My self-esteem can't get any lower!

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I didn't seem to have a self-esteem when I was a kid, but now as I gotten older I feel I have the most lowest self-esteem in the world and I'm unsure of how to boost it up a bit. I get lots of men telling me how pretty I am, but I keep just asking myself, ''what do they see in me?'' I get friends telling me how nice I am, but I just keep asking myself, ''why do they like me for? I thought I was weird? Are they really plotting to take advantage of me, because nobody can like me that much?''

When I see other people I know talking, I keep thinking they're talking about me, either moaning about me or laughing about me. I worry what I look like too. Do I look quaint? Does everybody laugh or has to look at me when I go past? Do I pull faces without realising? Do I do odd things? I don't seem to know much about anything, not even my special interests, so whatever I say I've got to keep it short and sweet because I know somebody's going to say, ''no it isn't!'' and make me look stupid and thick. Then I get people laughing at me over really stupid things, like not knowing names of drugs, alcohol, music and celebrities. God knows why I should know about drugs, but for some reason I ''should''. It's terrible.

Plus being a virgin at 21 years old while all my teenage cousins are not virgins any more makes me feel miserable, because that shows how ugly and unconfident I must be. And there's still more, but I could go on and on so I will just leave it at this.

Well I totally get the self esteem thing, and have very low self esteem myself that is if I even have any self esteem at all. If you have friends telling you how nice you are and guys telling you you're pretty well then what you should take from that is that your a nice, attractive person. Also I sometimes get paranoid people are talking about me or laughing at me when they aren't and I just try to use logic to get out of that by convincing myself it would not makes sense their lauging or talking has anything to do with me.

As for not knowing the names of things that happens to everyone, you're not unintelligent if you don't know the names of drugs, music, celebrities those just aren't things you're that intrested in. So either those people are being kind of jerks if they make a big deal about you not knowing or maybe they are taking it personally for some reason......like sometimes if someone is really intrested in something and they are talking to someone about it, it might go to their head and they'll take it like you're trying to be ignorant. But just keep in mind not knowing specific things about topics you're not too intrested in is perfectly normal and not something you should feel bad for.

Also, In my opinion having sex is not really an accomplishment.......especially if a week later your not still with the person you had sex with. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a virgin at the age of 21.

I'd love to meet you to find out. Unfortunately, I don't live anywhere near you but you're clearly an articulate young lady. A lot of women aren't like you.

I've felt something similar to what you describe here.

I was teased fairly bad when I was a kid. So its hard for me to take compliments genuinely--particularly when a genuine one is so rare nowadays.

I used to always think people were talking about my back and I occassionally still wonder if they talk about me when i'm not around.

About the whole not knowing about celebrities, drugs, alcohol and music.. it happened when I was younger. At least about celebrities and music, I never listened to any music until I was in my late teens. Maybe a few songs I know on the radio, but if I were to have gotten quizzed on what those songs were i'd fail. Also if you're like me and are sensitive to teasing.. as a result of being bullied. You fail to differentiate when someone is making fun.. versus them just joking with you because they want to get to know you.

My now girlfriend, family members etc always say how handsome I am. I think of myself as such.. but I don't think a lot of other people do because of how many deragatory remarks and comments suggested otherwise in highschool.

I think a challenge for anyone is finding positives about themselves. Most people downplay any positives. Someone has nice eyes? "Oh other people have nice eyes" Someones considered pretty? "Oh but i'm overweight so nothing else is worth anything"

Unfortunately its complicated.. we always want others to feel we're valuable. But they don't if we don't believe it ourselves.. its a complicated circle.

When people are horrible to me, I tend to blame myself and think ''it's not them, it's me.'' Well, I do partly think it's them, but mostly I know it's me. When a bully confronts me, I don't think, ''oh they're bullying me because they're lonely and insecure themselves and are probably jealous of me and so will bully me''. I think that isn't true, for 3 reasons:-

1. Naturally a descent person wouldn't behave like this, so the bully must have a nasty trait in them or a nasty way about them to behave inappropriately like this
2. Every person who has ever teased me were always the popular type, always had other friends with them, were never seen on their own, and always seemed proud and confident
3. It's because I must look weak and stupid, and apparently it's so funny

There is this nasty girl who grew up with me (but I didn't play with her much, but she knew of me), and she lives in a flat on her own now, in the estate behind where I live. She's very popular and outgoing, there are always people going round to her flat, she's always having parties, and she is never lonely and lots of people seem to think she's wonderful (and that's how some NTs can be so naive). Really she is a horrible person, she's 22 but is still so nasty to me, she laughs at me loudly if I pass by her if she's with a friend, and she looks down on me because I know and she knows that I will never have as many friends, even though I'm a nicer person than she will ever be I still won't ever find as many friends as her.

It's so ironic that people would rather go for nastiness than niceness, even though everyone tells me that the key word to make friends is ''niceness''. But then if I was to be assertive, I would still drive people away. I've got that awkward personality, where if I try to be assertive it just stirs up an unwanted argument or a fall-out, making me feel more miserable. I really can't win with anything.

The popular people generally are the bad people, though. This is because general humanity is defective in the way that it seeks the popular, and convinces itself that being popular means that it is better, so newcomers become like the popular, and the circle continues. If you don't mind generalizing, you can just assume that popular = bad. Popular people are bad people, generally, because humanity generally is a bad species. The fact that you do not mix well with populars tells something very positive about you. And the key to making fake friends, like the female you are mentioning, is by being nasty. Her friends are not real. She's just trying to convince everyone else that they are, through her popularity.

As for being a virgin... why would you feel bad about it...? Because they find you to be a "failure", due to it, because others aren't...? (Are they even telling the truth, though, considering the expectations of the general mass?) If that is what they say, then what exactly is a failure? I'd rather say that wasting your virginity on someone you do not love is being the true failure. Personally, I am thirty, male, very attractive and still a virgin. In fact, I have never even kissed anyone. And why would I even do that, if she wouldn't be my true love? And yes, people laugh at me too, just because I look great and they don't (it's always guys). Don't let yourself believe it is you - it's them who are the problem... they are small, insecure bullies. Don't let it get to your self-esteem - at worst, get pissed, instead.

I'm sorry for how you have been feeling. You can PM me if you want to. I have all the time in the world to answer PM's... maybe not all the energy in the world, but I'd do my best to reply.

That's usually something guys worry about. I've never seen a woman in a hurry to lose their virginity.

No, the popular people are not generally the bad people. My kids are extremely popular and not bad. They don't look down on others or make fun of them and they know it's wrong to do that. They are always going places with friends and they have tons of friends over at our house especially on weekends.

I am also fairly popular with the group that I know. I'm not bad either.

I've had plenty of bad experiences with the popular groups when I was growing up, but just because I have had, or you have had, bad experiences with the popular people, that doesn't mean they are generally the bad people. Many unpopular people are bad as well.

As someone in a very similar situation, I would not worry about the virgin thing...at least not yet. You also mentioned in your other post that you get bullied. It sounds like you are being surrounded by people you don't like. I don't know what your living situation is, but if I were in your position, I would take advantage of any opportunity to live in a new town - somewhere just far away enough so that you can start anew, socially.

I also agree with OliveOilMom that popular people are not necessarily bad. They are generally nice people, which is why they have lots of friends. But there are all kinds of people.

In my experiance the popular people are certainly the bad people...because well they care about popularity too much which means they are willing to do more to stay popular which can be bad.

The first problem is generally what your basing your self esteem on. Most young women seem to base their self esteem on what they think somebody else thinks about their body, and what they wear. This is a horrible starting point, for several reasons. The most obvious being that when you try and figure out what somebody else thinks your naturally going to project your emotions onto your feeling of what they must feel. In other words, if your highly self confident and you see someone looking at you then your naturally going to think that he's checking you out because you look so good. If your not, then your going to assume that he's mentally shaking his head at you.

Trying to intellectualise that stresses me out, so i'd suggest it's possibly not the best thing to be building your self esteem on. Personally, my self esteem is based on my skills and my achievements. Nobody can take those away from me.



Another perspective. If this group is taking drugs, then they are breaking the law. They are by definition criminals, and trying to drag you into getting involved in drink, drugs and unwanted casual sex by playing on your self esteem.

In other words, they are trying to manipulate you by pushing down your self esteem, and they will then "let" you have a small amount of self esteem if you do what they want. Consider that. How does it make you feel?



Actually, no it doesn't. It might just mean that despite what you have said, you do still have some small shred of self confidence left and won't let someone sleep with you once before vanishing never to be seen again where as they just slept with the first person who crudely asked "ello darlin, wanna f...?"

I'm not going to let someone treat me like that. Why should you? Not letting yourself being forced into sex through peer pressure is not something to be ashamed of.

Yeah, she's basing her self confidence on how many people she can sleep with. That will abruptly end when she finds herself with a child, without knowing who the parent is. (and this is actually how this kind of story usually ends, to be honest)

He who laughs last, laughs longest.



1. As you say, a decent person wouldn't behave like that. That suggests that they are not decent people?
2. In other words, they are building their self esteem by taking yours, and taking pride in that. Lovely.
3. I disagree, strongly.

Bullies will pick on anybody they think cannot or will not defend themselves. They are cowards, who scurry away at the slightest hint of a challenge when they have any possible chance of losing. Believe me, I know.



She probably is "popular" if she sleeps with people at these parties and provides free alcohol and drugs.

I'll tell you something though, you certainly wouldn't catch me dead seen with someone like that. I will hazard a guess that your simply not going to be interested in anybody she has hanging around her. Why? Because they are like her.

Do you want friends like that? I don't.



The point is really confidence, not assertiveness. Confidence is really attractive. She's been hitting you where it really hurts, in your confidence. Don't let her.

Hello from Suffolk, btw.

Sorry but that's a load of bull.....for instance how is someone a criminal for say smoking a bowl, but not for drinking a beer. Prohibition is crap in itself, and the people enforcing it are the real criminals. But whatever I'd say if the people the OP hangs around with are trying to pressure her to do things she does not want to she should not hang out with those people.......but you can't catagorize all drug users as people who try to pressure people to do things they don't want because it's simply not true.

Getting off topic but it pisses me off when people make such generalizations, even if it was in an attempt to help someone.

Having re-read that part of my post several times i'm still not certain why you think I'm generalising every drug user as opposed to the group victimising her, but hey. If you want to take offence where none was offered then there is little I can do about it.

As to your question about why taking illicit drugs is criminal when alcohol is not, that's because our duly elected representatives declared certain drugs to be illegal, and then wrote it into law that people taking, supplying or possessing such substances were committing a criminal offence.

That is a fact of life, regardless of if we agree it should be illegal or not. If you wish to discuss that at length, might I respectfully suggest that PM'ing me or opening a thread in the politics forum would be a more appropriate venue for such a discussion than taking this thread OT?

With popular people, I don't mean those who are popular (maybe the word appreciated may be more proper, often) within a smaller group. However, maybe I should've said that popular people aren't "good people", in general; there are many people who are somewhere in between being good and being bad, who would fit into such a category; such people may generally be more or less good, with many mildly bad characteristics, but in a given, not even rather unique situation, most easily may change into bad. I'm not going to attempt to state what makes one good or bad, though, as that is a mostly pointless discussion. However, just look at politics in most countries. I think many are prepared to agree that the most good-hearted candidates generally do not get the farthest. That is a very valid argument for what I am saying, here.

However, yes, I do of course agree that many unpopular people also are bad. They will not have to keep in mind to remain popular, however, as so many popular people do, which means that they at least are more able to go their own way (which indeed may be a bad direction, of course). A simple example of what a more or less popular person won't be that easily prepared to do is to defend someone who is being bullied by more or less popular people - an unpopular person often will not need to consider what the bullies will think of him or her, afterwards.

My kids don't really care whether or not they are popular, it's just how it is. They don't try to be popular and popularity isn't something they aspired to, it just happened. So no, your hypothesis is wrong if you consider all popular people to aspire to popularity and to try to hold on to it once they get it.