Not even under the influence of alcohol? (Think Raj from The Big Bang Theory) And I'm sure you are being a bit hard on yourself when you say you make awful first impressions. What makes you think this? Believe it or not but there was a time when I suffered from social anxiety (in my early teens), and I thought that everyone saw me as weird and stupid. I felt that everything that came out of my mouth sounded stupid, and I thought everyone secretly hated me. Which wasn't the case, but that's how I saw myself. Anyway, I don't suffer from social anxiety anymore and I know I'm a good and likeable person now. I don't really know where I'm going with this but just remember that just because someone has told you that you make awful first impressions, doesn't mean everyone thinks so. And just because you don't connect with some women, doesn't mean you won't connect with all. I believe that there's somebody out there for everyone, and that when the time's right you'll meet someone who completes you. But maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic?
Thanks for the kind words Evil Locks.
First, I don't believe that there's someone out there for everybody. A lot of people end up alone, and a lot of people end up in miserable, unhappy relationships.
As for me, I've done really poorly. I've managed to get close to a few women (none recent), and they were very, very few in number. I then had another problem: I've had moderate erectile dysfunction since age 23. No doctor can do anything for me other than prescribe anti-depressants and order blood tests that come back normal. Right now I'm working hard on losing weight and gaining muscle and eating better, in an effort to reset my body chemistry. It's a long road though ... I was 5'11 and ~245 lbs a year ago lol. I'd like to get my BMI down to 24. It's now ~27.
Social anxiety is a reasonable idea. I think I have some social anxiety but it's moderate honestly. It's an impediment, but not an insurmountable one.
In what way(s)?
All the "wild sexual experiences" can't compare to meeting your true soulmate. Maybe men feel differently.
I've had a lot of women tell me that they thought I was an arrogant a**h** when they first me, but then grew to like me as a person once they got to know me. This seems to only happen with women, not with men, even with women with whom I'm not initiating any romantic overtures, in a purely professional context, etc.
This is fine in a professional or academic context, even if someone hates me at first, that's tough luck, they're going to see me again hundreds of times possibly. On a first date, you get one chance. Women have hundreds of choices for men, if a man doesn't hit a home run on the first date, he's out.
Here's a photo of me from a few months ago, I'm going to pull an Evil Locks and only leave it up for a few hours (lol ;-) ):
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd...._=1467455052_f6909aa65515f1a64c3c3160a3c9c3b9
I was celebrating the completion of a cake-decoration course (I love cooking and baking, I'm taking three more night courses this year and counting). You can see my clothes don't fit because I recently lost weight. But I have this smirk on my face which a lot of people find off-putting. I think it's the smirk, I don't know.
[I brought the cake to work to share among ~30 people because it totalled ~12,000 calories, lol, I didn't put that in the profile]
The other issue is I'm ethnic (parents are North African Jews), and I come from a lower-income background. So when I'm confident in myself on any issue, people take offense since they assume I'm supposed to be inferior. There's an upper-class white woman who works here, she's terribly insecure because her career is a failure, as far as I can tell she takes out all of her ire on me, probably because she believes she's entitled to be better than me, and the fact I'm professionally accomplished and respected by my peers is a deep offense to her, much more so than if a white, 6'3 man was more accomplished, as that's expected.
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We don't have our youth, we have a premature aging disease in my opinion.
I find reading some of the stories in this thread depressing in a way.
I have to ask, and I know this isn't popular or politically correct but:
In this age of tinder and women cynically deciding they'll sleep around with potentially hundreds of 10/10 men, before finally eventually settling down with some "provider" (i.e. one of us poor saps) when they start getting ugly with age- what's the point? What's in it for us men anymore?
Personally, I want children.
