I even settle for just being able ask if they wanted to get together consistently.

No offense intended, but I've always bristled when people imply I have a low self worth.

When I was talking about the low self-worth in that post I was talking about myself and what caused my fear of intimacy. You didn't give me enough info for me to assume that you had low self-worth.

I have low self-efficacy (the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain manner to attain certain goals) and I'm ashamed of some of the things I've done or haven't done. It might be worth looking at improving the self-efficacy. I have some idea of how it got that way, but I'm ashamed of it as well.

So you don't think that you can accomplish certain things? You talk about shame. Shame causes a person to keep people at a distance too. You don't want people looking closely at anything that you are ashamed of.

I'm a very intelligent and intellectual person and the fact that I can just think my way past my automatic irrational thoughts and achieve the goals I would be capable otherwise irritates me. Except the thoughts so firmly entrenched that they're at the core belief level.

Yeah, the tricky thing is that these problems need to be solved emotionally not intellecually...........