Nowhere to go from here...

[Inflikted]

So, I'm a 25 year old guy that has always had problems connecting with people. I've never had friends, I've never dated, I've never had anything resembling a social life. I've tried many times over the years to connect with people, but it just never works for me. Which amounts to one very lonely life for me.

 

The worst part is that I've been hung up on a girl for nearly two years, now. I met her a couple of years ago, and we connected in such an amazing way. I've never felt a connection, something so natural, something that just flowed so easily, and we had such a good dynamic between us. Then I asked her out, and she said no. She pulled away from me a bit afterwards, and that bummed me out really hard, and then due to an unfortunate series of events, she pretty much grew to hate me. She never really forgave me, which I guess really isn't unfair. And as of about four months ago, she was out of my life completely.

 

Yet, not a day has gone by where I haven't thought about her, missed her, etc. In my mind, she was the best girl I could've possibly ended up with, period. Honestly, I never really "like" any girls in that way that I meet. Heck, I've only ever even "liked" one other girl, back when I was just out of high school, but I liked that girl for reasons that were very silly and shallow (and similarly, she rejected me, as well), so I don't even know if you can count that time.

 

But I just... don't really know what to do with myself. I just keep torturing myself over the fact that I found the best possible girl for me, and for reasons unknown, I just couldn't be with her. I continue remembering the good times I had with her, and missing them so, so much, and wishing they never would've stopped. To me, the notion of dating seems pointless now, because I already met the best girl for me; in my mind, no one else will ever measure up, and anyone else would only ever be second best, at most. There's nowhere to go from here, in terms of dating, for me.

 

I fully realize how crazy it is that I've been torturing myself for two years now over a girl I never got to be with. It really only occurred to me just today that it's been two full years. And as much as I hate myself for still lamenting over something that's been over and done with for a very long time, I still can't get myself to let go and move on. It was too hard of a blow to me to go from not connecting with anyone, to finding someone I connect with on so many levels, to being rejected by that person and having to watch them disappear and move on with their life. I just can't get myself to recover from that.

[Assasda]

"She pulled away from me a bit afterwards, and that bummed me out really hard, and then due to an unfortunate series of events, she pretty much grew to hate me."

 

That line showed me how truly crazy you are.

Youre a sap.

 

What you need to do is gain some life experience. You seem terribly immature.

My advice is to travel for a while, and get out of your comfort zone

[germain]

Man you've got to get over this girl. I think the best way for that to happen is for you to find other people you're interested in - who are actually interested in you! It might seem like dating is pointless, but I promise once you find another interest, you'll forget about this chick. The problem then however will be to not go so crazy over this new person.

 

Do you think perhaps the connection you experienced was in your head only? I'm pretty bad about reading into "signals" too much and end up totally surprised when the person turns me down. You just can't invest so much into a person so soon, especially if they aren't investing the same amount or close to it, especially if you aren't even going out!

 

Let me ask you. Do the qualities of a "perfect" person involve not being interested in any sort of romantic connection with you? Rationally you'll say no. You just have to realize this and not let your emotions carry you away.

[Inflikted]

That line showed me how truly crazy you are.

Youre a sap.

 

What you need to do is gain some life experience. You seem terribly immature.

 

How so?

 

My advice is to travel for a while, and get out of your comfort zone

 

Eh, well, between not being able to really get much time off from work, and the fact that I simply don't have money to travel, that's not really feasible for me. Not really sure how that would help me much, anyway; I'm not a "social butterfly" nor am I very "adventurous", so even if I did travel somewhere, I'd probably spend the entire time cooped up in a hotel room doing nothing.

 

Man you've got to get over this girl. I think the best way for that to happen is for you to find other people you're interested in - who are actually interested in you! It might seem like dating is pointless, but I promise once you find another interest, you'll forget about this chick. The problem then however will be to not go so crazy over this new person.

 

I suppose. But, I mean, I've met and known tons of different girls over the last eight or so years. It's not like I've only known a handful of girls, yanno? Yet, for all the girls I've known, it's incredibly hard for me to feel any personal attraction towards the vast majority of them. I could meet hundreds of girls over the course of the next several years, and I'd still probably not feel personally attracted to most of them.

 

Do you think perhaps the connection you experienced was in your head only? I'm pretty bad about reading into "signals" too much and end up totally surprised when the person turns me down. You just can't invest so much into a person so soon, especially if they aren't investing the same amount or close to it, especially if you aren't even going out!

 

Well, I mean, obviously she didn't like me the way I liked her, so I guess you could say that part of it was "in my head". I don't know if I necessarily suspected one way or another that she was into me, romantically, I just kinda hoped that she was, because we got along so amazingly well together. Up until I asked her out, she really seemed to enjoy my company; we'd have some pretty deep conversations, we'd get to know each other, we'd share a laugh, we frequently discovered new things we had in common, it was just such a natural dynamic we had. Around her, I really felt completely comfortable just being myself; I never felt like I had to put on appearances, or be somebody I'm not, or "impress her" or anything. It just felt like great chemistry between us. Again, that's something I never really experience with people, platonic or romantically. It was very jarring to experience this with her, and of course, that made it very painful when it went away.

 

Let me ask you. Do the qualities of a "perfect" person involve not being interested in any sort of romantic connection with you? Rationally you'll say no. You just have to realize this and not let your emotions carry you away.

 

My "perfect" person is someone like how I described above; someone I have that kind of "chemistry" with. I don't know what kind of underlying irrational issues may be at work, but heck, initially, when I started liking this girl, I actually tried to pull away from her, because my past low self-esteem issues caused me to believe that there was no chance she'd ever actually like someone like me, and I pulled away from her a bit so as to protect myself from getting hurt. But somewhere along the lines, I got a little ballsy and threw caution to the wind, and asked her out anyway, only to find out that that voice in my head that was trying to protect me was right all along.

 

I dunno... It's just such an absolute burden, and I hate myself for still having "feelings" for someone that's not only been out of my life for a number of months at this point, but someone I fell for two years ago and never got to date. And yet, as much as I hate how I feel, I can't seem to figure out how to make those feelings go away. All I can think about, in terms of dating, is that I met the best possible girl for me already, and it didn't happen. In my mind, she was it for me. I just can't see any other way around that.

[Dallers]

Ok for a start you are not crazy. Please for the love of god ignore that troll that is telling you that you are. He is probably a keyboard warrior and sits at home in his underwear without a job playing Call of Duty.

 

You do however have issues Welcome to life. It sounds as though she saw you as a friend, you wanted more. She didn't, the rest of it you have simply done to yourself. It is your brain that is the enemy here. You do not explain why this girl hates you that might help the story slightly.

 

The most worrying thing about all this is not really the girl. That is something that you can and will overcome. The worrying thing is that you have reached 25 without hitting home any of the learning points of friendship and having a relationship with the opposite sex. Again something that can be overcome but it becomes a vicious circle because you have to smash life changing goals and go through a very difficult time of rejection and defeat to get there.

 

But you have to do it. You must start as soon as possible and you need to accept what has happened and begin to change your life.

 

I do not believe that you have no friends? I am very selective and have removed a lot of people from my life and so I have very few friends because I suffered from a bad few years of social anxiety and defeat which left me in a low point. I am nearing the point of finally escaping that after several years of hard work. But you must have a friend?

 

Inevitably it comes down to the same old response however, there is nothing anyone can do on here for you but give you moral support or negative feedback. Both of which will not help you as this is a trial that you have to overcome yourself. You do not have to but if you choose not to then you will end up alone and live in regret, I know this because I have been and still do as I remain single, but I have cured most of my fears and continue to strive to greatness and find that special someone.

 

Simply, get to work.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Dallers

[Inflikted]

You do however have issues Welcome to life. It sounds as though she saw you as a friend, you wanted more. She didn't, the rest of it you have simply done to yourself. It is your brain that is the enemy here. You do not explain why this girl hates you that might help the story slightly.

 

Eh. Essentially, after she rejected me, she started pulling away, and I got super bummed out. Some mutual acquaintances caught on that I liked her, and that I was upset, and I kinda tried to make them understand that it was done and over with and that I was just trying to deal with it, but I guess I didn't do a very good job of controlling the situation. These mutual acquaintances turned it into a big huge thing, and made it out like I was stalking her (I wasn't...). This, of course, upset her. She came to me and talked about it, and I apologized and took responsibility, and it seemed like we were okay, but we were just never the same after that. She said that she didn't hate me or think I was a bad person, but the way she acted towards me from then on seemed to indicate otherwise.

 

Of course, her taste in guys was a bit questionable; during this period, she dated two mutual acquaintances (at different times, of course) who both cheated on her, and she even tried to get back with the first guy after the second one cheated on her. Not to mention, she's said a number of things in the past that implied to me that she has what they call "daddy issues". So, she apparently had (has?) issues of her own, but eh, her issues don't prevent her from "mingling" with people AT ALL like mine do, unfortunately.

 

The most worrying thing about all this is not really the girl. That is something that you can and will overcome. The worrying thing is that you have reached 25 without hitting home any of the learning points of friendship and having a relationship with the opposite sex. Again something that can be overcome but it becomes a vicious circle because you have to smash life changing goals and go through a very difficult time of rejection and defeat to get there.

 

But you have to do it. You must start as soon as possible and you need to accept what has happened and begin to change your life.

 

I do not believe that you have no friends? I am very selective and have removed a lot of people from my life and so I have very few friends because I suffered from a bad few years of social anxiety and defeat which left me in a low point. I am nearing the point of finally escaping that after several years of hard work. But you must have a friend?

 

Nope, no friends. I dunno. It's weird. It's like, no matter what I do, I've just never been able to wrap my head around making and maintaining friendships and relationships with people. All through grade school, high school, and college, I always tried to connect with people, but it just never happened. I think there's something wrong with me, on a very fundamental level.

 

Granted, a lot of factors throughout my upbringing influenced me in a negative way. My parents never taught me how to be "social"; neither of them ever had social lives or even really left the house except for essential things like shopping. My mom coddled me and "brainwashed" me to be afraid and distrustful of people and the outside world in general. In high school, a group of kids spent all four years making my life hell and crushing my soul.

 

So, these things certainly don't help me any. But aside from some lingering paranoia and distrust, I don't go out of my way to be antisocial. I just feel like having friends and relationships is a completely foreign concept that, for the life of me, I just can't understand. It's almost like everyone around me is speaking a foreign language, and no matter what I do, I can't decipher it and I can't properly "communicate" with anyone.

 

There is one guy I know who knows about all of the stuff I've been going through (actually, he's one of the mutual acquaintances that the girl I liked dated, which kinda irks me), who has sort of reached out to me. I don't know. I really don't get it. He first started trying to be my friend several months ago, and he kept talking about us hanging out and doing stuff. We hung out once, like five months ago, but that was it. When I see him, he still talks to me as though we have an active friendship, but we really don't. We only really see each other via a shared activity, but never beyond that. I dunno.

[Inflikted]

To come at this from an alternate angle, well... This is going to sound bad, and probably make me sound like a bad person, but I don't mean it that way. But the thing is, I'm not really a "people" person. Generally speaking, I don't "like" or "dislike" people, I just tolerate them in varying degrees. Most people I can tolerate well enough to get along with on a very basic level, and so long as they're not a nuisance to me, I do try to make the effort to be as personable around them as I can.

 

In other words, I'm a bit of a "loner" just by nature. That said, despite being that way, I'm extremely lonely. I'm not proud of the fact that I'm a "loner", but I can't force myself to like people more.

 

And that's kind of the thing with this girl I used to know. She wasn't just another person I was able to "tolerate"; I genuinely liked her, for who she was, I genuinely enjoyed talking to her, spending time with her, sharing a laugh with her, etc. That's why my feelings for her were so significant to me, because I very rarely "like" anyone, platonically or romantically.

 

Ever since she rejected me and distanced herself from me, I've been pretty depressed, not just about her, personally, but just the idea that I don't really "like" people, only to find one person I actually like, only to quickly lose any semblance of a friendship or whatever with that person, and be back to square one. I loved that feeling of "liking" someone, and I didn't want it to go away. But again, I can't just force myself to "like" people.

 

And I don't know where that leaves me, exactly.

[preraph]

Unrequited love happens to pretty much everyone. You have to learn to pick yourself up and discipline yourself to stop thinking about it and move on. Being so obsessed you verged on stalking is generally a sign of very low self-esteem, so I say this not to be mean at all but if you can possibly find a way to work on that with a therapist and find out how that happened, over time, it might improve your outlook and social abilities. Remember that no matter how many times you say you love a person, if your actions, such as stalking, cross the line to where they're scaring or upsetting the person or not respecting the person's wishes, then that is not love. At that point you no longer care about their wellbeing but only about yourself. So understand she probably feels that about you from the past incidents. True love would never ever want to make the object of their affection feel bad or scared or awkward in any way.

 

I was very obsessive when I was younger, so I know how overwhelming it can be, but you have to develop self-discipline and do some work on yourself to make yourself stronger or it will just keep being like this with other people as well.

[Inflikted]

True love would never ever want to make the object of their affection feel bad or scared or awkward in any way.

 

Right, and I didn't want that. Essentially, after she rejected me, I just wanted us to be able to keep talking and being friends and everything the way we were before, but she was pulling back little by little. I never actually did (or even planned to do) anything weird or "stalkery"; I just became a bit clingy when I was around her (because again, she was pulling away and I wanted to remain friends), but she was never in any actual "danger" around me, and that sense of "stalker" stuff came from the exaggerations of third party individuals making it up to be something bigger than it was. That was never my intention at all, and I did feel very bad that it got misconstrued that way.

 

Again, though, the issue that I feel I'm stuck on goes back to my general "indifference" towards most people, and how difficult it is for me to find someone I genuinely "like" (platonically or romantically), causing me to get hung up on the very few people it actually happens with. I think that's probably the biggest source of my grief, but like I said, I don't really know what to do about it, as I can't force myself to just "like" people more.

 

Therapy is more or less out of the question, as I'd have to pay for it out of pocket, and I simply don't have the income to make that viable on a consistent enough basis for it to be helpful at all to me.