I feel like I'm failing at life

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A few days ago, there was a big reunion of athletes who were coached by my Dad, in honor of his being inducted in his school's Hall of Fame.

I was met with so many people across a wide range of years, and I was struck by how all of them have built lives for themselves. They've married and got families, and everything is going so...perfect.

Meanwhile I feel like I've spent the last decade spinning my wheels. Trying so hard to make something of myself beyond merely making a living. Trying to find a girlfriend, trying to make a successful film that might actually get me some critical attention. I feel like such a loser when people ask about me, because I don't have any kids, no one who dates me, just these film projects that never seem to go anywhere. And what if the current film I'm making fails? Then I'm STILL where I am, and all the hard work and money spent is for nothing, and I'm no closer to breaking the cycle or making myself more worthy. Because what woman would want to date someone like me? I feel like everyone else succeeds at life so effortlessly, and I'm just stuck and will be forever stuck, and time is slipping away.

This is how I feel too, I graduated high school in 1990, I felt I didn't do anything, I was nobody back then, my senior picture & my senior quote wasn't in the yearbook, the yearbook staff screwed up, I was crying when I got my yearbook. I didn't have any real friends, I didn't go to prom. Ten years later, I felt like I didn't do anything with my life, everyone else who graduated with me, made a life for themselves, they grew up, fall in love, get married, get jobs, have friends.

If they left you out, they aren't worth having you in the yearbook anyway.

I feel the same way. I'm 56, and still a mere clerk.

But you're a smart guy. You can get a girl easily. You have good, aesthetic-type interests.

Yes, but are they really happy? If you asked a few of them and they were brave enough to be honest, you'd be surprised with their answers. Some of my closer friends who seem to have it all told me things about their relationships that - if that happened to me - would make me leave their partners pretty quickly. They can tell you they struggle balancing jobs and childcare, feel like they're neglecting their children, they may have health problems... On the outside it may all look perfect, but it might not be. One of my friends - lovely house, 4 kids, nice jobs - husband cheated on her with few different women + she's got health problems that will never go away. Would I swap with her? Hell no. I'm an underachiever and divorced, but if I sit down and look around - I'm happy, very healthy, relatively stress-free, maybe first time in my life - way more than when I was living a married, "perfect on the outside" life.

Likewise, right now, I am 34 years old. Nobody has ever dated me. Thus far, I have only worked minimum wage jobs.

As a result, I feel like a failure and a loser.

When I look up former classmates, they appear more educated than me. They look happy and they have friends. But that is not necessarily an accurate interpretation.

If someone does not want to date you, that could be for a lot of different reasons. Some of those reasons are beyond your control. Some of those reasons are not good reasons.

For example, I am trans. Nobody wants to date me.

Just because nobody wants to date you does not mean there is something profoundly wrong with you.

Same with your films.

Likewise, right now, I am 34 years old. Nobody has ever dated me. Thus far, I have only worked minimum wage jobs.

As a result, I feel like a failure and a loser.

When I look up former classmates, they appear more educated than me. They look happy and they have friends. But that is not necessarily an accurate interpretation.

If someone does not want to date you, that could be for a lot of different reasons. Some of those reasons are beyond your control. Some of those reasons are not good reasons.

For example, I am trans. Nobody wants to date me.

Just because nobody wants to date you does not mean there is something profoundly wrong with you.

Same with your films.