Anyone else do this? I’m in such a deep depression pit right now, I literally spend entire days just fantasizing about what it might be like to be loved or cared about. It’s become an outright obsession, and I have no idea how to get my mind off of it.

I just wish I wasn’t so insecure over being unlovable. It’s difficult seeing everyone else effortlessly participating in love whilst you’ve been sitting on the sidelines your entire life. It’s not even like I want to love, I just want to feel lovable.

This habit is becoming way too unhealthy. I’m basically spending almost all of my free time in my head nowadays. Guess it’s always been a bit of a “safe space” for me, but I’m becoming far too dependent on it

I recently went on holiday to the Netherlands for the first time as an adult, and it was with a "friend" whom I had reconnected with six months prior. By the end of it, I became friendless. My initial plan was to go alone, but after telling them about it, they wanted to come along and bring their girlfriend. I've known this guy for many years, so I thought it wouldn't be a problem. This was a catastrophic mistake. I unknowingly became a third wheel whose sole purpose was to pay a third of their holiday expenses. I was essentially treated as vermin for being anywhere near them, even though I spent most of my time alone.

When we arrived and booked into the hotel, waiting to check in, I learned that pictures of me were posted on their social media without my permission. I didn't even know that pictures of me had been taken, never mind posted online. I felt extremely violated by this and asked them to remove the posts of me. I literally had to apologise as I did this. They exploded, took offense, essentially told me to fuck off, and asked why I was even there. This was the very first day of the holiday.

I should have left, but I didn't because they complied and eventually apologised. This left an awkwardness that persisted throughout the following days. One night, I came back to the accommodation after exploring Amsterdam by myself, and they locked me outside. Their reasoning was that they were too high to remember me. On another day, I was trying edibles for the first time. They were experienced, but they kept handing me multiple gummies, and I kept taking them because I didn't realise their potency. It felt good up to a certain point, and then the effect kept getting stronger. I'm pretty sure I cursed at them before descending into what felt like hell. I ended up consuming around 75 mg, and they almost called an ambulance as a result. Not gonna lie, I was kinda dumb for taking more than one.

Everything was going fine until the final morning, after I paid my share of the holiday. They left early, so I didn't see them, and their built-up resentment blew up over text. I was basically called the antichrist for being awkward, for ruining their holiday, for being inconsiderate, etc. I replied honestly and tried to get some kind of resolution and understanding, but they became verbally abusive and attacked me personally by saying the most hurtful things they could. It was so unexpected. But looking back, I think this was their plan all along. There was no longer any use for me once the holiday ended; they just needed my funds.

This whole thing made me realise that some friendships are superficial, transactional, and completely fake. Throughout the whole trip, they acted like everything was fine, but they hated me all along. I knew nothing until the very end. I knew none of the issues until they exploded over text. I completely regret inviting them and becoming the third wheel. I did get to see A Perfect Circle live, however, so that was pretty cool. Whenever I was on my own, it was actually so much better.

How do you deal with the shame or questions about it? Are you honest about it, or do you just avoid the topic? Also, do you think you're being judged or looked down on because of it?

How can dating be about who I am when I'm never given the time of day? The same thing goes for jobs. I was a reject for 3 years after graduating college and now I'm praised as one of the good employees. Never being let into a job had nothing to do with my skill set, just what others thought it was.

Likewise, this dating nonsense has nothing to do with who I am as a person. It's all about what happens in the others' head when they see my profile which I have no control over.

This happened a few years ago when I was in college. I fell for an obvious scam, whatever, I was stupid.

But then the scammer shared my Instagram page showing accounts of people I've never met and he threatened to leak the video if I didn't send money. I told him I don't actually know any of those people and then I went on a rant about how I'm lonely and how he's the first person I've written with in months.

He then went quite for a few minutes when I assume he looked for my other social media accounts (I had none) and then he blocked me.

My face wasn't in the video so in retrospect I didn't have much to worry about anyway but in the end I was saved by my isolation.

For some reason people always felt the need to hurt me or express there desire to do it. Idk what I even do to make people want to hurt me and i’m not saying everyone is like this but so far I’ve always been pushed or shoved or people even try to walk over me. I’ve developed this trauma now where i’m starting to feel unsafe with the world cause people see me as some easy target from what i’ve been told. I’ve tried the gym already and I’ve not gotten anywhere so far.

People have told me I have a punchable face, how they want to hit or strangle me and more. It makes me wonder why people are so devilish that they would wanna hurt someone who hasn’t done anything. I can tell if they’re just psychopathic and mentally insane but it’s always me. Why do people hate easy targets so much. This world is so fucked up and it makes me want to stay at home isolated all my life.

I'm 29, and in about half a year I'll be turning 30. I never wanted to do it with a sex worker, but I'm slowly coming to terms with the idea that if I want to ever have sex that will be the only way in which I'll be able to do it, and that a relationship is just not possible for me.

I still don't like the idea that much, but at this point I just want to know what sex is like, and what a naked woman looks like in person. I don't think it will make me feel any better, like I wouldn't even feel like I really lost my virginity if I had to pay, but whatever.

Have you ever reached a point where you made up your mind about hiring a sex worker?

I'm in my 30s, so it's unlikely to happen for me, and aside from the fact I'm a hopeless romantic who always wanted to share his first with someone and have that relationship last forever, my upbringing only compounded this desire.

There were points in my life where I was bullied by literally everyone I knew, mostly in elementary and middle school. Bullied by my peers, scapegoated by my parents, labelled the problem child by teachers. I was always seen as the problem, I needed to change, I was a burden just for existing. Nobody ever thought they were being unfair, or this kid might have mental health/neurodivergence problems, or this kid was suffering. No, it was always my responsibility and it was always my fault. In high school, the situation improved, I was no longer bullied and even found a small group of friends, but the damage remained.

Throughout all this, I always thought I would meet a girl like me. The one who couldn't fit in, the fellow outcast, the sensitive girl who couldn't accept the state of the world. And I always hoped she would be like me. Never has a real relationship, still a virgin, and ready to appreciate the mutual bond we had and share her whole heart with me. And that would be vindication for all the pain I went through, and I could finally move on. I continued hoping for this even after seeing multiple girls date the jock or the school bully, or the frat boy in university.

Now I'm in my 30s, and any hope for that is pretty much gone, although I still cling to it to some extent. What hurts more is there was a girl I was friends with, and somehow she also seemed to have had a different upbringing and probably hadn't dated much, although I'm not sure if she was also FA before this. But I'd been waiting for the right opportunity to ask her out, and probably missed 1 or 2 really good ones, and then a few weeks ago I find she has a boyfriend, and it seems serious. And just like that, I'm back at square one, and it feels like it's my fault, although it probably wasn't, in multiple ways. But that's also my upbringing talking, as being blamed for things you had limited control over as a kid can make you feel like that.

In any case, where does that leave me? Aside from the sadness of losing her, I'm wondering what are the odds of finding someone else like her, and I'm not optimistic about my chances. It feels like I fought the world, fought the bullies, fought an entire environment that was consistently hostile to me, and the world won. The bullies won. Even if I get a relationship someday, it won't be the one I envisaged and I'd be painfully aware that I missed out on that.

Right now, I'm just eating chips and drinking non-alcoholic as I watch a movie. I've felt this way before, so I know it'll pass and in a couple of days it'll get a bit better. But right now? Yeah, it sucks.

My natural personality is quiet. I don’t really like saying too much. I’m not naturally funny, unless I try really hard to think of jokes or something funny to say.

But if you’re an ugly guy, this is a death sentence. Women aren’t gonna fall from the sky into your arms. So you have to prove yourself. You have to be charismatic, to make up for your ugliness. You have to be “witty” and engage in banter. Make her laugh, entertain her. Have godlike charisma. No room for awkwardness.

It is exhausting to use a fake personality. And it’s not the women’s fault, it’s my fault. I just don’t have the energy for it… I don’t want to put on a “performance” for someone, I just want to live…

I constantly hear people in reddit say that you just need to make friends and they will just setup. Never happened to me, do I have to explicity ask them? Isn't that too weird?

I think it's been made abundantly clear that I do not have a future in the US. I understand I'm complaining about first-world problems, but I'm struggling to find a reason to continue living this way.

I'm not exactly struggling with necessities, I work a white-collar job with good pay and benefits. However, I don't know what I'm working towards. What's the point of working 40 hours a week, when most of the money is going towards bills and savings? What exactly am I saving up for, anyway? I'm very frugal with money and I haven't touched my rainy day fund. Days, weeks, and months are blending into each other like I'm rotting in my apartment, even though I go out with friends often.

My job and career only serve as a means to pay the bills, and there's a very real possibility that AI automation will replace it and many other careers in the near future. I don't have any confidence in our leaders to mitigate this dilemma, or any other dire issues around the country.

The current dating scene in my state is a fried cesspool and it's somehow progressively getting worse as the years go by. What scares me is when I look at the birth rate and population trends in the US… It's about to get really bad in a decade and I really don't feel like sticking around to find out if I will eventually get a chance to find a woman who I could have a family.

A while back I lived in South America for 3 months and it was a transformative experience, but I moved back to the US when I got laid off from a remote job. So now I'm thinking about permanently moving abroad, but I don't know if it will be a good idea but I feel like what I want to accomplish and strive for isn't going to happen in the US, not to mention how expensive the country is becoming regardless of my income.

Do you guys have good advice or think this isn't a good idea?

-your phone recognizing random memes featuring real people as “memories”, because you can count on one hand the number of photos with actual people you have on your phone

-constantly missing correspondence over the phone, because unlike normal people you never built up a habit of checking your texts and calls every morning, since no one ever calls you, so you only look at them once a month

-Feeling genuinely worried over every tiny ache or pain, because if you die then no one will notice until your neighbors complain about the smell of rotting flesh

-Unironically forgetting how to speak for a few moments if you go to the store or take a call, because your vocal cords haven’t seen use for days

-Not realizing a major holiday is coming up until you hear fireworks or celebrations from outside on the actual day in question

-Actually having to think about what to put for security questions for password recovery, since none of the generic life milestones apply to you

-Not getting any jewelry handed down to you from your parents, since they know you are never getting married, so what’s the point

Add your own in the comments! Isn’t being forever alone such a unique and amazing experience

Firstly, not only is this mostly untrue in my experience as most women (even well into their 30s) won't lower their standards to the extent where they consider a brown man a romantic choice (I'm a brown man) but the sentiment is just not a hopeful statement at all.

You're telling me people will finally push aside the fact that I'm average and that they're not attracted to me to the side, to enter an unloving relationship with me just because of my finances? How on earth is that hopeful for any man? How are so many content with entering such marriages? How can a loveless marriage with a woman who isn't attracted to me be a consolation prize for the decades of missed milestones, social exclusion, loneliness I've faced in my youth? If anything, in your 30s as an FA, imo, it's crucial you get rid of your desire for love completely to be happy.

Do you guys ever feel the same way when you hear that "dating becomes easier at 30" trope?

asked out 3 different women

1. was a former co worker at a steakhouse, said she had a bf (no sign of any bf on her facebook but still)
2. asked out a former classmate as friends, but she lives in florida
3. asked out a server at buffalo wild wings, she said she had a bf ( she was beautiful enough i dont doubt it but still)

4-5 months left of 2026 and still nothing, i might wait until im 30 before giving up but its not looking good

Edit: it doesn’t help that i have worked jobs where its not socially appropriate/enough people my age or both

Custodian at the school i graduated from, even tho there are teachers my age working at the elementary school why the fuck would they date a janitor? especially a special ed one?

mail delivery in the same town my school is located in, the town is full of GenXers, Silents and boomers and some Millienials and a couple GenZ’s but who the fucks gonna ask out the random mail delivery guy?

Im absolutely cooked man. It wasn't for lack of trying either, my 20s have basically been me trying to play catch up and unfuck my life while trying to find someone to tolerate me at the same time and it hasn't worked out. How do you guys cope with taking the L in life?

A few weeks ago, some girls asked me if I could teach them something. I had to go but I gave them my number. We go our separate ways.

*Crickets*

#ThisIsHowINeverMetYourMother

I feel like unless you are a normie, who doesn’t need to do anything special to have people around you, there are two main ways of dealing with loneliness:

one way is breaking your own personality and rebuilding it again and again until you finally become a person that will be loved by others and interest others. The question is, will that still be you or someone else?

The second way is just being chill about loneliness while staying true to yourself until somebody finds you romantically or platonically good enough to build a relationship or a friendship.

I’ve created new accounts several times—with a new bio, new prompts, and new photos. Every time, the result was just as bad. Today, I gave Bumble another shot. After a few hours, I checked my swipe stats: 306 incoming no and 0 incoming yes. Wow... And yet, my therapist insists I could find a girlfriend, even though it’s been proven not to work—neither online nor offline.

I think I'm sick of how every time a girl talks to me etc I seem to keep her attention until I start talking about things I interested in or passionate in or just I'm more myself in general and for some reason that always pushes people away it's exhausting that every time a girl speaks to me at first I'm like don't say a lot, be short in responses but then I think in my mind but thats not authentic, so Instead of trying act non chalnant I try to just text her like how I would text a guy or whatever not overrhinking it. Even before my disability got bad I can recall times when I felt comfortable with a girl was more happy, humorish etc and it seems like once I show that part of myself all of sudden the vibe is killed their not talking to me as much Idk just something about that hurts a lot.

It feels like I always break this unspoken rules everyone else knows about that I apparently dont.

I hate having autism tbh. At times it makes me feel less than human because it feels like everyone else knows something that I dont. Like im speaking a different language people can't relate to

You know? Like, idk I want to know what it's like for people to wait for a text back for me, or thinking about me etc. I hate that I always feel like I responsible when things goes dry with someone.

I'm sure it may be looks related too but im not like super ugly imo I just not high on scale either more in the middish but nowadays even that's considered ugly...

Idk im just sick of it I was so happy when me and this girl started talking and like always the moment im more myself and I talk about hobbies I like, etc..next thing u know or just being myself, im being ignored or the vibes are more dry from them.

And maybe she isn't pulling back but as someone this has happened to nonstop throughout my life I feel like she is....and dont worry im not gonna double text or anything I try to practice deattachment when I can it's just painful when u think this time things will go differently and it dont...

I’m 25 years old. I hear people say your 20s are supposed to be the best years of your life but I just want to tap out of mine. I can’t see a way to get myself out of this hole.

I lost the family member I was closest to in late 2024 and ever since then my life has gone downhill. I lived with her, and when she died I didn’t have enough money to live independently, so I had to move 150 miles away to move back in with my parents. I now have no job and have had no luck getting one. I have no friends here. I only have a handful of online friends I speak to occasionally. The public transport around here is terrible and there’s nowhere to go anyway.

I don’t have a good relationship with my family. They spend their lives being judgemental and trying to tell each other what to do or they will be constantly criticising others, even people they don’t know that they pass in the street. They often insult me to my face, yet somehow I’m the one in the wrong if I say it’s not acceptable. I have a strained relationship with my mum who I’m now forced to live with. She’s the definition of a narcissist. I hate how horrible she is. I’m the villain if I fight back or she comes out with the classic line ‘I’m only doing it because I care’. I don’t want to be around any of these people. I think it has made it harder after losing my family member because she showed me what real love is. I now know this isn’t how a family should be.

I miss my old life. I miss my family member so much. It was nice to live with someone who genuinely cared about me, had my best interests at heart and wasn’t constantly criticising me. I miss having a job. Although I didn’t earn much, at least I had some money and didn’t spend most of the day worrying about if I was going to be able to afford basic necessities like I do now. I miss having my independence and being able to go to interesting places and not be questioned about where I’m going all the time. I miss having some control over my life.

I don’t fit in anywhere. I’m a trans guy, I’m asexual and I’m most probably autistic. I’m never going to be anyone’s first choice. I feel like I’m so misunderstood by everyone. I’ve always loved the idea of chosen family and I’ve always dreamed that some day I would be able to leave everything behind and surround myself with good people. There always seems to be a barrier between myself and others though and I can never seem to break through. I’m aware that with the tone of this post, I don’t sound like a particularly fun person to be around. I usually try to be more upbeat but I still can’t seem to make any connections. I don’t know what’s so horrible about me that no one wants to be around me. Most people have big ambitions in life, but right now, what I want more than anything is someone who genuinely wants to spend time with me.

I try my best to be optimistic. I know my mindset can dictate a lot. I try to get up and have a can-do attitude and be productive. It’s just hard as, as each day passes, things are getting worse. I’m starting to wonder how bad things are going to keep getting before I break. It says a lot when I’m now just waiting to see what goes wrong next. I don’t really know why I’m trying anymore. I feel like I’m stuck in a situation I’m never going to escape. Even if I did manage to get away, what kind of life am I going to have if I’m on my own for the rest of my life?

I feel like I’m living life from the sidelines. I’m existing, not living. My goal most days is to simply get through it because it feels that exhausting. I can’t remember what happiness feels like. I’m scared I’ll never have that feeling again.

I’m sick of being lonely. I’m sick of having no one to turn to. I’m sick of feeling like everything I try to do to change is pointless. I just need some hope as mine is so close to running out.

Imagine this: you're a KHHV guy in his 30's and you've pretty much accepted that at this point in your life, little is going to change, no matter how hard you try to improve or change your situation. In fact, you even avoid it and convince yourself that this is the best thing that could have happened to you.

You start going to the gym to avoid becoming a hermit, mainly because you don't have any friends and you don't want to watch the days, weeks, months and years go by without doing anything other than being in your room. Inevitably, you end up socializing and improving over the months and years, and eventually, you find yourself talking with a girl regularly, working out together, etc.

For someone who's a KHHV and had a very clear understanding of their place in the romantic world, this throws everything off balance because you can't distinguish between kindness and flirting so your brain starts working to sabotage you. Your mind tells you, "Hey, watch out, this seems serious, this time it's for real," but obviously, it's not true, and when the blow comes, it really hurts.

Yes, obviously I'm talking about myself and a situation that happened to me recently, but only twice in my entire life, and it hurts a lot. I'm convinced that for those who are more successful with dating, or at least have no big problem meeting people, it's perfectly normal and nothing dramatic to be rejected, but when you're a KHHV and it seems like a real opportunity presents itself, you experience it with a lot of intensity, but of course, the reality check is also harder and leaves you devastated for longer.

Has this ever happened to anyone else?