Feeling ashamed and wishing I could just be different

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For once, I have a day when I cannot and don't have to do anything, and I am collapsing. I feel like all my goals have just gone away like tissue paper.

I was supposed to have a physical, therapy, and a haircut, both the first two cancelled and the haircut's too far from bus stops for the way home and I don't want to wait half an hour for a taxi or be stuck walking eight blocks in likely 100-ish humidity, especially with how my meds react to heat and sunlight. I only have to do this because my car, which I've driven for two and a half years (me and my mom who nobody will hire keep getting lemon-ish but mostly driveable used cars with my uncle's help, the previous served me for 6 years but had transmission issues and had a brake pad issue when it was sold for salvage, the one I have now I already had to put $1,200 into fixing the brake lines last fall), just won't turn the key, so now I'm stuck with the bill for towing and whatever the hell they can milk my mother for tomorrow while I get the ride to work on the way over and maybe have to walk home up a hill half an hour.

I used to think I was doing better than Marknis, even though I'm stuck with the cost of living and a low-value service job in a community not cosmopolitan enough to give me a niche, but maybe I'm not. No relationship was panning out before this save for one long-distance thing with a woman an hour and a half away, the only one I ever agreed to a second date with (one I turned down because she was rude on the first one, these were both in 2019) who lied about not liking the distance when she just wanted someone "easier to figure out" who lived closer and who she's still with a year later, I hate when she likes my Instagram wildlife photos because I know damn well she won't talk to me. Apparently who I am hasn't changed since I turned 30 in December 2018, and now I can't attract anyone new sincerely because my pathetic life just isn't good enough with that digit, I HATE IT I HATE IT! Can't get it together to shift jobs, my mom can't sell her screenplay to move me somewhere more fun affordably, can't find new work now anyway and am lucky to have a job but can't get people to respond and follow through except with stuff I can't handle doing, like rallies I don't know what to do at etc.

I wish I was born neurotypical so I didn't have something like autism that snowballed into ADD-like and Tourette's-like comorbidities or affective disorders when I was rejected by the materialistic people my mom moved me near thinking I'd be stuck working at a sheltered workshop. I hate my high school peers for not checking in on me when I went into home school 3/r of the way through my junior year after the administrators destroyed the extracurricular I did best in, none of them have made the effort to this day. I hate my college peers who never get in touch with me unless I take the initiative and got to live normal lives because they knew how to network and didn't get into weird trouble like I did on social media during college. Why couldn't my advisors help me so I could get a real job? Why couldn't I figure out a real plan to make something of myself instead of being 31 and washed up now at an age most people don't escape mediocrity?

I wish I was neurotypical so I could cope better with the poverty my dad threw me into my refusing to send his funny money after retirement under my mom's divorce decree, when nobody would hire my mother after 15 years raising me and I couldn't handle more than summer jobs, then have been stuck in service industry making little more than minimum wage until 2017 when I got up to $12 an hour and thought things were improving. I wish I could make the right, smart decisions about how to groom and dress myself so I looked my age instead of like a dumb ret*d, no matter how many habits I pick up and how good the clothes I buy are, and could communicate my intelligence and use it instead of being stillborn. I wish I didn't have the kind of hard emotional experiences that led psychs to put me on meds like Seroquel and Lexapro and Tenex that sapped me of my youthful energy and make me incapable of taking advantage of the prime of my life. I wish I had a male role model that wasn't an emotionally abusive jerk and could have taught me how to be a man, and that I didn't constantly have to deal with being a submissive prick guys wouldn't even bother to fight, just a 5-foot-6 weirdo who can't even tell when he has BO and never could lead a conversation. I wish I didn't have weird allergies that make me sweat and my nose run whenever I eat, and that my skin wouldn't break out so much, and that I could fix it without feeling irritated by all the creams and products I've ever tried, and that I could shave properly without feeling irritated or cutting myself. I wish I could just be a complete person instead of bunch of broken parts that don't fit together, with a bunch of skills and knowledge I just can't use because I can't sustain the act any more, I'm burnt out without laurels to rest on, I just need remedial social education and there's nowhere for me to get it and all I get as a grown man is humiliation. I wish I had friends I could open up to, instead of left-wing "friends" who will question my commitment to the ideals I share because I'm complaining while white in this awful moment for people of color and humanity in general, right-wing "friends" who will just mock me or try to recruit me to their sick cause of selfishness and fact denial, or apolitical "friends" who really don't understand and can't handle a conversation with me because I don't say enough BS and they don't say anything interesting. I just am so sick of not being able to do anything well enough to enjoy doing it, and I don't know how I change that as a (questionably) grown man stuck in his stunted ways. When will I have a cohesive state of mind and be seen as whole the way neurotypicals get to be?

I feel for you. I wish I had a magic answer, but as you know this world is not fair. The good news though is that you come across as articulate and not overly sorry for yourself - you simply state the facts objectively and fairly. Such self knowledge is admirable, and is a very good sign for the future. It puts you ahead of a lot of other people.

And you write well, so you obviously have a good brain. I know it is a cliche, but have you considered writing code? These days it's much easier than in the past. In my own case I'm making a javascript game. There are tons of tutorial sites out there. It's my secret plan for escaping my minimum wage job. The great thing about a game is that if it's any good then it sells itself: you don't need to talk to people (much). And if the game is crap then people will tell you, and you can fix it.

Actually there is one thing I can suggest. You wrote:

Does your job let you grow a beard? I hate shaving, so I love my beard for that reason. It also helps if you have trouble looking older.

As for not knowing if you have BO, as long as you shower daily and change underwear and shirt daily (and other clothes every few days) then I am sure you are fine. BO is nearly always a question of not showering daily, or wearing a shirt for more than one day.

Once you have the beard, the not-BO, and the hobby that gives you hope, have you considered dating someone a little older than yourself? That way your age is still a plus. It worked for me.

I might try some coding as I consider web publishing and edit Wikipedia.

I can't grow more than an inch like pubes, so I settle for a goatee with stubble on either side, not sure how well it goes over but my job lets me. Most that don't are factory and food service things that I don't think I'd do too well.

I've been using Old Spice for years, after a stint with crystals that I didn't think work, seems to keep me decent though I'm not sure if I'm getting allergic reactions or inadvertently inhaling when I air out my bathroom.

Anyway, my physical will be telehealth, I got my haircut, and I'm seeing a 34-yr-old as it happens tomorrow afternoon for a riverside walk. She lives 25 miles away with her dad and is poly with a main man (27 he is) in Arizona, but not sure how adventurous or if her old dad goes to the senior center then (hmm). Both my exes, or rather the first two women who let me go on second dates I guess, were around the age she is now, and I like their self-realization and horniness but sometimes feel intimidated by their expectations like I haven't grown up to them, especially if they have or want children. The younger ones seem to get bored when I don't keep pouring on the spontaneity or throwing money at them, though, so I guess I always have to deal with something. Just trying to enjoy this chaotic time as much as I can while staying grounded in my ideals. It might be easier if I was right-wing since they're more individualistic and I'd probably have an easier time trolling or counting money to judge things on a balance sheet, whereas lefties often want someone who can think on their feet and relate to people's feelings better. I just can't bend my facts that way, and respect humanity and the vulnerable too much.

GOD DAMN IT! Why can't I just once have a win?

She makes a big show out of chitchatting about everything, takes pics with me as part of her fascination with the riverside sculptures, we take pics together that she tags me in on Facebook like some old couple (WTF why on the first date, of course everything's a trick on me) both at the park then at the café we go to next to talk more, the date goes on 2.5 hours, she shows me all her tattoos visible publicly including the one an inch above her nipple, she takes a kiss on the lips in the car and goes for the tongue, leading me on the whole way right? Then she heads home doing nothing but responding to the check-in text, then posts on social media about random s**t all week while not saying a word to me, then promptly saw some other guy I assume since she informs me this morning she's chosen someone else to be her "bf here" until she goes back to Arizona to be with number one and won't even let me be number 3 since being "friends" won't "go anywhere." f**k all of this! I'm so sick of being this limp sack of s**t that gets led on, why the f**k can't she tell me before I ask about next time instead of trying to set up the humiliating situation so she can laugh with a real man about the texts. I'm such a gullible piece of garbage and I wish I could just sit here and surf the Internet like a ret*d until I die. I'll never amount to anything, nobody respects my job, I can't get anything else because I can't promote my writing and I'm too lazy to learn skills, too tired and doctors blow smoke up my ass and claim everything's alright or I don't know how to talk to them like an adult and figure out my problems. I hate being this way and knowing everything good about life is for someone else. I hung out with a friend today and got likes for a photo of some pelicans in the river on Facebook, and my Mom thinks a bunch of fashion tips from the lovable materialists at Queer Eye will fix it all, but this wiring is sick and needs to be torn out until I'm the vegetable everyone wishes I were, no coat of paint will do a damn think. So sick of being "grateful" for being a little kid loser while everybody else gets to grow up and be strong. I HATE MY LIFE!

That sucks. The way I see it, we evolved to live in small tribes. So there would only be maybe three people we could possibly date. That's why each rejection hurts so bad. Because for most of evolution, if we got rejected three times that was THE END. We would never pass on our genes. To evolution that is a thousand times worse than death. So that's how it feels.

The good news is that with the Internet, it is possible now to date more people. But rejection still hurts like hell because that is how we're wired. So it's incredibly hard to then find date number four. And when that fails as well it feels horrible again. So it takes incredible strength to go and find date number five. And when that fails too... it's not a great feeling. But each time gives you experience. And each time widens the variety of people you meet. So if it is possible to meet number 7, or number 12, or maybe it's number 100, eventually that will be the person who wants you as much as you want them. But getting there past all the soul destroying rejection, then getting back up and searching for months and then getting rejected again, is so hard.

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm doing a bit better now, if only since I've had time to distract myself. I'm probably on hundreds of messages with women in two and a half years now, perhaps I should go easy on the ones with nothing that stands out in the profile, but about 6 live meetings not including the second date with the only one to stick around for one. I think I do better with somewhat shorter ones, doesn't speak well for my prospects, but then again I don't know how I found the first to agree and the distance forced it to be shorter for my comfort zone and routine. Perhaps I should accept the uncertainty with what's going on now and probably through mid-2021, but as a 32-year-old I wish the lousy economy wasn't limiting my potential for when things emerge at the other end.