moved out of my parent's house and just had time to be alone and explore the world at my own pace, I've started to feel less and less stressed about awkward shit that's happened earlier in my life. I don't sit around being bombarded with awful memories that just make me feel like a pile of walking shit. I am generally a more happy person and I'm really glad I'm not the same person I was like a year ago. I just feel like my life is fucking dog shit, because there's so many people around me who don't seem to have much of a problem with their life and I think that's horrid dog shit. It's not fucking fair and I loathe it to no end.

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I'm not in school. To be honest I hate college. I got mostly Ds in high school, so no college will allow me to either be A) a non degree seeking student without access to the dorms B) one of those horrible community colleges where everyone commutes to, where no one actually becomes friends. It's pretty much the only thing I want, is to go to some sort of dormitory or something. All I want is to have some fun like right fucking now, I don't give a single flying fuck about my stupid future. Life is horrible misery, I don't want it to be the same down the road, but with everyone in my age range old an unattractive. I'm 21, this is the only time of my life where the people around my age will be attractive. Once I'm too old for anyone to be attractive, there will be no point in wanting to have non platonic relationships anymore anyways. I tried going to college 3 times, all I ever did was become so uncomfortable, people would avoid me and I would sit around every day, thinking of ways I would inflict pain on them.

Fuck, dude.


At this point, I really don't think I should be advising you to even be in the same room with anyone who isn't a trained professional, presuming you're being honest and not just being overly dramatic for the internet. If you really hate everyone and everything and everything anybody does, then being single is the lowest and least of your problems, and I fail to see how it even occurs to you in the midst of the rest of that. How do you expect to embark on a relationship (or even a annoyed acquaintance) if you literally can't look at or talk to people without yelling at them for having fun or thinking up ways to hurt them?


Also, I don't know where you're coming from with this "only people in their 20s are attractive" shit. I just don't.

Well, I wouldn't yell at them for having fun in person. Keep in mind that the vast majority, 99% of all my interactions take place online. So when I am talking about myself online, you may as well think of me as a different person. I also don't hate everyone and everything and everything everyone does. I just want to have some friends, but it's sort of difficult. I think you're taking things way out of context, to an extreme degree. I guess I'm just not very good at talking about myself.

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I generally feel like online interactions don't matter. I'd rather be talking to people in person, but you don't get to actually talk to people like you do here in person. In person you don't even get so much as a hello or small talk, let alone big lengthy conversations about about politics philosophy, life, and sexuality. Hell no.

There was a sound clip in a song by one of my favorite artists that put it best, a band called Sun Devoured Earth: I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant auto-pilot with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All actions basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?" "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw, I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be an ant, you know?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze4mIg8iZzU

That sums up life very well. Impersonal.