The Journey continues, the Challenge goes on!

It's now over 50 days since I PMO'd and not once since then have I looked at anything P-related, be it P itself or something s*xual and triggering. This is the longest time in a long time that I've not actively searched out something P-themed. I can readily go many months without PMO but the consumption of P never really disappears so I'm happy, and surprised, at how relatively easy it is to NOT do something i.e. not actively search for P. However, I've found over the last week or so, maybe longer, my thoughts readily go to memories of P, in particular when I'm in bed at night. I imagine like many others, there were a few P people and specific P videos that would get regularly viewings and currently, there are a few like this that keep popping into my thoughts just before I go to bed. With the lack of P consumption and me keeping really quite clean, I am finding that even though these thoughts can be brief and fleeting, they still get me quite excited / aroused. For me, this is the biggest challenge right now because when I wake during the night and I'm in that semi-conscious state, I often find that my libido is quite strong (during the night) so my thoughts readily drift to P memories. I will never be able to delete these memories as they're too well ingrained so the main focus at the moment is to manage them, ignore them, push them aside when appear in my mind, and try to think of something else. Apart from this, it's been a relatively quiet week with not much to report.
 
Since joining RN, I've maintained a regular posting regime but the 7 week gap between my last post and this one is the longest gap I've had between entries. The question is, as you've asked Orbiter, has there been any news? Well the answer is yes, both good and bad.

Starting with the bad, my clean period came to an almost inevitable end. I can't remember when or how exactly but throughout May my viewing of stimulating material gradually increased to the point where I was regularly looking at P again. I think when I did slip (aka PMO), I believe it was similar to previous slips where I wasn't looking to PMO, instead it was more that I couldn't control O'ing. Unlike before, the viewing and consumption of P didn't really disappear (after the PMO) and shortly afterwards I think I managed to PMO again, this time whilst trying to get to sleep. I recall I was simply thinking about P-themed material and without any physical 'assistance', I PMO'd, or rather PO'd. Then, in the last week or so I have PMO'd twice, both times being very much accidental O'ing where there was little stimulation but where I was incapable of controlling the O. It's now just a matter of refocussing and trying to build up a reasonable sober period again.

Now regarding good news, anyone mad enough to have been following my journal will know I've had friend issues over the last year and hadn't spoken to them in more than one year. Well, maybe a month ago I sent a long 'letter' to the friend who'd regularly messaged me over the last year, even though I never really replied. I opened up about all the issues I've discussed in this journal but had never before spoken to my friends about. Things like: really not liking my living situation and not having anywhere that feels like my home; being long-term single; being unattractive and almost never attracting girls; all my friends being in relationships and me being the only singleton and feeling the odd one out, and; being pretty confident my life probably won't change in all the above's regard. Although nothing was or has been solved by opening up, I did feel like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders in relation to my long-term silence. Then, a few days later I individually messaged my other friends, apologised for not talking for over a year and said that my coping mechanism over the last year was to not talk. All was (and is) absolutely fine and my friend were not at all bothered by my absence. Since reconnecting, we've all met up twice and it's like 2020 never happened. I now regularly message the group (like I used to) and I do feel much better now I'm chatting with people again.

Finally, on a more topical note, I received my first Covid vaccination jab two days ago. Happy to get this done and aside from an achy and stiff arm, and just feeling a little weak all over, I'm fine so far. This has resulted in an even more lazy weekend than usual but I'm certainly not complaining!
 

yogi

Active Member
Happydude, pick yourself up and restart.
Fall seven times down, stand up eight.
That's what this reboot journey is all about.

Good you got your vaccination done. Take care of your health.
Keep posting regularly even if you think you have recovered or are feeling better. Being regularly in touch with all of us will itself act as a potential shield against a slip-up.

Stay strong!
 

Orbiter

Well-Known Member
Since joining RN, I've maintained a regular posting regime but the 7 week gap between my last post and this one is the longest gap I've had between entries. The question is, as you've asked Orbiter, has there been any news? Well the answer is yes, both good and bad.

Starting with the bad, my clean period came to an almost inevitable end. I can't remember when or how exactly but throughout May my viewing of stimulating material gradually increased to the point where I was regularly looking at P again. I think when I did slip (aka PMO), I believe it was similar to previous slips where I wasn't looking to PMO, instead it was more that I couldn't control O'ing. Unlike before, the viewing and consumption of P didn't really disappear (after the PMO) and shortly afterwards I think I managed to PMO again, this time whilst trying to get to sleep. I recall I was simply thinking about P-themed material and without any physical 'assistance', I PMO'd, or rather PO'd. Then, in the last week or so I have PMO'd twice, both times being very much accidental O'ing where there was little stimulation but where I was incapable of controlling the O. It's now just a matter of refocussing and trying to build up a reasonable sober period again.

Now regarding good news, anyone mad enough to have been following my journal will know I've had friend issues over the last year and hadn't spoken to them in more than one year. Well, maybe a month ago I sent a long 'letter' to the friend who'd regularly messaged me over the last year, even though I never really replied. I opened up about all the issues I've discussed in this journal but had never before spoken to my friends about. Things like: really not liking my living situation and not having anywhere that feels like my home; being long-term single; being unattractive and almost never attracting girls; all my friends being in relationships and me being the only singleton and feeling the odd one out, and; being pretty confident my life probably won't change in all the above's regard. Although nothing was or has been solved by opening up, I did feel like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders in relation to my long-term silence. Then, a few days later I individually messaged my other friends, apologised for not talking for over a year and said that my coping mechanism over the last year was to not talk. All was (and is) absolutely fine and my friend were not at all bothered by my absence. Since reconnecting, we've all met up twice and it's like 2020 never happened. I now regularly message the group (like I used to) and I do feel much better now I'm chatting with people again.

Finally, on a more topical note, I received my first Covid vaccination jab two days ago. Happy to get this done and aside from an achy and stiff arm, and just feeling a little weak all over, I'm fine so far. This has resulted in an even more lazy weekend than usual but I'm certainly not complaining!

Welcome back Happydude619

Despite the relapse into old P habits, it sounds like you are actually in an overall better place in life and mind than you were. It's good to hear you've been able to address those issues with your friends, stating your case, setting the boundaries etc. and re-establishing some positive connection in your life.

I wonder if perhaps gradual slide back into old P habits could be, at least in part, a result of a lack of accountability in recent times? Would you say you've been reflecting on this & addressing the reasons or has it kind of been gradually happening with breaks here and there? Perhaps a return to a more regular routine of journaling might help address this and give you some insight into what's causing this?

Stay strong, you've got this Happydude!
 
Well it's been a month since I last posted; I'm not doing all that well with regular check-ins, am I...

@yogi, thanks for the kind words and support. It's nearly 10 years since I discovered my PA so I've lost count of how many times I've 'fallen' and then got back up again! However, something incredibly dramatic would have to happen for me to completely throw in the towel and go back to my old P consumption habits. From this perspective, it is all very positive but I just need to regain control and build-up a decent clean period again.

@Orbiter, I was glad to be back on RN! And even though it's been a month since I posted, I have often logged into RN; I just haven't felt all that motivated to submit a journal entry, particularly as I really haven't been able to think of anything to post. And you're totally correct regarding tracking my actions and thoughts over a period of time (by posting in my journal) to see if there are any patterns. In my first journal on another forum, a journal I started in late 2011, I was posting very regularly and after a few months was able to notice certain things that would always be present shortly before a slip. Even though I haven't been posting too often recently I have still been reflecting on everything and I don't think the causes of my 'dipping my toe' back into the world of P are much different than what has driven me back to P in the past. Namely, my long term singleton status, my lack of a place of my own or even just a place that feels like my own, and my feeling of a lack of belonging or feeling like I'm in any way in control of my life. In short, I am unhappy. I have things that distract me from this emotion - work, going walking, reading, watching films - but the unhappiness never goes.

One thing that weighs heavily on my mind, often consciously but I think extremely subconsciously, is that I am still single. My 'tracker' shows me that in two months time it will be five years since I split with my ex, and five years since I last had sex. And it's been two years since I kissed someone and that wasn't even someone I was at all attracted to. Five years is a long time to have not been intimate with someone, let alone be intimate with someone that you are attracted to. Not that I actually believe such things but it's like my soul feels empty and with the prospect of another 30, 40 or 50 years of the same, I'm uncertain I can cope. I am in my early thirties and have only been in two very short relationships during my life - one when I was 23 and one when I was 28. Frankly, these were what you would class more as flings - each was four months long from the initial meet to when we broke up. At no point did they remotely feel like anything more that a semi-formal relationship and the result is that I have no experience of what a serious relationship is like.

To cite a somewhat random example of something that had an emotional impact on me regarding relationships, I was watching tv a few days ago and was just waiting for one programme to finish before what I wanted to watch started. I can't remember the programme I caught the tail end of - I think it might have been something dreary like Couples Come Dine With Me - and although I had no interest in this programme, a completely innocuous event happened that really made my stomach drop: a couple were having a very normal and straightforward conversation with one another... Why was this event so significant that it affected me on an emotional level, you may ask? Well it was precisely because it was so normal that it evoked an emotional response. My dearth of relationship experience means I am so far detached from being in a situation where I am with a romantic partner and having a normal conversation. My two historic flings were built upon being jocular, poking fun, being sarcastic and not having normal or particularly mature conversations. I absolutely, genuinely, no exaggeration, cannot see myself being in situation whereby I am in a serious relationship having a normal, mature conversation with a partner - it just seems so alien to me. And being in my early thirties, I can't think of many people who would be interested, or would feel comfortable, being with someone who has such little relationship experience or sexual experience. For me, it all becomes one big vicious cycle: I need to be in a relationship to get relationship experience but the likelihood of this happening is virtually nil so I get older but I get less and less emotionally mature so the chance of being in a relationship reduces ever further. I've not been on a date in almost five years and when I try to conjure up a mental image on me being on a date with someone, I literally cannot. Dating, relationships, physical intimacy all seem totally foreign to me yet these are things I crave but simultaneously cannot have because I am not attractive enough to garner the interest of anyone. I am unhappy and almost certainly destined to remain unhappy.

So where does P and my recent slips and P consumption fall into all of this? It's not that difficult to work out, is it, really? An attractive woman who smiles at you, who doesn't reject you, who doesn't comment on your appearance, who can satisfy (albeit falsely) your sexual urges - regardless of how fake and ultimately empty the experience is, for a few brief moments I feel like someone actually likes me. The last month has been very up and down for me - watching P for a few evenings in a row, a day or two without P, then back to viewing P again, then a day or so P free. I think the only time I truly stopped consuming P was when I was with my ex. Of course having a girlfriend shouldn't be the solution to me stopping using P but as a relationship helps fill the intimacy 'black hole' that exists inside me, having a girlfriend would certainly assist me with kicking my P usage. The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that no matter how hard I try to beat my PA, there is no better medicine than romantic intimacy with another. And until that time comes, which I really don't think it will, I am destined for P to remain part of my life until I die.
 

Orbiter

Well-Known Member
I absolutely, genuinely, no exaggeration, cannot see myself being in situation whereby I am in a serious relationship having a normal, mature conversation with a partner - it just seems so alien to me. And being in my early thirties, I can't think of many people who would be interested, or would feel comfortable, being with someone who has such little relationship experience or sexual experience. For me, it all becomes one big vicious cycle: I need to be in a relationship to get relationship experience but the likelihood of this happening is virtually nil so I get older but I get less and less emotionally mature so the chance of being in a relationship reduces ever further. I've not been on a date in almost five years and when I try to conjure up a mental image on me being on a date with someone, I literally cannot. Dating, relationships, physical intimacy all seem totally foreign to me yet these are things I crave but simultaneously cannot have because I am not attractive enough to garner the interest of anyone. I am unhappy and almost certainly destined to remain unhappy.

This is a recurring theme in your posts that I feel an almost personal need to address. That's because there was a point where I was in the same boat as you.

My last relationship started when I was 33 and, at the time, I had not been in a relationship or dated anyone since I was 23. That's (obviously) ten years and a lot of experience I missed out on. All my friends were getting married, quite a few had children etc. I thought if I entered a relationship, I would enter it as a 23 year old and be unable to function in a mature, healthy relationship. I was too far gone, too unattractive to make up for it etc.

I believe I would ultimately disappoint & fail every woman I was ever going to meet and there was no hope for me because I would never catch up. I was never going to be enough.

Anyway long story short, turns out none of it was true!

Not only was I able to navigate the relationship I found myself in quite well, I found myself being the more 'mature' half of the relationship (she was admittedly in her late twenties so a bit younger that I at the time). I was kicking myself at the time for giving up for all those years, PMO addiction or no, I still am. I wish so much someone had told me something like this back then.

Before that relationship came along, I believed EXACTLY what you believe. As a result my PMO use spiralled out of control using with 'gooning' communities and all that. It was a genuinely dark time of my life.

Even going into the relationship I over-thought everything and was the model of an anxious-attachment personality type because I had over those ten years convinced myself exactly what you are at the moment which brings me to another very important point.

There is a double danger of these self-defeating beliefs. Not only does it prevent you from stepping out of your comfort zone and giving connecting with others & new experiences a go, but also when you do find someone you want to be with (and I guarantee you will unless you actively work to avoid/sabotage any chance of it) you run the danger of falling into an unhealthy, codependent & abusive relationship just like I did because you carry into it a false belief of "i'm too far gone, this is the best that i'm going to get so I HAVE to stick with this and make it work".

Your life is short, precious & full of circumstances that are unique to you Happydude. It doesn't matter how old, how experienced your are, where you're friends are at in their life.

This life is all yours to live the moment you're ready to give it another chance.

Don't give up, never give up!
 
Hey @Orbiter

Thanks for reply - Really extensive, considerate and helpful. I won't reply to all the points you make as there isn't really much for me to say as the points made are very applicable and true of my situation.

The biggest issue I have is my lack of attractiveness. My self-confidence remains almost always at zero as I never even garner the slightest iota of attraction from the opposite sex, not even on an intermittent basis. It is just so depressing because I know that I am unattractive so I know that it is beyond pointless to even let myself become attracted to someone, heaven forbid I even consider attempting to approach them. No, no no. I get indirect rejection all the time so I cannot bear facing direct rejection - it would probably destroy me.

Reading this article today, which relates to someone's historic struggles with addiction, the response from the columnist really rang true with me: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...cial-media-but-not-with-me-how-can-i-help-her .

It was the below comments that I could really relate to:

Hope is the primary casualty of prolonged suffering. It sounds as though your sister has been in pain for decades – one of the cruellest effects of ambient pain like this is it trains us to stop hoping it will end. It makes us wish for ever less. Instead of hoping for joy, or the internal glow of contentment, we learn to hope for a life that is – technically – bearable.
Torture can mutate over time into a sort of muffled drumbeat of discontent. People with that drumbeat in their brain can dismiss it on the grounds that isn’t interrupting today and it won’t interrupt tomorrow – it is, technically, bearable.

For me my underlying 'suffering' is arguably sitting in the category of Bearable. I have many things that take my mind off my problems but they still leach into many other aspects of my life...

Thinking back to those two historic relationships that I have had, and also to the few occasions whenever I'd been messaging someone, I was never really comfortable. My mind would always be wondering if things were going well [with the other person], I'd analyse ever message to the Nth degree, and I'd never, ever relax unless I was 200% sure that the other person liked me. I'd be so insecure about everything to the point I'd become concerned if the other person didn't message back within 24hrs but once they did message back, I'd feel palpably relieved. And if I didn't get a message within 24hours, I'd start worrying, I'd struggle to sleep and I'd sometimes end up making myself feel sick and then couldn't stomach food because I'd be so concerned that I'd lost the other person. For me, I actually feel far more contented not being in a relationship because it's just me on my own, no one can leave me, my thoughts aren't always on someone else, and there's no pressure. And here's my problem, I'm generally at peace with things when I'm on my own but I'm also extremely lonely. Frankly, it's like I'm in some sort of silent, non-visible descent into insanity.

I know that I often quote that I've only been in two relationships in my life, one in 2011 and one in 2016, and that both were four months in length. Well the other evening I decided to track my stats. For my entire adult life (from the age of 16), I've been single for 97.1% of the time. My first relationship in 2011 was a terrible relationship. Unbeknownst to me at the time this girl was renowned as going from relationship to relationship and I was just the 'next person' to her. This girl needed to be in a relationship, needed someone to be with them all the time, and it was a pretty unhealthy dynamic between the two of us as I had never been in a relationship before so struggled with the intensity to which this girl required me to be with her. From start to finish the entire relationship lasted almost exactly four months and at no point was it a serious relationship. Onto my second, and so far last, relationship in 2016, the other evening I discovered that I'd miscounted how long this relationship was; I was sure it also lasted four months from start to finish but in fact it only lasted three months! And the first month was us two just going on dates so strictly we were boyfriend and girlfriend for only two months. In my adult life of +/- 6500 days I have been in relationships for less than 200 of them. And I think I've had sex no more than 20 times in my life.

Flirting, dating, relationships, intimate interactions with the opposite sex, and sex are all just so foreign to me. This is why I am pretty uninterested in keeping away from P, because whether I look at or consume P or not will make no difference to my human relationships with the opposite sex. My nonchalant attitude towards my PA and my recovery rapidly bleeds into my attitude towards life, like why am I bothering doing anything or trying or continuing as I will never be happy. I want to scream, I want to cry, I want this $hit to end, I want to be with someone...
 

Orbiter

Well-Known Member
Hi Happydude619

The quote on suffering from the dear ol' Manchester Guardian is a very thought-provoking one. It articulates some aspects of suffering and it's long term effects very well. The quote on suffering is particularly interesting as it, amongst other things, makes a valid point - because of it bleeding through into other aspects of life, prolonged 'bearable' suffering is not only uniquely destructive, it is unsustainable.

Which in turn means that, whether we think it's possible or not, we're going to have to do something sooner or later to address it right?

So!

With that in mind, I feel there are some things that really stand out here that I would like to address, and give some (fingers crossed) practical suggestions.

And also, please take all this with the due respect, i'm aware of how delicate what i'm stepping into here is but my intention here is only to be of some help.

The biggest issue I have is my lack of attractiveness. My self-confidence remains almost always at zero as I never even garner the slightest iota of attraction from the opposite sex, not even on an intermittent basis. It is just so depressing because I know that I am unattractive so I know that it is beyond pointless to even let myself become attracted to someone, heaven forbid I even consider attempting to approach them. No, no no. I get indirect rejection all the time so I cannot bear facing direct rejection - it would probably destroy me.
While I think would be dis-ingenious of me to say that attractiveness is entirely subjective and there are some hardwired biological factors at play, I do believe most of the factors that makes a person subconsciously decide the attractiveness of a person are subjective and also encompass MUCH more than how a person looks.

What is attractive or unattractive to me is different to what it would be to you. To call yourself or someone else attractive or unattractive implies you are comparing them to a benchmark of some sort you have set in your mind of what an attractive person is supposed to look like. I wonder what that benchmark is for you. I wonder where in your life it came from.

One thing that does interest me is that you talk about being unattractive but you don't say why. Do you feel this way because of your weight? Is it because of your teeth? Your hairline? Your height? Muscles or overall fitness? Your skin? Your shoulders? Your dick? Your clothes or style? If so, thankfully there are practical solutions to all of those things that are just one Google search (or DuckDuckGo if you don't want to contribute to the big brother-esque tech industrial complex) from your reach.

I can't help but feel though that perhaps it's not any of those things especially and, when you speak of being unattractive, it's more about how you feel and how you believe other people feel about you when you are around them. If so, then this is an issue of self-esteem & self-confidence. I think this is an important distinction to make.

Thinking back to those two historic relationships that I have had, and also to the few occasions whenever I'd been messaging someone, I was never really comfortable. My mind would always be wondering if things were going well [with the other person], I'd analyse ever message to the Nth degree, and I'd never, ever relax unless I was 200% sure that the other person liked me. I'd be so insecure about everything to the point I'd become concerned if the other person didn't message back within 24hrs but once they did message back, I'd feel palpably relieved. And if I didn't get a message within 24hours, I'd start worrying, I'd struggle to sleep and I'd sometimes end up making myself feel sick and then couldn't stomach food because I'd be so concerned that I'd lost the other person. For me, I actually feel far more contented not being in a relationship because it's just me on my own, no one can leave me, my thoughts aren't always on someone else, and there's no pressure. And here's my problem, I'm generally at peace with things when I'm on my own but I'm also extremely lonely. Frankly, it's like I'm in some sort of silent, non-visible descent into insanity.

Happydude619, are you aware of the concept of Attachment Theory? Forgive me if i'm making an assumption you don't but I have never seen you write anything about it in your journal.

If there is one thing you take from this post of mine, please let it be this

A couple of articles

Some Youtube vids of varying depth
(simple, to the point & cute)
(more in depth)

I would be very interested, especially considering the piece of writing that I just quoted, how you see yourself in this. Depending on what answers you find in yourself, I feel it could have the power to change your life.

I know that I often quote that I've only been in two relationships in my life, one in 2011 and one in 2016, and that both were four months in length. Well the other evening I decided to track my stats. For my entire adult life (from the age of 16), I've been single for 97.1% of the time. My first relationship in 2011 was a terrible relationship. Unbeknownst to me at the time this girl was renowned as going from relationship to relationship and I was just the 'next person' to her. This girl needed to be in a relationship, needed someone to be with them all the time, and it was a pretty unhealthy dynamic between the two of us as I had never been in a relationship before so struggled with the intensity to which this girl required me to be with her. From start to finish the entire relationship lasted almost exactly four months and at no point was it a serious relationship. Onto my second, and so far last, relationship in 2016, the other evening I discovered that I'd miscounted how long this relationship was.

Relate! Relate! Relate! Oh boy Happydude how I relate! While my relationships lasted more into the 1-2 year mark, they all fit a similar pattern. This is proof in the pudding on what I was saying in my last post about going into relationships with self-defeating beliefs and insecure attachment styles.

I notice that, despite you pointing out faults that are clearly on their end (these women clearly have some attachment issues of their own) there's an undertone to all of this that despite their actions, it is you who are ultimately at fault for the relationships failing and/or for the relationship even happening. Have you ever thought that maybe in many respects these women perhaps weren't good enough for you? If not perhaps it might be starting looking into why.

I was sure it also lasted four months from start to finish but in fact it only lasted three months! And the first month was us two just going on dates so strictly we were boyfriend and girlfriend for only two months. In my adult life of +/- 6500 days I have been in relationships for less than 200 of them. And I think I've had sex no more than 20 times in my life.

#nobigdeal
#stuffthatdoesntmatter

...that is unless you of course wanted it to be more but feel you are incapable of doing so due to the aforementioned belief of unattractiveness, self-confidence issues. If so, then I think you need to start looking at these self-beliefs, not as a part of your identity or who you are, but as an obstacle in your way that is preventing you what getting WANT and deserve from this life. Huge an obstacle as it is, you can overcome this Happydude. You owe it to yourself.

Flirting, dating, relationships, intimate interactions with the opposite sex, and sex are all just so foreign to me. This is why I am pretty uninterested in keeping away from P, because whether I look at or consume P or not will make no difference to my human relationships with the opposite sex. My nonchalant attitude towards my PA and my recovery rapidly bleeds into my attitude towards life, like why am I bothering doing anything or trying or continuing as I will never be happy. I want to scream, I want to cry, I want this $hit to end, I want to be with someone...

...which brings us right back to where we started with the reflection on that Guardian piece. Not only is lifestyle that these negative self beliefs & insecurities has chosen for you starting to bleed over into other aspects of your life & hurting your recovery from this awful addiction, it is by it's very nature unsustainable.

Like there's always sunshine hidden behind even the cloudiest, darkest, bleakest of skies, there is a life that you actually want for you on the other side of this but you've got to start making it. Only you can truly know how to get there and only you can make it happen, but I hope some of this is helpful in you finding a way.

Wishing you well Happydude! Keep going.
 
(Part 1 of 2 due to 10000 character limit)

Hey @Orbiter
Appreciate the extensive response - I never thought it was possible but your post appears to be longer than the average length of my posts!! ;). I won't respond to everything right now as there is probably too much to 'unpack' in one go. Also it was Saturday night that I started this response and it's now Tuesday evening, I probably should now be trying to relax and enjoy myself and not spend hours and hours reflecting on my failings.

And also, please take all this with the due respect, i'm aware of how delicate what i'm stepping into here is but my intention here is only to be of some help.

Firstly, do not worry about anything that you write. It takes a lot to offend me and I know that in a forum like this, everyone's intentions will be well-meaning.

In relation to appearance, I will agree that that a part of my hang-up may relate to my self-confidence, although not by a lot. And I am quite confident (no pun intended) when I say this because I have examples of both being extremely self-confident and also less self confident; for the purpose of the following chunk of text I will focus on the former. In autumn 2018 I moved jobs and went to live and work in London. My level of autonomy increased, my self-confidence increased and my underlying loud and outgoing personality was able to shine through. For 18 months I lived and worked in London and never in my life have I felt more self confident - I would do karaoke in a packed bar whilst completely sober, I would dance like a maniac on an empty dance floor, and I would be significantly more confident than my close friends when in social situations. (Quick clarification: Regarding my general personality aura, I just want to confirm that I'm not an arrogant person, far from it; in fact I'm actually a nice and decent person and I know this based on the people I've befriended through my life). At no point, however, did any of this confidence translate into having a girl flirt with me.

Throughout my life I have become highly attuned to noticing how girls look at me versus how they look at others. With me it's almost transactional, nothing more than looking, acknowledging, then moving on. But with others, I will often notice a slight glint in the girl's eye and a wry smile that is easily interpreted as the girl thinking, "They are quite attractive". I cannot remember the last time a girl looked at me and had that noticeable response whereby they thought I was attractive, or at least not too bad to look at. I see it, too, in group social situations where girls will not be all that interested in talking to me as opposed to talking to my friends. I have countless examples of being on nights out when my friends and I happen to be chatting to a group of girls and I may as well be invisible. I know that, on average, I'm more outgoing and charismatic than my friends so it's certainly not the better quality of conversation or entertainment that my friends give compared to me. Even in situations where I might be friends with a girl, the platonic nature is always so strong that even in a very drunken situation there is never even a whisper of a hint of an iota of a flirtation. The long and the short of it is that my face is simply unattractive and this I cannot change. Every day I look in the mirror and this 'shackle' just stares back and I slowly hate myself more and more. As ridiculous as it may sound, my thoughts have sometimes drifted to plastic surgery... I really do detest this 'mask' that life has dealt me. And upon reflection, those that say attracting someone is "all about confidence" only have confidence themselves because they are attractive, meaning that they can be confident because their percentage chance of attracting someone is already much higher. I could be the most confident person in the world - it still wouldn't change whether people found me attractive or not. So when you know that you will almost certainly get rejected, it then becomes a choice between proceeding and receiving the rejection, thereby dealing a hammer blow to an already-shattered confidence, or circumnavigating the rejection altogether by not even trying. It's for this reason that P is so horribly appealing: No rejection, just a beautiful smile and acceptance...

On the topic of Attachment Theory, I can definitely confirm that it's not something that I was previously aware of. As I always enjoy learning new things, even though the somewhat negative backdrop against which this new piece of information came to me, I'm happy that I have learnt about something new and something that could have practical applications. (So thanks for sharing!!) Looking at the various breakdowns and also taking the test, I fall into the 'Anxious and Avoidant'. Not all of the things apply but that is always the way with these types of things; we will all fall into many of the categories, just some more than others. Arguably my own worst enemy is my mind, which I just cannot switch off. In bed at night, when I go out for a walk, or when I'm driving, my mind is constantly racing through different thoughts, feelings and (mostly) my own personal hang-ups: Hate my appearance, hate being single, always feeling trapped in life, hate that how I'm the age that I am but feel like a pre-teen, albeit one with a job, hate how I have all these problems bottled-up and can't speak to anyone about them. The thoughts don't come to me in a slow and steady fashion or are processed calmly and rationally either, instead they feel like they're travelling a million miles an hour and my mind just never stops for breath. These thoughts are often relentless. Sometimes I truly think that I'm losing my mind, although I always refer back to Catch-22 so I know I'm not - it just FEELS like I'm in some sort of spiralling descent into madness. Looking at the 'Anxious and Avoidant' criteria, I think many of these could be a result of my serious overthinking. I sometimes wish I could switch my brain off, stop thinking about things, stop worrying about things, and accept things at face value. Outside of a lobotomy, however, I don't think that there's much chance of this.
 
(Part 2 of 2 due to 10000 character limit)

I notice that, despite you pointing out faults that are clearly on their end (these women clearly have some attachment issues of their own) there's an undertone to all of this that despite their actions, it is you who are ultimately at fault for the relationships failing and/or for the relationship even happening. Have you ever thought that maybe in many respects these women perhaps weren't good enough for you? If not perhaps it might be starting looking into why.

In a few previous posts of mine - November 2020, I believe - I actually wrote about equality in my previous relationships, as short as those relationships were. Not to repeat what I've already written but with my very first girlfriend (in 2011), that relationship was extremely unequal. She had years of relationship and sexual experience whereas I'd never had a girlfriend and had never kissed a girl before, let alone done anything else. On the other hand, I was 'above' her in social class and my immature brain thought I was better than her in this regard, particularly in relation to career aspirations and educational background. Of course, none of this matters and it would be other things that caused the downfall of that relationship. She always wanted me to be to be with her, I'm certain she was disappointed with the sex because my inexperience and because my PA was causing PIED and PE, I'm 99% sure that she was seeing someone else (at the same time as me) in a separate friendship group that she held, and she wasn't one to stay in relationships that long so four months was maybe a little shorter than her usual stint but only by 2-3 months. I could spend hours analysing this relationship - in fact I have spent weeks and months in total - but it was just too unbalanced. I don't think either of us were in the relationship for the right reasons, and this girl was completely the wrong type of person for someone like me, who was a relationship- (and at the time, actual-) virgin, to go out with.

With my girlfriend in 2016, it was only during the first month or so with her that I felt equal to her and that was the most enjoyable period. Only after getting to know her a little better did I feel like I wasn't good enough for her. She did have a tendency to regularly make disparaging comments about me - "You're only earning £X-amount?" "How have you not been to X country?" "You aren't wearing that, are you?" - and I would often get compared to her exes and she would make barbs about the quality and quantity of the sex. When we broke up, her friend messaged me asking if I was ok, I replied "not really" and that I really liked my ex and had hoped that it might go somewhere. The friend said something like she knows exactly what my ex is like and pretty much suggested that my ex wasn't one to have particularly serious or long-lasting relationships so it wasn't a surprise that my ex had broken up with me after such a short time. Suffice it to say, this didn't really soften the blow of the relationship ending and upon reflection, the friend may have just been saying something to comfort me.

In my (only) two relationships I managed to end up with girls who were both very different but also quite similar. I think that they were entirely interested in the maximum that they could 'extract' from the relationship in a relatively short timeframe before they moved on to do it all over again with someone else. It wasn't really me they were interested in being with, rather it was the 'being in a relationship' that they were more bothered about. Of course, I am well aware that I am only giving my side of the story and I could be 100% incorrect in what I'm saying. However, there would be absolutely no benefit to spinning a web of lies purely for the benefit of making myself look like the victim to a whole host of anonymous folks on this forum. Therefore, all I can say is that I do try to be as honest as I can on RN because, if nothing else, it means that any comments from others will be useful and productive as they will be being drawn from my truthful testimony of a situation as opposed to fictional stories.

I digress a little but I would say that my choice [in girls] has been quite poor, although that statement is entirely inaccurate in two regards. Firstly, it wasn't me who really did the choosing, these two girls chose me, both during very drunken and emotionally-charged nights out. They made the first move, they were the dominant one, I just reacted to their advances. If they hadn't made the first move, I sure as hell wouldn't have. And secondly, having a choice suggests that there are numerous options, like I'd been going on multiple dates with three or four different girls and then decided upon the one I really liked and pursued her. No such thing happened - I basically jumped in with both feet at the first opportunity that a girl showed any sort of interest in me. I didn't choose these girls, rather I was just so happy to FINALLY be with anyone that I unconditionally flung myself upon them. In fact, in my desperation I went with my first girlfriend at the expense of a very close and personal friendship I had with someone else.

Apologies that this posting is extremely long - I've been adding to it for a few nights now and it has just grown and grown. I might get back to discussing P at some point, although most of the stuff I do discuss is linked into my P usage anyway so even when I'm not talking about P or PA, I am talking about P and my PA...
 

Orbiter

Well-Known Member
No worries Happydude. It’s also a subject that I have a personal investment in so perhaps there’s some mutual therapy going on in me logging on here and taking up far too much space in your journal haha. If so, thank you!

Do by all means enjoy yourself, live life and take time if that’s what’s right for you. You have no obligation to respond to any of this in some arbitrary timeframe or even at all. It’s my choice to post this and you don’t owe me anything. This can also be very difficult subject matter and your willingness to engage in this discussion at all indicates a confidence & wisdom that I feel at times you might not fully see in yourself.

Anyway, more thoughts (yay!)

Throughout my life I have become highly attuned to noticing how girls...

Regarding this evidence of lack of attractiveness & not being noticed, as someone who has never been out with you, hung out with you or knows what you look like, I am just going to have to more or less take your word on much of this. With that said though, there are some things that stand out from what you have written.

Much of this negative self-appraisal and evidence of women not noticing you in a romantic way that you’ve stated above seems to come more from self-beliefs & perceptions than any concrete instances of rejection. There may be real, tangible instances of such rejection but I didn’t catch any here.

Re something like the face, even if your face is as you say it is (a self-perception which I once again have to take your word on) do you believe you have no attractive qualities at all? And even if you somehow really do have no attractive qualities to women, there’s nothing at all you can do about it? No other redeeming qualities you can focus & work on developing instead? Nothing at all? Nothing? Really?

I mean, really there could be so many factors going on here and I don’t believe going into speculation is going to be helpful but I feel like, if you really want to find someone, there are a lot of options that have not yet explored and a lot of self-beliefs that not yet been questioned or confronted.

A really basic example of something like this would be that perhaps bars, clubs & nights out with mates may not be the best place to find a quality woman who’s going to appreciate you for you and stick around for a long time? Not necessarily a problem as we live in the age of the dating app for example and you have more control over this stuff than ever. That particular option has it’s own challenges but I won’t digress into that here. Shared interests & clubs, social groups etc also all provide opportunities (though are not purpose made for this so should not exclusively be used that way, might come across a bit threatening)

Another thing here is I noticed is in this appraisal of women you often refer to women you’ve met as somewhat of a uniform collective. I’m sure you realise that there are billions of individual women in this world all with unique values, desires and qualities they look for in a man right?

So when you know that you will almost certainly get rejected, it then becomes a choice between proceeding and receiving the rejection, thereby dealing a hammer blow to an already-shattered confidence, or circumnavigating the rejection altogether by not even trying.

Once again I’m hesitant on how I go about asking this, but is it fair to say that you have a considerable fear of rejection Happydude?

Have you thought of what correlation such a fear may have to some of the self beliefs & observations you stated earlier?

Is there a point in your life that you first recognised this in yourself or have you always felt this way as long as you can remember?

Can you articulate how or why the consequence of rejection is so strong & devastating that you would avoid anything that exposed you to even a mild risk of it? Even if it may mean giving up on finding the connection you find yourself desiring so?

On the topic of Attachment Theory…

Okay so I should preface this by saying I am obviously neither a psychologist or formally trained in attachment therapy which is a complex subject so if you are interested, perhaps it might be a good idea to seek out further information from professional sources. The reason I bring up Attachment Theory is that it by it’s very nature suggests that things like patterns of self defeatism, over-thinking, negative self perceptions, co-depencencies, specific anxieties around relationships & all of that stuff are A PRODUCT OF what could be an insecure attachment style not vice versa. Like a runny nose being symptomatic of what could be a flu.

The origins of insecure attachment styles have their roots back to an individuals earliest childhood experiences. It goes deep.

This is not something to feel bad or negative about. This is a tool that we can use to find deeper, more meaningful and ultimately more constructive understandings of why we have the beliefs we have, why we fear the things we fear, why we worry so much when we know we shouldn’t, why we perceive ourselves the way we do and from there, how we can live in a way where such things no longer hold us back from getting what we desire from life and finding the connection and happiness we’re looking so hard to find.

It is also helpful as with this knowledge, we can perceive such things in others which is both helpful for our own self-preservation as well as giving us a more holistic, objective point of view of perhaps why women have not treated us well in previous relationships, why they leave, why they bounce from person to person, why things just never seem to work and that it’s not all our fault if they don't.

There is power, strength & a greater self-confidence to be found in the knowledge that can be found here.

In my (only) two relationships I managed to end up with girls who were both very different but also quite similar…

So in short, not exactly relationship material yeah? Well you know some warning signs that you need to avoid in future and that, looking towards the future, is a good thing.

I myself am a recently-turned 36 year old man and I have been in three relationships in my life. Only one of them lasting longer than a year. The shortest being three months. So we are quite similar in that respect.

All three of these women were unusually assertive, self-centred and chose me more than I chose them. Even after this point, they pretty much dragged me by the hand through much of the relationship and all wound up leaving me after cheating on me for periods of time. They were messy, unhealthy, damaging relationships that I clung onto like a crying child to his mother because I did not believe I could do better.

So yeah my mistake was, instead of looking for the kind of woman I wanted, I tried to find this in whoever would do the scary work so I wouldn’t have to face rejection. This merely lead to the worst kind of rejection happening to me three times in a row.

Like a PMO relapse, we can choose to resign ourselves to the belief we are doomed forever, or use these difficult relationship experiences as things that can make us stronger and wiser in future endeavors. Which way that goes is, like most of this stuff, up to you.

There is no need to apologise for discussing this. All of this clearly correlates to both your PA as well as mine. It’s a very big part of we come back to P again & again even though it’s such a bleak, awful addiction. We do because deep down we carry a belief we’re incapable of attaining anything better and that is a belief that will lead us nowhere. Life is short and, if we want to find someone who can really make us happy, we need to conquer this shit to move forward.

I am no psychologist, I’m not a professional, I don’t have all the answers or really enough skill to articulate this in a way that is as helpful as it should be so I don’t want to get into doing to many of these sort of posts but before I finish this, know it’s coming from a place of compassion, understanding and a common purpose in this fight we’re all in and support each other together. There’s still a long road ahead but we can do this, we just need to find a way to frame all this stuff in a way where we can give ourselves a real chance.

Stay strong man, don’t be a stranger. Wishing you well in your journey.
 
(Part 1 of 3)

Hey @Orbiter , to start off on a slight tangent, in my previous job in 2017-18 there was a new-starter who joined at the same time as myself. She was someone who would challenge my perceptions on things, ask difficult questions, enlighten me around all manner of topics and was an all-round wonderful person. At first I found her pedantic and almost argumentative but I quickly realised she was correct when she did challenge me or others. For example, during one conversation about relationships she kept saying, "But what does boyfriend or girlfriend actually mean?". After responding with, "Well a boyfriend / girlfriend is a boyfriend / girlfriend" she would then say, "But does boyfriend or girlfriend ACTUALLY mean?". I got quite annoyed at the time but afterwards, I began to question what these titles / labels actually meant, and I found it quite difficult to provide a satisfactory definition. They are really just societal buzzwords that are used so casually that no one ever questions what they truly mean but when you do try to put meaning to these words, it becomes very difficult. Anyway, I adored how she could cut through the 'haze' in which we live our lives, and how she would ask those difficult questions and question things that no one even knew a question needed to be asked. We got on very well and she held me to account by not letting me just blindly accept the world in front of my face - she challenged me and made me think about myself, how I perceive others and how I should not take anything for granted. I mention this person because many of the questions and points you raise are reminiscent of this girl so please do challenge my viewpoints. It is extremely easy to acquire tunnel vision on a particular topic and, kind of like the world in which we live, people's views become so partisan and entrenched, only listening to the one side that reinforces a person's existing views resulting in all reasonable debate or even just conversation becoming impossible. And the way I see things, the more my perceptions are challenged, the more enlightened I become.

Much of this negative self-appraisal and evidence of women not noticing you in a romantic way that you’ve stated above seems to come more from self-beliefs & perceptions than any concrete instances of rejection. There may be real, tangible instances of such rejection but I didn’t catch any here.

Indeed, I genuinely cannot think of a point in time in my adult life where I actively approached someone and asked them if they would, "like to go out sometime" or similar. The closest was around 2 years ago when I was messaging a girl for a little bit (the sister of a friend's girlfriend) and after a big group night out I went back to hers. However, this situation was as much luck as it was instigated by others - It was pure chance that I was in the same taxi as her and when we arrived at her house, I was 'told' that I was getting out of the taxi as well... I stayed over but nothing happened and the next day I did ask when I'd see her again and we arranged a future date / day out. On the day of the date, which was maybe three weeks later, it was quite the car crash. She was suffering the after-effects of food poisoning from a festival she'd attended a week earlier, we spent no more than an hour together as she felt unwell, and when I dropped her back at her place she said she'd met someone at the aforementioned festival, and although she probably would never have the chance to see this person again (due to geographical constraints) she wanted to pursue this other person [rather than continue anything with me]. I was so humiliated and embarrassed that a girl would prefer to go after someone they would likely never see again as opposed to me. Prior to this I don't remember me ever directly approaching a girl. Over the last 10 years there were perhaps three random(ish) girls I exchanged messages with but these were girls I encountered through the means of others, and the messaging lasted no more than a few messages and remained entirely cordial even after I proposed that we should meet up for drinks etc., drinks that unsurprisingly didn't happen.

A really basic example of something like this would be that perhaps bars, clubs & nights out with mates may not be the best place to find a quality woman who’s going to appreciate you for you and stick around for a long time? Not necessarily a problem as we live in the age of the dating app for example and you have more control over this stuff than ever. That particular option has it’s own challenges but I won’t digress into that here. Shared interests & clubs, social groups etc also all provide opportunities (though are not purpose made for this so should not exclusively be used that way, might come across a bit threatening)

Oh god, bars and clubs are the last place I would really want to go find someone for a long-term relationship. Perhaps this is stereotyping the types of folks that regularly traverse these establishments though and for every person looking for short-term fun, I guess there must be another interested in something more serious. My hang-up is even though I wouldn't particularly want to pursue something with a girl I'd meet in a bar, it would just be nice to be flirted with occasionally, even just mildly, if for no other reason than to assure myself that I don't look like a troll.

Another thing here is I noticed is in this appraisal of women you often refer to women you’ve met as somewhat of a uniform collective. I’m sure you realise that there are billions of individual women in this world all with unique values, desires and qualities they look for in a man right?

Agreed. Please refer to my first paragraph of this post around challenging my preconceptions ;)

Once again I’m hesitant on how I go about asking this, but is it fair to say that you have a considerable fear of rejection Happydude?
Have you thought of what correlation such a fear may have to some of the self beliefs & observations you stated earlier?
Is there a point in your life that you first recognised this in yourself or have you always felt this way as long as you can remember?
Can you articulate how or why the consequence of rejection is so strong & devastating that you would avoid anything that exposed you to even a mild risk of it? Even if it may mean giving up on finding the connection you find yourself desiring so?

As far as this (current) post goes, I will just cover this above area of questions and leave the rest for another day as I'm certain this journal entry will be another two-parter!! Going back through my journal quite recently I found where I had written about rejection and that I probably had a Fear Of Rejection ('F.O.R'). However, I didn't really delve into what I thought was the root cause nor did I really look into what a F.O.R actually meant. By virtue of you talking about Attachment Theory, and me investigating the various links, taking the profile tests and then having some psychological data / evidence to review and reflect upon, I thought that as you have mentioned F.O.R, I would look into this a little deeper. Rather than just thinking that I knew what F.O.R meant, I would check the theoretical and psychological background. Amongst the many websites that I found, the two most interesting and useful links I found were the two below:

 
(Part 2 of 3)

Regarding the earliest time I recall having feelings like those described in these two links, it was probably in the latter years of high-school but I think it was events in the earlier years of high-school that had a lasting effect on me, and perhaps even have a effect on me today... In the first year of high-school (11/12yo) I asked out a girl, who actually said, "Yes". Shortly after we started going out one of the people in my friendship group forced me to kiss this girl in front of a huge group of people. Never having 'french' kissed anyone before I didn't know what I was doing and it ended up being pretty ugly and utterly humiliating. It was and still is one of the most emotionally distressing moments of my life. Afterwards, I was intensely mocked by a few people in my friendship group for kissing 'wrong' and this girl quickly dumped me. I instantly became terrified of being in a situation whereby I would need to kiss a girl because I didn't know what I was doing.

Maybe a year or so later (c.14yo) there was a girl that really, really liked me. She was quite an intense person but I quite liked her too. However, my horrendous fear of being in a situation in which I would need to kiss a girl prevented me from acting on my feelings of wanting to go out with this girl. Weeks and months passed by and I did next to nothing with this girl apart from messaged her a little bit. There were the odd few moments where I'd build up the courage to either talk to her, or actually hold hands, however, I never asked her out. Friends told me that I needed to ask her out because there was someone else that liked her and wanted to ask her out. I continued to procrastinate and not that long after another all-too-short hand-holding incident, this girl decided she'd had enough of waiting for me and then went out with this other guy. Due to being in a very large friendship group that included this other guy, I was then 'forced' to watch this girl be with another guy. All through the spring and summer terms (semesters) we'd all be playing football on the school playing fields and the two of them would always just be fooling around together, being as intimate as you can get away with whilst at school. It was all absolutely devastating to me emotionally. Here was a girl that had been massively interested in me, had maintained her interest for the long-term and that would have gone out with me in a heartbeat if I'd just asked her out. But instead, my fear of kissing meant that I was too scared to ask her out and then, inevitably, she went out with someone else. More than anything I couldn't believe that I'd managed to lose someone who was so intensely 'into' me, and then when she did go out with this other guy, it was as if I had never existed to her. High-school isn't the place to share your feelings so I never told anyone how I felt but a few general comments did come my way, such as, "You should have asked her out" and "I bet she got bored of waiting for you to ask her out". I was emotionally crippled by the feelings of remorse I had for losing this girl and was made to feel even worse by being 'front row, centre' in watching what could have been. I'm pretty sure I cried over this loss. Even today, I still have feelings of regret about this missed opportunity whenever I think back to this period of my life.

Both the above two events were intensely traumatising - even at the time I recognised how deeply these things were scarring me.

After a couple years (now, c.16yo) of avoiding pursuing anyone (romantically) but also seeing that almost everyone else had, or had had, a boyfriend/girlfriend I became very self-conscious that I was one of the last people to have not had a girlfriend. I felt the need to go out with just anyone and so I began messaging a girl who I didn't fancy but up to that point had always spoken to quite normally. I quickly asked her out, she agreed, and from that very moment we never really spoke again until the 'relationship' ended. We regularly messaged each other but I was so nervous when around her physically that I avoided all conversation. I think I was worried that people would find out that we were going out with each other and force us to kiss that I subconsciously but proactively did all I could to keep the relationship private; this included me not talking to her. Anyway, this girl's best friend was going out with a friend of mine so one weekend we agreed to go to the cinema as a group of four. From the moment I arrived I said nothing to my girlfriend, nor did she say anything to me, and all the while I felt so nervous, which got worse and worse the longer it went without us talking. We went around town to begin with and then went to the cinema and still we said not a single word to one another. After the film, we were walking to the train station as my friend and I were heading home. Only then, after many hours of being together did I finally muster up the courage to hold my girlfriend's hand, at which point I started talking. Immediately, it was like an emotional weight had been lifted off me - here I was holding hands and actually talking with my girlfriend. The journey to the train station was only a few minutes so the holding hands and conversation lasted maybe 2-3 minutes. However, when we parted ways I was feeling much better about myself now that my girlfriend and I had spoken. When back at school, however, I (or we?) reverted back to not talking to each other and it was again terribly awkward, even though the messaging continued. Not too long afterwards my girlfriend approached me and started talking to me and asked to go for a walk around the school. It was probably the most I'd ever spoken to her one-to-one. It became readily apparent that this was our last conversation because she said she was ending things because we never talk in person. I think I recall feeling like crap because I was still failing in the love department and not matching up to my peers but I was also kind of relieved because the pressure of having a public relationship (in which I may need to kiss my girlfriend) was over.

In sixth form (17/18yo) I again remember continuing to feel like an outcast as I still hadn't been in a proper relationship unlike everyone else so again, I began messaging a girl even though I wasn't really attracted to her. I remember little about this 'relationship' with this girl aside from three key details. Firstly, I again spent all my time messaging her and didn't speak to her. Secondly, I also recall one particular evening when I was messaging her that she made a comment, one that I still can quote to this day - She messaged me saying: "Oh no! This looks bad for Brie". I don't know exactly what we were messaging about at the time but I interpreted this message as something extremely negative, such as the girl wasn't interested in me (or similar). I went into a panic, sent lots of messages to this girl asking what I'd done wrong, was it X, Y or Z. In fact, this girl was simply making a comment about the TV show, Desperate Housewives; the show was a topic of discussion that HAD been included in our messaging (during the evening), it was something that I was also watching, and the girl was simply making a comment in relation to the character, Brie... What followed next is a little vague but this girl was far more emotionally mature than I was and she was quite blunt towards me and called me 'fickle' as I'd gone from casually messaging to then bombarding the girl with worried messages that I'd done something wrong. The final thing I remember about this 'relationship' occurred at the end of one particular school day. Everyone was getting on their buses and I was waiting for this girl; when she arrived I actually asked her out. She said she wasn't sure and that she'd have to think about it - arguably this is worse than a straightforward "No" because it leaves you hanging even though the answer is actually "No". After that I don't think we spoke again. I then found out that she had been messaging someone else whilst messaging me and was soon going out with them.
 
Last edited:
(Part 3 of 3 - Damn this 10000 character limit! ;) )

I think that few would disagree that as an adolescent, my history in the romance department has been pretty awful: Couldn't kiss properly and ridiculed by peers afterwards; traumatised by this experience so didn't act on a wonderful relationship opportunity and this girl then goes out with a friend; then forced to observe this girl in the relationship with the friend and gutted that the girl wasn't having the relationship with me, and; later pursuing girls that I didn't really like and causing further terrible relationship experiences. Throw into the mix the added pressure of being a virgin when you're 16+ when all others around you are talking about who they've had sex with, it creates a perfect witches brew. I simply began lying and said that I'd had sex just to avoid the label of being a virgin. After leaving secondary school (at the age of 18) it would be four years before I ended up in the relationship with my first girlfriend and by this time, after all of the above, it was a relief more than anything else. Even at this point in time I was petrified of kissing someone... Well we all know how this relationship turned out so even after all the crap at secondary school, I had a relationship with someone who readily tossed me to the scrap heap - it wasn't quite rapid-fire rejection but it was semi-automatic. Four years later I would receive an even quicker rejection by my ex-girlfriend.

Not being a psychologist I do not know for certain if these events are what caused my apparent F.O.R or simply reinforced something that was already underlying. However, I am quite sure that they have had serious and long-lasting effects on my interpersonal relationships, notably those that involve a romantic context. Do these events of 15-20 years ago still have repercussions today and are they what holds me back from 'putting myself out there'? As an example of this I have always had a deep dislike towards online dating - I don't really like the principle of it, I don't think I'm attractive enough for it, and opening myself up to another avenue whereby rejection is even more rapid is something my damaged self-confidence just couldn't handle. Even the prospect of virtual rejection scares me.

I will stop there as I've again written far too much for just one journal entry, although I do find writing extensively a very therapeutic exercise. I will, however, finish by mentioning one thing my ex said to me when she broke-up with me as it may be important (in the context of my F.O.R), although it also may be totally meaningless. When my ex ended things with me (after exactly three months, just two months of which we were boyfriend and girlfriend) she said she didn't fancy me anymore [Painful to hear but ok], she didn't find herself falling in love with me [Painful to hear but ok], and when she'd originally been attracted to me it was more the idea of me she found herself attracted to, rather than me myself [Erm, what??]. This exact same comment was given to me two years ago by the girl I went on the terrible date with when she said she was interested in pursuing someone she'd almost certainly never see again rather than me. What does this mean? Is my public persona different to my private persona? Do I give the impression that I'm someone that I'm not? Are people seeing things in me that aren't there? Does the once-you-get-to-know-me me fail to live up to expectations of what the real me is? Seriously, what does this all mean??
 
Today's entry will be far less extensive, far less emotionally intense, and far more straight to the point the many recent posts.

Last night I slipped.

Maybe for a couple weeks I've been actively watching P, enjoying it and feeling quite guilt-free about it. The slip was pretty inevitable - even as I was getting ready for bed I was discussing with myself the simple binary choice I had: Switch off my laptop and not watch P or keep my laptop on and watch P. It wasn't really a discussion though and there wasn't much choice. Similar to The Matrix when Neo and The Oracle are chatting with each other, I'd already made the choice to consume P even though my mind was still thinking through what I should do, believing that there was still a choice to make. And like in The Matrix, it isn't the choice that's important, it's the understanding of the choice that is critical. The fact that PA is an addiction is an easy answer to why I consumed P and slipped because I know that I can stay clean from P for extended periods of time.

Not to dwell on much of the content of my journal entries (issues around relationships etc.), this general Covid situation doesn't help things. Even though lockdowns have lifted and most things are open again, the cases, hospitalisations and deaths in the UK continue to tick upwards so I remain hesitant to go back to behaving how I used to and doing the things I'd really like to right now. Even just going for a few pints at a quiet, local pub feels like too much of a risk right now so life remains on hold. This definitely causes underlying stress and because I've recently cut out alcohol almost completely, I don't really have any other coping mechanism apart from P.
 

Orbiter

Well-Known Member
Today's entry will be far less extensive, far less emotionally intense, and far more straight to the point the many recent posts.

Last night I slipped.

Maybe for a couple weeks I've been actively watching P, enjoying it and feeling quite guilt-free about it. The slip was pretty inevitable - even as I was getting ready for bed I was discussing with myself the simple binary choice I had: Switch off my laptop and not watch P or keep my laptop on and watch P. It wasn't really a discussion though and there wasn't much choice. Similar to The Matrix when Neo and The Oracle are chatting with each other, I'd already made the choice to consume P even though my mind was still thinking through what I should do, believing that there was still a choice to make. And like in The Matrix, it isn't the choice that's important, it's the understanding of the choice that is critical. The fact that PA is an addiction is an easy answer to why I consumed P and slipped because I know that I can stay clean from P for extended periods of time.

Not to dwell on much of the content of my journal entries (issues around relationships etc.), this general Covid situation doesn't help things. Even though lockdowns have lifted and most things are open again, the cases, hospitalisations and deaths in the UK continue to tick upwards so I remain hesitant to go back to behaving how I used to and doing the things I'd really like to right now. Even just going for a few pints at a quiet, local pub feels like too much of a risk right now so life remains on hold. This definitely causes underlying stress and because I've recently cut out alcohol almost completely, I don't really have any other coping mechanism apart from P.

Hi Happydude,

Firstly I just want to say how impressed I am at you going back to and facing what I would agree are some very difficult, traumatic memories. It takes a lot of courage to do something like this but I feel like there's already a difference in this dialogue about rejection now. In talking about this, these feelings of inadequacy are no longer a constant part of your identity but something that can be traced back to a particular incident in your life. Hopefully now that is something you can now use to re-frame your perspective on some of these social situations and your own wants, needs & fears when it comes to connection and intimacy. Please do keep this going with this!!

I find your reflection on choice interesting. Particularly the observation that often by the time we are given a decision, it is in fact too late as we have already made it. I wonder what the solution to this is. Is there something in particular we could be doing better or is it just part of the addiction and we just need to persevere until these urges become weak enough to dismiss consistently.

The ongoing Covid situation exacerbates these things further doesn't it. Most of my country is in stage 4 lockdown at the moment and will be for some time to come. Not to go too far off topic but I do think you are right to point out that lockdowns lifting isn't really a return when hundreds of people are still getting hospitalised and dying every day and good for you for staying safe.

Healthy, meaningful ways to enjoy ourselves are limited in lockdown and we're left with little more than the very vices we're trying to move forward from. I don't know what the solution to this is (though I am open to suggestions) but for what it's worth, I know how that feels and wish you well from the other side of the world.

You're doing better than you think Happydude. Take care & keep moving forward!
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
Today's entry will be far less extensive, far less emotionally intense, and far more straight to the point the many recent posts.

Last night I slipped.

Maybe for a couple weeks I've been actively watching P, enjoying it and feeling quite guilt-free about it. The slip was pretty inevitable - even as I was getting ready for bed I was discussing with myself the simple binary choice I had: Switch off my laptop and not watch P or keep my laptop on and watch P. It wasn't really a discussion though and there wasn't much choice. Similar to The Matrix when Neo and The Oracle are chatting with each other, I'd already made the choice to consume P even though my mind was still thinking through what I should do, believing that there was still a choice to make. And like in The Matrix, it isn't the choice that's important, it's the understanding of the choice that is critical. The fact that PA is an addiction is an easy answer to why I consumed P and slipped because I know that I can stay clean from P for extended periods of time.
That's right. Often, the decision to watch porn starts in our minds before we actually start doing it. It's the desire to watch it, the craving. It could be subtle, it could be obvious and we don't pay attention. It's happened to me a lot. The thing is, porn has a powerful brainwashing. It makes us believe it is something important in our lives, something necessary, like a close friend. Even if we might not obviously see it, what porn tells us are things like: "You will not be able to enjoy big pleasure like I give you, without me." ; "You will not be able to handle the discomfort without me" etc. But the reality is that porn is nothing important for our lives. We're not losing a close friend. We have the tools inside to handle our lives without porn. This is the de-brainwashing part, where we come in and reverse the brainwashing that porn did to us and see the reality. We then look at this "porn" entity and say: "But you represent nothing in my life". And this is where it starts to lose its power. If we understand we don't need it, it can't bring reasons why we need it. But it takes some time to get used to this, it doesn't happen overnight, I'm working on it too.
 
(Part 1 of 2)

Hey @Orbiter

Firstly I just want to say how impressed I am at you going back to and facing what I would agree are some very difficult, traumatic memories. It takes a lot of courage to do something like this but I feel like there's already a difference in this dialogue about rejection now. In talking about this, these feelings of inadequacy are no longer a constant part of your identity but something that can be traced back to a particular incident in your life. Hopefully now that is something you can now use to re-frame your perspective on some of these social situations and your own wants, needs & fears when it comes to connection and intimacy. Please do keep this going with this!!

I'm sure if I let my mind continue to process things on a subconscious level I'll no doubt continue to recall numerous other specific events that had and potentially continue to have an effect on me. In fact, two more incidents do come to mind now that I've done as you've suggested and kept going and kept thinking.

Firstly, there was a girl (J) who showed interest in me, I think during the penultimate year of high school (so around 15yo). I remember her being pretty free-spirited, uninterested in the typical school-related cliques, statuses and hierarchies (aka cool kids vs nerds), quite flirtatious, and she was attractive. I don't recall much about the general inter-personal relationship I had with this girl but we perhaps flirted around at school for quite a while. I remember quite liking this girl and feeling very comfortable in her presence, like I could just be myself with her. We didn't share a friendship group or classes but whenever we happened to encounter one another, I got on with her as well as I did with any of my best friends - interactions were incredibly easy. Anyway, towards the end of school year I remember one time when we were all coming out of our year's assembly during one warm, sunny afternoon. The girl came up to me, entwined her fingers between mine and we then walked up through the school as we each headed to our next classes; it was such a lovely experience and I remember this warm feeling of contentedness flow through my body. Nothing much more spectacular than the above happened and before we knew it, the end of the school year arrived and we went on our six-week summer holidays. I'd managed to get this girl's phone number before term ended and we did message briefly. I seem to think during the early stages of the summer holiday she suggested that we meet up, together with a few other people. However, I think I may have made up some excuse not to meet up because I was probably nervous that if I did meet up with her, she'd want to kiss me and as already written at length previously, this scared me because it would have been extremely embarrassing to have to kiss this girl and this girl then discovering that I couldn't kiss properly. After not going to this meet-up I think I messaged not too long after saying that I was sorry for [not meeting up] before and then suggesting that we do get together at some point. No meet-up ever did happen and when the new school year began, I found out that this girl was now going out with a guy who came from, what I and my friends' group called, the weird / nerd kids group. I remember feeling really down and embarrassed by this; here was me, one of the more smart, popular and sporty kids at our school and a girl who had liked me was now going out with one of the weird kids. Of course I never did speak of this to anyone but for my own ego and self-confidence, this was another humiliating, rejection-themed blow. And that was essentially it for my relationship and friendship with this girl. We never really spoke again, and a year or so later when we were in the first year of sixth form (17yo) she was going out with someone else and quickly ended up pregnant. Not that any of this additional detail matters in the slightest but is just something else I remember about this girl.

Sticking with sixth form (17-18yo), I remember becoming good friends with a girl (E) that I'd not really known before because she wasn't really one of the 'cool' kids during high-school and we both hung out in very different circles. I think many of her friends from high-school hadn't continued into sixth form so she didn't have many friends and I only got to know her because we shared free periods. She wasn't a type of person I would normally befriend but by the time sixth form arrived, my overall popularity had dropped by virtue of social status being more about who was dating who and going out at weekends; I lacked in both areas by being less attractive than my peers and because I lived a significant distance from school meaning nights out were a logistically expensive challenge. I don't really remember how my friendship with this girl developed but she was happy to share things with me and was kind of friendly flirty with me rather than flirty flirty. She had an older boyfriend who was from outside of our school and she was extremely open when she spoke about sex: How often, where, when, methods and techniques, and all embarrassing and squeamish moments were described in vivid detail.

Months went by and our friendship developed, although I always felt a little self-conscious around her because whenever her massively-experienced sex life entered general conversation in the common room, I became the 'bashful' friend trying my hardest not to be included in the conversation due to being a virgin; my head would immediately drop and I'd begin furiously 'doing homework'. She would often talk to me about her relationship problems and eventually, she and her boyfriend broke up. She wasn't someone I was desperately in love with or someone that I deeply fancied or really wanted to go out with, but I definitely did fancy her. We remained friends, she continued being friendly flirty with me and I remained ever stoic. If she ever needed to go off the school grounds at lunch time, she would always want me to come along with her and I would always oblige. At one point, another of the other girls who shared my free period did say to me that this girl I was good friends with clearly liked me (romantically) because of how we were together at school quite a lot. I dismissed this comment because at no point did I ever get the feeling that this girl did like me (romantically). By this time though, it's difficult to know how accurate my appreciation of the situation was because my thoughts were clouded by so many things - I lacked confidence with girls, I was self-conscious as I was not only not popular any more, I was still a virgin, and I'd been consuming P for quite some time (at least 2 years, albeit it static P images or short video clips due to internet at the time still being dial-up). Other people would flirt with the girl; I on the other hand remained entirely passive. Suffice it to say, I did nothing and before I knew it, sixth form ended and everyone I'd ever known went their separate ways, including this girl. I think that she'd had a bit of a troubled home life and it wasn't too long - a year max - before this girl was in a relationship, was pregnant, had two children, broke up with her partner and was raising two children on her own. Within another 2-3 years she had repeated the above, had two more relationships, had a further child with each, and ended up with four children. However, immediately after high-school ended I had messaged her a little bit and we met up once, possibly twice, but the gettogether(s) seemed very much a platonic affair. I never did find out if this girl liked me romantically or not but all evidence I was privy to suggested that she didn't.
 
(Part 2 of 2)

This relationship, or the fact that it never developed into something that was romantic, affected me on a much more complex personal, borderline existential, level than most of the other relationships that I've already spoken about. Here was a girl that I was extremely good friends with, a friendship that had started at the age of 17, had developed quickly, had been one of sharing deep(ish) personal information, had been one that had an element of flirtyness to it, but which had never become romantic. She was obviously very promiscuous by the nature of the stories she told and we both became pretty close as our relationship developed, so the question that went round and round in my head was "Why isn't she interested in me?". Of course I am aware that people of the opposite sex can be just friends but to me, things felt like they were tangibly different to 'just friends'. Was she attracted to me romantically, as that other girl had suggested, and it was actually a function of my general lack of confidence around girls combined with being intimidated by this girl's sexual experience that held me back from ever asking her out? But then if she really wasn't attracted to me, why wasn't she attracted to me even after our friendship had developed and become deeper than most? By this time in a relationship the importance of the initial physical attractiveness of a person has waned and you become attracted to the person on a much less superficial basis. So even if this girl wasn't physically attracted to me to begin with and she did just view me as a friend, by virtue of everything else that we had going between us as the weeks and months passed by, how was it that she remained unattracted to me? Was it because I really wasn't that attractive and the deep relationship we had could not overcome this?

I was left with a whole bunch of unanswered questions with this girl and rather than feeling humiliated, I was left feeling very confused and quite depressed that another potential romantic relationship had passed me by, one with seemingly more potential than many others due to our deep friendship. I also experienced feelings of major regret because here was a girl that was very sexually experienced, who could have taught me what to do in the bedroom - trained me, per se - and who would have ended my time as a virgin. Of course I was operating in hypotheticals because this girl really may not have been romantically attracted to me and all the aforementioned sex 'stuff' could have easily just been a teenage boy's fantasy. The passage of time blurs my thoughts around this girl and because our relationship confused the hell out of me, it's difficult to recall what I was really thinking at the time. However, with time comes objectivity so I'm quite confident that all the above is very much the truth and I haven't skewed things to suit my agenda.

Against the current theme of delving into what may or may not have contributed to me having an apparent fear of rejection (F.O.R), these two further childhood experiences undoubtedly moulded my perceptions about relationships and about myself. To use a Star Trek: TNG reference, in the episode Tapestry it is commented that one's life is made up of many threads all weaved together. Pull on one of these threads and things begin to unravel. What would have happened, for example, if I hadn't been emotionally scarred by being forced to kiss in front of a large group of people at the age of 12? Would I have gone on to have had a pretty normal relationship experience (for a 12 year old)? Would I have then jumped at the opportunity to go out with the girl that really liked me when I was c.14yo? Of course all this is another hypothetical and the answer is only available if the multiverse theory is true so realistically, I will never, ever know. However, I'm relatively confident that had my confidence with girls not been completely destroyed when I was 12yo, I'd have had far more normal relationship experiences with girls throughout my teens. Perhaps I wouldn't have found myself so readily drawn to P because I'd have been going out with girls and having real life interactions. Then with greater confidence I wouldn't have dropped down the social 'hierarchy' in sixth form and remained as one of the cool kids. Man, there are so many maybes and what ifs that present themselves, many of which can trace their roots back to that one moment when I was 12yo. Or would things have panned out exactly as they have done with minimal deviation? It all comes back to the old 'chestnut' of nature versus nurture and which one has affected me the most.

Writing in length about these experiences and contemplating their effects on me is most definitely a worthwhile exercise. It helps clear my mind and it helps identify (and simply remember) key moments in my life that had a much greater impact on me that could be appreciated at the time. The question is now, what do I do next? Not that I am capable of actually diagnosing myself but it seems a relatively safe bet that I do suffer from Rejection Sensitivity (or simply a F.O.R) and Avoidant Personality Disorder. How do I start silencing voices in my head that hold me back and stop worrying about what someone's response will be, voices which thereby prevent me from finding out what the person's ACTUAL response is? I've been cooped up for over 18 months now, shielded from the world that is going on around me and I have had very few social interactions. This is in stark contrast to pre-March 2020 where I was very social and outgoing. I think the whole lockdown and no social interaction has had some positives as it has allowed me to calm down - a busy job and lifestyle whipped me into a sort of mental frenzy where I didn't have chance to, or was incapable of, processing emotions and feelings. I'm quite certain that without Covid, I wouldn't have got to a point where I was sharing all this history around past relationships or really digging deep and reflecting upon those the points in my life when serious emotional scarring was incurred. To reiterate my earlier question, what do I do next? How do I move on from these childhood experiences and start reducing this F.O.R that seems to prevent me from being more confident around girls, or, at the very least, appearing that I am more confident around girls? Should I discuss this in person with someone, even if it is just some of the bucket load of things that I have on my mind?

In other news, I went out with two friends on Thursday evening. It was only to two local micropubs, both of which were pretty quiet, but it was just nice to go out and chat with people I don't speak with all the time (aka family and work colleagues). I didn't discuss any of my problems with them because it's been quite a while since I last saw them and I didn't want to bog down the catch-up. Then, on the P-front, after my recent PMO I managed to go 8 days perfectly clean. Over the last few days, however, consumption of mild to moderately stimulating material has reared its head and I think this can be linked to my libido picking up again after a week since the PMO slip. And aside from ongoing frustrations around bodily aches and pains that seem to prevent me from making real progress in the health and fitness area of my life, there's not too much more to report. I'm sure if I think about things more I'll be able to recall further events and situations from my life that have contributed to my F.O.R. But that's for another journal entry as this one has, once more, extended to more that one post so I think I need to give my keyboard a rest for a little while!
 
Top