Everybody Considers Me a Great Catch But I Have Absolutely Zero Confidence With Women

[TheIronMaiden]

and I just don't know what I can do to change it. I've never had a girlfriend and I've really wanted to have one for 9 years now.

 

 

I was fat growing up as a teenager so I had terrible self esteem issues and pretty much never interacted with girls. After high school, I wanted to make myself a decent catch so I would finally have some luck with women - now I'm 25, make 100K+, have a face that's a combination of both masculine and "pretty", drive a luxury car, excellent people skills/character, have a beautiful condo, have the body of a professional football linebacker, dress like a male model, lots of great friends that love me to death, go out two to three times a week, have a college degree, vacation and party at all sorts of beautiful places,...and I have nonexistent confidence with women, not an ounce of confidence. It's so bad that even when I'm drunk, I can't approach women because I feel like I'm not good enough to ever get a decent looking. I feel like getting a girlfriend is about as hard as fighting a enraged grizzly bear... I feel like women will not like me unless I make myself to be absolutely perfect in every way imaginable...and no matter how hard I fight and improve myself everyday, I can't make myself perfect.

 

 

I just don't know what to do guys. I am tired of suffering in intense loneliness. I went out tonight and my good friends were trying so hard to get girls to talk to me and I couldn't make myself approach a single girl. One of my boys even approached a girl on the dance floor and asked if she would want to dance with me...she looked my way and I was so embarrassed/ashamed that she was looking at me that I ran a:cool way. Yes I literally walked away because I felt like she would never ever like me. I feel like getting a girl to like me is the absolute hardest thing on the face of the planet. I continue to baffle my friends with how atrocious I am at dating - every one of my friends considers me a near perfect catch and they try so hard to get me a girlfriend but I fail and I fail and I fail and I fail and I fail.

 

 

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm going to die alone if I continue down this path

Edited January 4, 2015 by TheIronMaiden

[Conners]

I'm 25, make 100K+, have a face that's a combination of both masculine and "pretty", drive a luxury car, excellent people skills/character, have a beautiful condo, have the body of a professional football linebacker, dress like a male model, lots of great friends that love me to death, go out two to three times a week, have a college degree, vacation and party at all sorts of beautiful places,

 

 

every one of my friends considers me a near perfect catch

 

 

 

Yeah yeah, you sound really humble.

 

Advice? Girls probably don't approach you because you're intimidating. Try practicing a conversation with female friends or even go to counseling. You know you're a good catch so start acting it.

[TheIronMaiden]

Yeah yeah, you sound really humble.

 

Advice? Girls probably don't approach you because you're intimidating. Try practicing a conversation with female friends or even go to counseling. You know you're a good catch so start acting it.

 

 

Practice a conversation with female friends? I talk to female friends all the time brah, they love me to death (just as I love them, I value my friends tremendously)

 

 

and I laughed hard @ me being intimidating. That's nonsense. I'm not a movie star. I'm a 25 year old guy who has never had a girlfriend. Most decent looking girls can have any man they want anyways so they would never be intimidated by any guy regardless

[Adele0908]

It seems like you place all of your value on external factors. That's the main problem. You don't believe that you have inherent value just for being alive. Also you don't have a spiritual connection. You live completely in your mind, at least it seems. But the mind plays tricks on you. You will always feel unworthy if you believe everything your mind tells you. The mind looks at the pros and cons of everything, including YOU. It's now driving you crazy. Have you heard of the Buddhist concept of Monkey Mind?

 

But even if you don't care for spiritual concepts, the basis of your problem with women seems to be a lack of self-love and self-acceptance. I think that's where you should start.

[Dontfindme]

Imperfect people are more relatable. Most people at that age aren't perfect (if they ever are).

[StacyLeigh]

Some here might want to mock your problem but we all have challenges we face in interacting with one another. It may sound silly but maybe you are thinking too much . Just be yourself and don't approach dating as some kind of goal. Go places, converse with women, see what happens. You might be putting too much pressure on yourself to achieve a desired outcome with every approach. When the conversation is easy and the interaction is enjoyable, then maybe you found the right girl... Until then, you are a successful and intellegent guy with great friends and nothing to lose. Just relax

[Danda]

Initial approach and contact is usually a bit awkward, I think that's fairly normal. It takes time and shared communication/experiences to grow comfortable with another human and for any type of bond to develop.

 

I'm grappling with this reality myself lately in life, in my pursuit of a "friend with benefits", because anyone can choose to have sex immediately but nobody 'chooses' to be friends. It happens over time. So I have a rather tightrope task of trying to maintain a guy's sexual interest without actually putting out completely, over time long enough to see if we could actually be friends. It's a major pill.

 

If you just embrace the reality that initially it's not going to be smooth and easy and comfortable, and that's okay and normal, then maybe your anxiety will go down.

 

Only superficial women who want to use you and then bail are going to go gaga over your list of superficial ****. Millions of men all over your country who are average looking blue collar workers and have great relationships. Not sure why that totally blatant reality doesn't just spell it out for you how none of what you listed really matters.

[TabbyHearts]

it's absolutely all in your head. good news: you can change that.

 

I'm not going to be hard on you because I understand where you are coming from. Due to experiences from my childhood (not having friends/being picked on), for a very long time I had big walls up around me because I believed a)no one would ever find me attractive and b) no one could ever like me/choose me to be with.

 

It takes a lot of guts, tons of bravery to break out of this, because it is a mental habit. One way is to start actually approaching girls, and see that most of the time, nothing bad happens. I also suggest counseling, probably more on the life coach spectrum, someone who can walk you through your self esteem issues and help you fix them, it has really helped me.

 

Just remember, there is nothing wrong with you, you have a learned pattern of thinking that needs to change so you can breakthrough this area of your life.

 

good luck!

[TheIronMaiden]

Imperfect people are more relatable. Most people at that age aren't perfect (if they ever are).

 

 

I'm not perfect, far from it. There's always a million things I can improve

[TheIronMaiden]

It seems like you place all of your value on external factors. That's the main problem. You don't believe that you have inherent value just for being alive. Also you don't have a spiritual connection. You live completely in your mind, at least it seems. But the mind plays tricks on you. You will always feel unworthy if you believe everything your mind tells you. The mind looks at the pros and cons of everything, including YOU. It's now driving you crazy. Have you heard of the Buddhist concept of Monkey Mind?

 

But even if you don't care for spiritual concepts, the basis of your problem with women seems to be a lack of self-love and self-acceptance. I think that's where you should start.

 

 

Here's the thing though, I can't really say I have a problem with self love or self acceptance

 

 

The bigger, and perhaps only real problem is that I feel that women's standards are impossibly unreasonable and that for them to like me, I basically have to be some kind of a demi-god that's perfect at everthing.

[Satu]

You have become self-conscious.

 

What that means is that when you are approaching a woman you are distracted by thoughts of how you may be perceived, rather than focusing on the person in front of you and showing interest.

 

Self-consciousness is mainly noticeable in body language, and a distracted attitude.

 

It's not a character flaw or bad quality - just something that a person can get locked into.

 

It goes hand-in-hand with a lack of confidence.

 

A bit of counselling might help.

[DivorcedDad123]

I'd recommend that you start talking to strangers to help with your confidence. Don't start with girls you'd like to date,start with people in public. The old lady at the grocery store, the cashier when you're shopping, someone waiting in line with you, just the odd person when you go somewhere.

You'd be surprised at how comfortable you'll get with people once you start initiating conversation. Compliment them, joke around, be vulnerable. Most are going to be kind and nice right back to you and some you might just learn a thing or two from. When you get accustomed to talking to anyone and everyone, you'll open a whole new world for yourself. Plus,it makes you feel good to interact with people.Even strangers.

[mario_C]

The story about the dance floor indicates you have serious social anxiety. I'm no shrink, but I have some kind of avoidant social disorder so I feel your pain. You have access to therapy, it might be an option to use it if these kind of incidents keep happening. I would if I could...

[StacyLeigh]

Here's the thing though, I can't really say I have a problem with self love or self acceptance

 

 

The bigger, and perhaps only real problem is that I feel that women's standards are impossibly unreasonable and that for them to like me, I basically have to be some kind of a demi-god that's perfect at everthing.

 

Not at all! A woman will like you for kindness, intellect, and responsiveness that you show her. She will like you for the way you make her feel.

[toscaroscura]

Whenever I scratch the surface of someone claiming the gender they're interested in unilaterally has impossibly unreasonable standards, I find two things:

 

They are only going after the minority with impossibly unreasonable standards (ie., the shallow, the insecure, the externally-focused, people with never-ending GIGS etc.) and ignoring swathes of people who would not have these standards

 

And they themselves have impossibly unreasonable standards and are merely projecting themselves onto others.

 

This goes for both genders.