I don't know if this helps, but my brother often raises the same issues you have. He tells me that, at 32, he feels like a loser because he hasn't hit any of the 'milestones' he should have. No wife, no gf, career, etc. I don't know if you're anything like my brother, but I'm bringing up things I've noticed over the years on the off-chance it might help.

1) He doesn't appreciate how many steps there are when getting from A to B. He gives up because he can't immediately go from one to the other.

2) He doesn't understand that you need to take small, almost meaningless opportunities to get the bigger ones, and accept that 95 per cent of the time small opportunities won't lead anywhere.

3) When there is an opportunity, he wastes it because it's not the perfect thing he wants.

For example, he finished a certification in video game design. He couldn't find full-time work in our hometown, but he refused to move somewhere with more opportunities. Then he refused to take a part-time job doing unglamorous work at a company in our hometown because it was beneath him. He doesn't seem to get that if he'd moved or done a few years of grunt work, he'd have had chances at better paid grunt work, then maybe a ****** paid full time job, then maybe an OK one.

It's the same issue with girls. He goes after insanely beautiful women with PhDs, then goes full on incel when they tell him they want someone more ambitious. Last year he met a younger, pretty woman who adored him, but he dumped her because she has health issues and he wants 'just a normal relationship like everyone else'. He sacrificed the good because it wasn't the perfect. He might have had a deep, fulfilling relationship is he'd accepted the hardships that came with it.

He doesn't have friends. He has a few acquaintances who will occasionally invite him to things. But he won't go because 'there's nobody I can have a meaningful conversation with'. He doesn't pause and consider that, while that might be true, some social interaction would be good for his mental health and better than just sitting at home, and that maybe, maybe, there's a small chance he will meet someone.

I'm sorry if this doesn't apply to you. But I'm wondering if there are small opportunities in your life that you are missing. Not huge opportunities for a career or a husband, but small opportunities like earning a little money or going to a meetup and just being around people. Could you set your sights on some very modest goals? Those things won't solve the feelings you're having, but it could improve your well-being. And 5 per cent of the time, a bigger opportunity comes off the back of a small one. But you need to be there.

If it means anything, I do empathise. I've been where you are, and the only thing I've found that solves it is to keep pushing forward with the small chances I do get. I do feel for you -- that feeling of being behind everyone else is a hard one.