Should I be with an older woman?

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He should just change a bit the way he thinks about women and relationships, perhaps.

Yep, I know. I have nothing against those who went from rags to riches but I think those people should be thought as the rare exceptions, not the expected norm. I don't like this idea that with enough "pluckiness" any poor youth can bootstrap himself out of poverty without any help. 1% can, the other 99% can't.

Income inequality is one thing but what I missed most of all in my youth was guidance. I know other youths get help from their parents and their school in getting into higher study. My parents knew nothing of that and surprisingly my high school didn't properly explain the system too me.

I think my poor neighborhood high school wanted to increase the number of graduates so in the last year of my schooling they kept on drilling into us that we must get SACE (high school diploma) but they didn't mention ATAR once (University entrance score). Later I spoke to other students and they said their schools mentioned ATAR frequently. When I chose my subjects the counselor didn't mention about half of them were not ATAR approved, meaning regardless of my grades, ATAR counts them for zero. Regardless of grades I needed to have six ATAR subjects, I had three.

And then my snobbish rich aunt told me the reason I didn't get into university was because I didn't try hard enough. She went to a private school, she sent her kids to a private school and she recently worked out a very detailed plan for her daughter to get into veterinary college.

I went onto another forum and asked them if coming from a poor background and going to school in a poor neighborhood (funded by property tax in a neighborhood with not much in the way of property) and having uneducated parents made any difference in later academic success. The response came back that it should make no difference so long as the pauper student "tries harder" and that without middle-class parents he should just work his way through college.

What makes education inequality hard for me to accept is when those who benefit from it deny it's existence. When they have a head start on me and then they say I failed because I was lazy and they succeeded because they worked hard. Yes they worked hard but they still had a head start, hard work doesn't account for all factors.

We do not live in a meritocracy, we never have. What's worse is we now live in a false meritocracy. In the middle ages the peasant accepted he was a peasant the the nobleman accepted that the peasant was a peasant. Nowadays the nobleman blames the peasant for not becoming wealthy. The false meritocracy makes it seem as though it's the poor's fault for not having enough merit.

Also I think there's an education arms race going on, an arms race always leads to overspending. Nowadays even for a position that doesn't require a degree, a guy with a degree will often be chosen, this means everyone needs to have one when 50 years ago less than half the population had one. The arms race is a tragedy of the commons that leads to unnecessary expenditure of effort to keep up with other people who are unnecessarily expending effort to keep up with you.

In other words, when you grade on a curve, only 20% of people will get an A. I can accept that. But what I can't accept is when they expect everyone to get an A. You can't fit 100% of the class into the top 20%. Even if everyone tried twice as hard the top 20% would still contain the same number of students.

That's a metaphor for society. We compete for the top spot, which is fine, but we say the 80% didn't try hard enough. We tell them if only they tried harder all of them would get into the top 20%. There's been talk of making Year 12 mandatory in South Australia because it was observed that the most educated people were more likely to be employed. That still won't fit 100% of the population into the top bracket when there are less jobs than workers in the state. It was they who finished when not forced to that were the most driven.

I think the most insulting part of class warfare is how our culture seeks to blame the poor for being poor, while those with rich parents congratulate themselves for succeeding on their own merit.The psycholoist I had actually was a specialist in ASD. I think I need to find another one.

I have no doubt there are plenty of gamer girls and I understand it would be good for me to meet one but it's just hard for me to go from knowing a girl to dating her. In meatspace or on non-dating websites it's really hard for me to take the first step from friendship to dating.

Trying that can lead to some awkward moments between friends and acquaintances. At least on a dating site I know they're single and seeking a guy to date. I know that they reject me because they just dislike me, rather than reject me because they weren't looking for a date in the first place and get told this isn't the right venue to be asking girls out.

In the past I've made friends with girls with the intention of dating them but after a few weeks when I asked them out they acted quite shocked and the friendship died within a few awkward days.

I don't really play games as much as I used to or otherwise socialize. Between work and community college I feel like I'm going flat-out. I don't work and study every waking moment but the wakeful hours that aren't work and study must be spent on restful activities. I don't consider video games to be restful, there a hobby for when I have energy to spare. When I have little spare time and energy I'm unlikely to engage in any unnecessary socializing. I couldn't do it on the weekends, being a Mon-Fri worker weekends are the time I do the most work on assignments. For me weekends aren't for rest or socializing, they're the hardest part of the week.

Joining a new club and getting to know everyone there is possible for me but it takes a lot of energy and at the moment I feel quite exhausted already. I'm thinking of dropping out after this year because I find being a worker student to be difficult and in some ways it's not necessary when I already have a job. Unfortunately the reason I started was to keep up with the joneses.

Also the trouble with gaming forums is that they're not region specific. If I chat on a gaming forum I'm not guaranteed to find girls who live in Australia. Just like on this forum, the participants will certainly be spread all over the world.

True, this. My ex is currently playing Archeage, and at least one third of the other players are women. Listening to his teamspeak, it sounds like a fair proportion of these are younger women (in their 20's-30's). MMO players can be very social and friendly in game, and I've known people who met and got together that way. There are whole guilds which meet up in RL once or twice a year, and migrate from one MMO to another or span multiple MMO's.

These are all valid points. You are reasoning very wisely, not making excuses, no matter what anyone says. This is life, for most people on the planet. Some are way worse off than you (speaking globally), and a few are better off. I do wish you understood how intelligent and resilient you really are, though. Recognizing your strengths is important, and it looks to me as if you have been actively discouraged from doing so.

That said, you might benefit from traveling to another country and living/working there for a while. The social environment and culture you're currently embedded in is not the only one. There are other cultures which have different values and priorities. It looks as if the one you grew up in has become confining, even suffocating, for you.