View Single Post
 
Old Jul 20, 2016, 04:38 PM
Burnt_Out's Avatar
Burnt_Out Burnt_Out is offline
Member
 
Member Since: May 2016
Location: Trying to move out of AZ
Posts: 101
Quote:
I could have written word for word what you said here when I was young. I understand all to well the urge to kick yourself harder when you are down, to self-blame, I've done it all before.

Life got much better when I stopped doing that (or at least mostly stopped doing that, I guess you could say I'm in recovery), my relationships improved, friendships developed, because I was accepting of myself. It might sound simplistic but when you are not accepting of yourself that self doubt tends to come across to others, you can fake it but false confidence can be read by others too.
I don't think you're understanding me here. I like me. I've said it a few times already: I'm happy with who I am, I like how I look, my friendships are great, and I'm confident about my capabilities. But that doesn't inherently make me attractive to women, though. Being sexually attractive has everything to do with what other people think (be it woman or man), and nothing to do with what you as an individual thinks. Sure, I see your point: If one is a navel-gazing, pouty, anti-social drag, that's going to project and people will read off that... but that's not really my sitch. I might not be the most outgoing extrovert that consistently wedges his way into being the proverbial life of the party, but I'm hardly wandering around the ether with a grimace on my face and an invisible cloud over my head.

For example, my buddy just had a rare weekend off from having his kid, so I entertained his want of hanging out in our favorite bar down in Tempe (even though I'm not drinking as such anymore), so after some righteous Texas barbecue, and mediocre coffee at the Barnes & Noble, we ventured down to kill our Saturday night at the pub. It wasn't very long until some rando guy came by and chatted us up, followed by his buddy whom I promptly gave props for his legit Rick and Morty / Run The Jewels mash-up shirt. That's not uncommon. I'm think a reasonably capable, upbeat, and relatable guy when it comes to waxing casual in conversation. Said guy threw me his card and thought we should hang again in the future. It's highly doubtful that these guys would call me "unconfident", or "dour", or whatever else you might suspect I'm projecting. I was just having a fun night out with a friend.

Quote:
Maybe a T could help you understand why you beat yourself up like this, maybe that's not necessary you might be able to work on this yourself, there is a wealth of self help stuff online about self compassion. Here is something for starters:
I've done the therapist thing on three separate occasions... and well... I didn't get anything good out of it... and just spent most of my time trying to explain myself. I'm a solutions oriented guy, and I didn't get anything empowering out of it. They just made me feel helpless and unfixable. I'd be willing to try again but not without a reference that the person was good and had an understanding for men's issues to boot.

Last edited by Burnt_Out; Jul 20, 2016 at 05:09 PM.