I've been seeing a counsellor over issues relating to work and relationships.

Today while talking to her I was telling her that I've been having a terrible time with dating - i.e. getting rejected by just about every woman I approach, and finding the very few who will accept me are women I end up having to reject because they have serious problems (eg. drug abuse that wasn't apparent on the first date) that are deal-breakers. Or getting put in the friendzone by some of the women I interact with.

I told her that my lack of success is leaving me convinced that women see me as exceedingly unattractive and not worth bothering with. She tried to reassure me by telling me that I didn't appear to her to be unattractive.

Then she tried to tell me that my success with women might improve if my self-esteem was a lot better. I told her that I didn't start out in life with poor self-esteem, being treated badly by others for a long time has brought me to the state I'm in now.

So what we have here is a classic chicken-or-egg question: does self-esteem come from inside or outside? Does improving one's self-esteem really do anything for you if people really and truly can't get past the way you look, or the way that you are in general?