And he went to his grave a virgin...

It's not my place, or the place of anybody else on this forum to seek to invalidate your feelings. It's how you perceive yourself and to some extent we have to accept that, but if you look at everything you wrote again can you see how catastrophic it all sounds? Would it be unfair to say that you are living to your own labels - labels that are without question pretty self defeating? It sounds like the negative internal dialogue has taken over and left you going through the motions and I do understand how that happens because I've had my own battles with depression.

If we begin to evaluate our lives in the most negative terms and define ourselves by a really awful set of standards we do become complicit in our own downfall as we live out that sense of hopelessness every day. Wrestling back control and thinking better of ourselves is not easy, but if we make that our habit (instead of habitually reducing our life to a meaningless existence) it can, and often does lead to an upward curve. Of course, it doesn't mean life will be without its challenges and struggles, but if we approach these situations in a different way, instead of checking out and resigning ourselves to a bleak future it can boost our self esteem as we begin to overcome what life has dealt us.

I know it all sounds like warm words and the stuff of a self help manual, but it really is true. It's not easy when you have been a rut for a very long time and I don't want it to appear that I'm suggesting otherwise, because I know how incredibly hard it is to fight back against the despondency and reality of being dead broke (financially and emotionally), but it can be done and I'm sure you can find a way out of this. It starts when you believe it.

 

Regrets BMC77 - I'm not going to be able to join the pity party. Don't get me wrong, I used to indulge in negative self-talk with the best of them until I realized I was stupid for invalidating myself. A complete moron. The game is simple - I could choose to be happy by loving myself given my reality of being gay and or choose to be miserable by invalidating myself for not being perfect in straight fantasy land. Eventually I woke up. Got help. Stopped hurting myself with harsh words and self loathing. Depression got better. Came out. No longer need to pretend to be someone who I was not and all the baggage that comes with it. Life is better.

Where do you want to go? Love and accept yourself for who you are? Strive to improve yourself?

Wherever your journey takes you, we are here to help (*hug*)

 

I think it's probably your poor self-image that holds you back more than your perceived short-comings. Being gay complicates matters a bit, just because the dating pool is smaller, but there's plenty of ugly, trashy people with bad personalities who have partners, so I think it's unlikely that even if things are as bad as you think, which I doubt, that is what's holding you back.

FWIW, while it's hard to judge someone's personality based on what they post on the Internet, you seem like a pretty decent fella to me. Maybe look into ways you could either improve the aspects of your life that make you unhappy or find ways to accept them?

Everybody has their low points when it seems like nothing can get better, but most of the time things are a) not as bad as we think and b) can and will get better if we're willing to stop getting in our own way.

Hope things look up for you soon. (*hug*)

 

I have my share of issues which I feel may keep me from being "marketable" however some thing I've found......such horrible self-deprication isn't an attractive quality by any means.

 

Yeah, we are here to help, BMC77. EC has been pretty good to me so far and we gotta pass it on! (&&&)

 

Depression is a bitch. And it's screaming over your "true" self in this post. I struggle with it, and have loads of self-hatred, so I do understand what you are feeling. I just realized this past weekend how self-hatred truly keeps you stuck right where you are. Much like depression, it wants you to sty stuck and miserable. It's like a parasite feeding off the host, draining it of all energy.

It is SO hard, but could you seek professional help? Therapy and possibly medication could help ease it a bit so that you can see past the darkness, into the light.

 

Hey BMC,

I would like to begin with a quote from Albert Ellis:

This may sound counter to the idea that we must love ourselves, but it isn't. The problem with this whole self-esteem business is that it forces us to evaluate ourselves rather that accept ourselves.

Self-evaluation, the global, all-encompassing kind that says negative things like "I'm not good at this" or "I'm not able to do anything" or positive things like "I always pay attention" or "I have so much talent" are in the end illogical and based on trifles that only constitute a small part of the infinitely complicated creatures that we are.

The problem is evaluation itself, which in turn leads to decisions about who and what we are. And when we decide that we are such and such, we have a perverse tendency to behave the way we've decided to be, which, if it is the result of a negative evaluation, will lead to a worsening of our situation.

It sounds ridiculous when you realize that one's entire self-image could be based on some event that, say, happened, once or twice, in the summer of 1982...but that is largely what people who choose to evaluate do; whether it is self-evaluation or the evaluation of others.

Why not try suspending any judgment, positive or negative, of who or what you are? You are NOT what you do, or where you are.

You may say that this discourages self-improvement. Baloney. If a guy who beats his wife and goes to bars ceases doing these nasty things, this does not make him a better human being, but it may make his life more pleasant.

Instead of hoping for true love, or wondering if we are truly loved, why not opt instead to find pleasure in the presence of another? There are several ways to love, not all lead to marriage and happily ever after. These types of love can range from erotic, game-playing, friendship and even (heaven forfend!) pragmatic, with maximum advantages and minimal disadvantages, and finally, altruistic.

To love someone in the mythical sense is to know someone completely...this is impossible (that's why it's a myth). No one can know another completely, hell, no one can know themselves completely! Hence, no one can love another or oneself completely, it will always be partial. That is just something we have to accept, just as we've had to accept our sexual orientation. Free of any judgment or evaluation.

I hope you take this, BMC, not as discounting of your situation. I know it's tough, but what is important is that you find a way to cease evaluating yourself as if all you are is your situation. You are not your situation...There is a lot more there than what you think there is.

 

Hey, we all have our ups and downs. What's great about EC is you always have people to lend you their ear, regardless of how your feeling!

 

Apologies if you misinterpreted my post. As someone who has experienced the effects of negative self-talk and depression myself, I understand all too well the toll negative self-talk can take on a person. I was hoping that by sharing my own journey from negative self-talk to acceptance I might help you see the possibility for change and a path to move forward, that you need to find a way to accept and be happy with where you are in life.

If you are experiencing major/clinical depression, rather than chronic negative self-talk, then you should definitely seek professional help. Major/clinical depression is way too serious to self-treat.

Hopefully you will continue to engage with EC and try to get to a more self-accepting and self-loving place.

HTH

 

You are clearly massively hung up on this issue. If I were you, I would just hook up with someone on a dating app. It doesn't matter if its meaningless or even unpleasant, just do it and get it over with. It will give you confidence to find someone better for the second time.

You need to stop taking yourself so seriously, stop feeling sorry for yourself, chill out, buck up and go for it.

Good luck

 

Perhaps if you were to concentrate on just one aspect of your condition — the poverty — you might see some improvement in your life as a whole. I'm not privy to your economic circumstances, but I'm guessing you don't have a regular job or if you do, that it's part time with few/no benefits. From what I read (I'm retired), the job market in the Puget Sound region is thriving. A job — any job — might help you gain some self-respect, and it would also give you the opportunity to interact with coworkers. In addition, some change in your pocket could buy you bus fare into the city, where wickedness is not hard to find. You might even be able to move here: rents are high, but lots of people are sharing (another opportunity to meet people). Pardon me if I've made too many assumptions, but really, with nearly 3,000 posts under your belt, you haven't told us much about your life, other than that you're poor, friendless, a virgin and depressed. Do you live by yourself? Pay rent? On disability? Have relatives? Are you more than an hour from the city? (I seem to remember you're closer than that.) What are the actual circumstances of your life?

 

Hi BMC,

The "problem" you mention above is a judgment of yourself or your abilities. Let it go, it is not who you are...

 

Have you ever read Roald Dahl's 'The Twits'?

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

Judge yourself the way you judge other people. If you go into a shop and the shop assistant is friendly and kind, but incredibly ugly by societal standards, do you come away thinking how ugly he is? No, because if he's made you smile you go away thinking about that person who is now wrapped in a sort of positive aura. Do you look at your friends and judge them by their looks? No you judge them by how nice, honest, kind, funny etc they are. And what if do you see an absolutely gorgeous guy, who is mean, rude, snobby, and makes you feel like shit? You never think again about how they *look*.

Judge yourself with the same respect and compassion you use for other people. You say you have a crap personality and that's hard to judge without knowing you, but your posts seem articulate, well-expressed, there's a hint of humour. Why wouldn't someone want to get to know you?

I don't know if you have a programme called 'The Undateables' where you are, but it is a documentary about people with some very severe facial disfigurements, burns etc, and follows them finding love. After the first few minutes you don't notice what they look like, you notice who they are inside. And many of them find love.

Sure some really shallow people judge on looks alone, but the vast majority of people don't.

 

One of my ex-girlfriends, when I first met her, one of the first thoughts I had about her was how, for lack of a better word, ugly I thought she was.

I can honestly say, after I actually got to know her, I just quit noticing and it's not that she was such a great person that it made up for, she wasn't, it's just once the new wore off, it wasn't something I really noticed anymore. I guess you could say I became accustomed to her face. I'm not gonna lie and say I ever got to where I found her to be physically "beautiful" or whatever, I just didn't care.

I also find that there's a significant difference between finding someone attractive and thinking they are physically beautiful or handsome or whatever. I think attraction has a lot more to do with just plain how much you like someone and a lot less to do with how much you like the way they look.

 

I remember reading your posts a while back when I was around here last time. You seem to have come to a "phase" I've recently experienced where I actually tried full force, to go "cold turkey" with sexuality. It was just too much sadness emerging from the lack of it... so I tried to, as I called it, "mentally castrate myself"... it didn't go too well. After about 38 days I couldn't keep it up anymore, and even then it caused me a lot of physical pain, and psychological pain as well. Please don't follow me on this road because it's very damaging to your health.
I mean granted I don't know what's next, but I definitely know that depriving yourself of something you can have by default is just going to make things worse. I've been regularly having headaches because I want to share a connection so much. Thankfully university is keeping me busy so I don't have that much time to think about it.

Please, do whatever it takes to feel better because it is sad to see this happening. You need to start collection ideas about what gives you "worth". Look for those things that make you unique, or stand out from the boring masses... many people can't even say "thank you" when you hold the door open for them. But maybe you can! These are the kind of things I'm talking about. You probably have some kind of hobby, or something you enjoy that you are very passionate about. Find others who do the same! Even if it's via the internet. And don't do it with the sole purpose of finding someone, do it because it's great when you got someone to share your passions with like that.
It doesn't have to be that way you know...