"You need to accept that you may never have a girlfriend!"

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This is something my detractors both here and in my daily life tell me. They just want me to give up and act like it was ok for those who bullied me to have done what they did. If I were to let go of wanting a girlfriend, it would mean the last 12 years I've struggled were all for nothing.

You've worried about it for 12 years and are still no closer from when you started. I'd say those 12 years already were a waste of time.

You will find love, Mark. Let it come to you first.

I really hope you are right. My detractors here think I am "messed up" and need to shut myself away.

First, I apologize if I've ever behaved as one of your detractors. I do not believe that anything I've told you is wrong, but I do recognize that I might have been insensitive and hurtful, no matter how well-meaning I was in saying so. I'm not going to say things I don't mean, which is not a change from how I've treated you in the past...but maybe I can do a better job of watching what I say and keeping some things to myself.

I'm not going to tell you to stop looking for a girlfriend. I'm not going to tell you that your struggles are for nothing.

I WILL tell you that I think you are a valuable person and have just as much a chance with a girl as anyone. I don't believe your situation is hopeless.

I think you will agree with me that your problem is mostly a self-esteem issue. That is something you can change any time. The important thing to remember is that you are a valuable person. Your interests are important and valuable as well. I hope for you that one day a special someone will see that and understand. But for now, what I would like to see is for you to put yourself first and not rely on bullies from the past for your identity. I want to see you stop living for your bullies and detractors. I want you to stop living for your as-yet-unnamed girlfriend. I want you to stop living for anyone else and start living for yourself. Anyone who will come alongside you and support you is worthy of your time and your effort. Anyone who will not is unworthy. If you go your entire life without a girlfriend, I want you to understand that it is because no girl can be found who is worthy of you. Your life will be fulfilled either way, but it will NOT be fulfilled just because you have a girlfriend. It will be fulfilled because you can stand on your own. If you have a girlfriend, it's because you share common values. You will not live for each other. But you will enjoy each others' company because of the values you share.

Living for people who cut you down is slowly killing you. Don't let them kill you, Marknis. You're worth way more than that.

Like I said, you're not giving up on a gf. You're just acting on your own worth. You don't value girls in your area. At all. If someone is picking on you about your lack of one...well, joke's on them. They may all have gf's, but SERIOUSLY, look at them!! ! If redneck bullies are married to redneck, airhead, "contentious" women, then the joke is on them and you're the real winner for avoiding them. You mentioned in another thread your disgust about a geeky girl with a jock... Well, if you consider jocks to be low-value guys, and I know you do, what does that say about the geeky girl? If she thinks that little of herself, you wouldn't want to end up with her. I've been down that road, too. It sucks. And when guys come back to you telling you you're lucky to be single...THEY'RE NOT KIDDING. The worst part of getting what you always pursued is finding out reality wasn't all you dreamed it to be. It often is worse than what you had getting to that point.

If you are already happy, none of this is going to matter. Rednecks who get wives/girlfriends and value the status over the person--in other words, they live for the approval of women and peers--are miserable people because they are forced to live lives inconsistent with their actual values. They're never happy, and they can't make anyone else happy, either. You can tell by the mindless way they live their lives. They are already dead, as are the women in relationships with them.

But you are still alive and awake. You still have a mind of your own. These people who claim to be Christians but don't act like it--what did Jesus say? "Let the dead bury the dead." Those people are like the infected zombies in all the horror movies as of late. Don't so much as touch them, and don't let them anywhere near you.

You don't need to accept that you may never have a girlfriend. However, the bad news is you might have to accept that you are the last uninfected person in your area. Fighting your way through the infected might be your best bet to get some rest from your struggle where you find uninfected who share your values. If that's not an option, the next best thing is what you should be doing anyway--living for yourself, doing what you love, and shouting a big EFF YOU to the infected who screech to you that you should live and believe any other way.

I can't stress enough that this doesn't mean a girlfriend is going to just fall out of the sky just because you commit to live this way. But I also can't stress enough that if you live this way, getting a gf or not isn't going to matter. It shouldn't matter. However, if you ARE going to get a gf, you're closer to getting one this way than otherwise.

Another thing I just thought about...I feel like you highly value the struggle. I don't mean the depressing part. I just mean the way of life and the determination it takes to get what you want. Be careful with that...when you DO get a gf, that part of your life is over. If you continue to crave it, it will cause you to lose your gf since the struggle has become more valuable than the goal. Women are hard enough to keep without self-sabotage!

If you wish to keep on fighting, I'm not going to tell you to stop. I strongly advise, though, for a set, scheduled length of time at some point in the next year to clear your head and focus on anything else but what you're struggling with the most. Nobody has the strength to keep going at these kinds of things forever. Heck...I got behind on my running this week. I decided to make up for the 5 miles I missed yesterday by running them today. I was supposed to run 20 miles today...figured I'd rest up and try later in the afternoon. I finally had to admit I just didn't have it in me. Plus I was sick practically all last week and still haven't fully recovered. My legs are totally wrecked, and I was feeling weak by mid-afternoon. I was forced to give up for today. But I won't give up tomorrow. And next week will be easier. I have some time to recover, get my strength back, and fight back even stronger two weeks from now. It's going to be ok. Taking a break is NOT giving up.

Keep plugging at it. Remember, the haters are dead. They are empty, mindless zombies spouting unintelligible gibberish. Find what makes you happy and keep hitting at it. If there's a girl out there worthy of you, she'll find you. It's going to be ok.

Well. That's a lot more charitable than I'd have expected from you, AngelRho.

The more accurate statement would be "You need to accept that you may never have a girlfriend if you don't work to change some core things about your life and about your life circumstances."

I have to disagree. Not about the self-esteem issues themselves, but about being able to change them at any time. Confidence, self-esteem and feelings of competency develop when one masters their environment, and the opposite, self-doubt, low self-esteem and feelings of hopelessness manifest when you can't. Trying and failing constantly just affirms to yourself the idea that you can't succeed. If Marknis' low self-esteem was born of an inability to get a relationship despite trying and trying, then the only way to reverse it is for him to either get a relationship, or feel like and have evidence that he can get a relationship, which is why I advocate self-improvement for him, because it will raise his chances of getting a relationship and in so doing, dissipate the self-doubt and low self-esteem created by a seemingly hopeless situation.

I know I don't speak for everyone, but for all we know there could a pre-diabetic girl (because you also have pre-diabetes as you mentioned in other threads) out there who feels the same way as you about love.

Mark, you are a strong person. You will always be capable of standing up for yourself whenever people look down upon you as inferior to their worlds.

No one here on Wrong Planet is a detractor to you. People who detract you where you are are really just detracting themselves because they have issues with their own self-esteem.

I just can't be that pessimistic. If low self-esteem was born of an inability to get a relationship, then, yeah. But I see that as a symptom, not the actual problem. Marknis has spent so much time being defined by parents, siblings, bullies, nominal Christians, and rednecks that he has no real idea who he really is. Even living for the purpose of proving someone wrong is still living for someone else. Marknis is better than that. We all are better than that.

If Marknis succeeds in loving himself, the self-improvement will follow as a consequence. If Marknis succeeds in building confidence doing things he enjoys, he will be more confident overall.

The relationship part is where we want the most optimism. What's going to kill Marknis here is the obsessive pursuit of a romantic partner when potential romantic partners, like the rest of us, have agency. I've pointed this out in unrelated posts, particularly in your topic about transactional relationships in the way of pwning rdos. Marknis will continue to define himself in terms of status when a girl may choose to end the relationship should Marknis start a relationship with one. For the rest of us, this is a positive step in the process and to be expected because it serves no one's best interest to remain with someone they don't love or who doesn't love them. This is because we don't define ourselves by who we're with. Marknis is at high risk for this already because he defines himself by who he's NOT with. Whether you are IAR or not, you ultimately have no control over this.

Because of that, Marknis absolutely must focus on his identity as an independent agent himself, not as he is defined by other people.

Quitting his search for a gf is obviously, I believe, NOT the answer. I have no doubt Marknis will find a great deal of happiness in having a gf. But finding a gf will be an easier task by getting this one thing out of the way. And when the inevitable breakup happens, he won't just end up right back where he started.

We've all said this in hundreds of different ways: Stop looking for a gf. Work on yourself. Accept that you may never have a gf. You're better off single, anyway. Well, no matter how you say it, it's a bleak, hopeless message that doesn't adequately strike at the heart of the problem. Perhaps--and I wholeheartedly believe this to be true--the problem really is with other people and not Marknis. Perhaps Marknis did everything he was told and has nothing to show for it. If we tell Marknis he has to take personal responsibility for his plight, I say it's only fair we actually tell Marknis what it is he's taking personal responsibility for. I think we can do that honestly without making false promises of any magical formula that's guaranteed to get him a gf. If (speaking 100% hypothetically here) being Marknis means endless anime marathons at his house, let him have his anime. If it means playing video games all day long, let him have his video games. If it means being the most awesome dude at the library, let him be the most awesome dude at the library. If it's drawing, painting, learning how to play guitar, writing songs, writing poems, writing stories and books, computer animation using Blender or whatever, by all means let him throw himself into those things in some productive manner and let the poor guy be happy. If something is killing that joy, let him see whatever that is for what it is so he can quickly erase it from his life.

It's possible to turn self-esteem around like flipping a switch. I dunno, maybe it might take Marknis some time. But he hasn't succeeded yet in getting a gf--and that tells me the self-esteem problem is more complex than simply a lack of a romantic partner. He has to focus on what makes him awesome. He has to focus on his own worth to himself rather than what fakes and losers think. It's a lot easier to build self-esteem on your own identity, talents, and abilities than it is to control and manipulate people, and controlling and manipulating people is much easier than just waiting around for something to happen naturally. If Marknis can see and understand the truth, that real happiness lies within yourself independently of others, he will no longer feel the need for a gf. That doesn't mean he'll stop wanting a gf or stop pursuing a gf. Doesn't mean he SHOULD stop wanting or pursuing a gf. It just means he'll stop wanting or pursuing a gf for what he wants a gf FOR. Immediate success for Marknis right now would be the worst thing that could happen to him. He has to understand happiness in more reasonable terms before relationships can work out. Otherwise, he's going to hang the burden of his happiness on the shoulders of someone who can't bear it. Where Marknis is right now, the breakup would be more disastrous than being single ever was. He'd be setting himself up for a string of breakups for all the wrong reasons. You break up because you realize you don't share common values, not because someone forces you to be his only source of happiness. Girls should want to be with you because you are a credit to your sex, not because they feel sorry for you or guilty. If Marknis can't be happy with himself, he's not going to be happy with a girl.

I think the best way to start is by having Marknis understand he's worth a lot more than he thinks he is. If girls can't see that, it's their loss; he doesn't need them.

To that I say flee the infected. I want naught of their disease.

QFFT

I know how you feel. ppl's been saying this to me as well (nearly all the time) altho I'm pretty confident 1 day I will