I deserve to punish myself

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For my failure as a human being to connect with any woman romantically. So here's a particularly humilating exchange I'd like to throw out to show how pathetic I am. Hopefully some of you my learn from my loserness. God, I hadn't read this email since I sent it two years ago, and now it reads like what it is: a blabbering, over long note by a loser. Call her Sarah.

"Sarah,"

Thanks for the kind words. You really saved my day. I ran a half marathon this morning, and it was THE WORST RACE EVER. At mile seven, I turned this corner to begin heading back to the start, and get hit by this headwind like I've never felt before. A constant, driving wind without relief. And it was like this for three miles straight. Worse still, it dropped the temp ten degrees from forty and since I had opted to race in shorts, my legs tightened up pretty bad. I all but staggered across the finish line in my worst time ever. I'm still wiped out from it. But I'm happy again, now that I know you like your gift.

I feel I need to get something out I've been wanting to for a while now. Throughout school, my work was the thing, and dating took a backseat. I don't know much about it, and I can be pretty clueless. I look for hints, and sometimes I miss them, while other times I see ones that aren't there. And I tend to be so reticent that my own feelings don't come across, or get misunderstood as aloof or disinterested. So please understand if what I say is really upfront.

I like you. I really like you. I've liked you for a long time, but things always seemed to come up. In high school of course you were with Chase. I considered you both great friends, and I wouldn't have dared to try and interfere. And after that we were always in different places: you in KC and Atlanta and Africa, and me in Missouri and Illinois. But now you're back in KC, and as for me, I'll be done in a few more months and there's a production company in the city that seems interested in bringing me on board. So it looks like I could be back as well, and for a good while. And meeting you over lunch was such fun! You seemed to enjoy it as well, and it stirred those old feelings in me again.

You've got such great qualities. You're dedicated to your work and have ambition. You're confident and worldly and it's fun to hear about all you've done the past several years. You take care of yourself, and strive for improvement and to expand your horizons. These are so rare to find in anyone these days.

I'm not sure how you feel. You're always such a sunny and cheerful person that maybe I misunderstood. But I felt like I needed to say it all the same. I've got a few regrets in my life, and nearly all are of missed opportunities, thoughts of what might-have-been if I'd only been a bit more intrepid. Better to have tried and failed, than to have played it safe, and wondered if there could have been more. You know what I mean?

Brian


Here is what she wrote back. She was so kind, you can tell how pathetic I am, that she couldn't help but pity a loser like me:

Brain [she misspelled my name however],

Your words were thoughtful, but we are not at the same place. I don't want to lead you on so I have to be forward and tell you I am not interested.

You are a wonderful a person with lots to offer the world and there is someone out there waiting for you. I am sorry but it is not me.

Best of luck to you Brian.

"Sarah"


God I'm a stupid, stupid, loser, LOSER!!

I feel better though getting this out. Thank god I have this forum to say how I feel about myself, or I don't know what I'd do.

Sorry to respond to your posts like I'm stalking you or something but...

STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP!

You wrote a good letter. You stated your position well. You took a risk and it didn't work out as well as you might have liked, but there is nothing to be ashamed of here. I would think she could only have respect for you based on that letter.

I have done far worse things and made a far bigger fool of myself than you have in this letter.

You know what pathetic is? It's never taking a risk. Keep taking the risks. It's better to reach the end of your life and be able to say "I tried" than to die knowing you didn't make an effort. Life isn't easy, but as you make progress in life, it can get easier.

I'm sure this is painful, but at least you know beyond any doubt how things stand and can move on now. She did the right thing in telling you the truth. And try not to read into her misspelling your name--typos are so easy to make on a computer, especially when you are typing quickly.

It was a well written letter, jagatai said everything I would have said.

I will say that you really don't deserve to beat yourself up, you took a chance and it didn't go to plan. When people take reasonable chances, they have the possibility to lead happier lives.

You have made me think of a similar thing I once did. At school when I was about 15 I sent a valentines day type poem anonymously by email to a boy I really liked. Im not sure now that I even sent it near valentines day. Anyway he showed his friends and they discussed it and I think I gave out too many clues and they realised it was me. The boy was not too bothered about it or me but when his friends found out it was me they would stand a few metres away and talk about how sad the emails were and look at me and laugh. I can still picture their faces 10 years on and although they will have probably forgotten it I if I saw them again I would still remember how embarrassed I was.
What Im trying to say is that you came out of your situation quite well she didnt try to embarrass you or lead you on. We need more people to be like sarah.

Still, I put myself in her position, and try to imagine what she thought and felt, and what I imagine is she felt a mix of pity and repulsion that a sorry creature like me ever thought he had a shot with her.

I know that it's hard when when a person gets into a negative self view cycle, I can see that you're currently in a negative self view cycle now.

When I get into a negative self view cycle, I feel like I can't do anything right. Is this where you are at this time?

I really doubt that. I've been on both sides of this dynamic in the past. I never wrote a letter but about 3 times (or was it 4?) I gave a similar speech to guys I had a crush on. In one lamentable case, the guy was actually a housemate and there was still most of a year left on the lease for us to live together (platonically) after I made my Big Speech and he had to give me the exact same aplogy you got except in person and then we still lived together and when he got a girlfriend I could hear them in their room. Ow! Ow! Ow! So I understand how it feels to put your heart out there only to have it politely handed back to you.

But I've also been the one politely declining the offer and so have my friends and we've compared notes because, as hard as it is to be the one who attempts this only to be declined, it's also hard to be the one declining. There is some pity, yes, but not repulsion at a "sorry creature who ever thought he had a shot". It's more like pity at having to hurt somebody when you really don't want to hurt them but you aren't in love with them and you have suddenly been made aware that this very fact of not having fallen in love with somebody means that you have therefore hurt them. That's where the pity comes in. But repulsion? No. It's not as though people are binary and either fall in love with or are repulsed by whoever they come in contact with. Mostly the feeling is a genial goodwill towards a person who is likeable enough but who they are not in love with.

I never thought my housemate was repulsed by me after he declined my declaration of love. It was just awkward.

Jagatai is right. There is really nothing wrong and loser-ly in the exchange that happened between you and her. You made a declaration. She politely declined because she was not in love with you. Most of the people in the world are not in love with me, including the few I made declarations to. Most people in the world won't fall in love with you. I get the feeling sometimes reading posts that people think falling in love is a natural default and when it doesn't happen, something has gone wrong: either "I am a loser or she would have fallen in love with me" or "she is a loser because she didn't fall in love with me". Both of these positions are incorrect. The actuality is that most people don't fall in love with each other. There is a fair bit of one-sided attempts before any two people connect. You aren't a loser. She isn't a loser. There are no losers here. There are just two people who didn't connect.

Jagatai is right. It's brave to take this risk and very un-loser-ly. Just because a girl doesn't fall in love with you doesn't make you a loser. Is every girl that you didn't fall in love with also a loser because you didn't fall in love with them? Of course not. It's just two people who didn't connect.

Doing this and having it not work is very common. Why do people still do it? Because now and then the person they declare to has actually fallen in love with them too and they didn't know it. This does happen. But it certainly doesn't happen every time. It didn't to me, or I'd be married to the guy I crushed on in highschool (and I'm not) or I'd be married to my former housemate (and I'm not) or a couple others.

So you keep on doing and try to look at these things not as evidence of loser-ness (which they aren't, everybody does this) but rather as risks taken. There is no shame in not having a risky endeavor pan out. And sometimes these things do work out. But it has to be the right person. And trial and error is litreally the only way to find that out. It's painful but it's the only way. But hoepfully one piece of pain you can put away is thinking you did something wrong because this risk you took didn't work out. You did nothing wrong. She's just not the right person for you. No shame in that.

Why can't I just forget about all these women, dozens of them? And it's not like I expected any of them to be THE ONE. And nor were they out of my league (What does that even mean?). They were all people I knew, or was at least acquainted with. They were people who I respected, who were intelligent and were ones I wanted to know better. That's all. I just want to have a relationship with someone.

I get so goddamn lonely doing my film work, and there is no one to talk to about it. I just wish I could find someone who cared to listen, who could offer moral support, and who I could support in their goals. Someone who would WANT to hang out with me, who'd call and say, "Hey, let's hang out tonight."

I'm so desperate to find someone, because I'm losing my male friends left and right to engagements, marriage, children. And I'm afraid I'll be regarded as gay because I don't have a girlfriend, and because I only have guy friends. And that'll make finding a girl all the harder.

I see my friends, and people I don't know even who have girlfriends, and they're happy and they enjoy being with each other and I HATE them for it. When's it gonna be my turn? They date only one or two people, and find The One. I can't even get a date.

I can't help but feel that the problem is me, me, me. I know people say, don't be desperate, be confident. I try. I put on this mask, where I smile and act contented, but it's a damn lie, because I'm so desperate for someone to want me.

And that's what makes these rejections so hard. They don't even need to date me to know I'm not for them, that what I have to offer they don't want. I wonder if ANYONE would want what I have? What will it take? It may be years, or decades before I make a film that matters a damn. It may never happen. I may have to scrape by my whole life, because for most, my field is a hard scrabble existence. I don't have good looks, and it so hard to be charismatic and joking and all the things women like, because I'm not that. I'm quiet, and live a quiet life, but does that mean I can't share it with someone? What if who I am is not someone anyone will want? What if I never am successful? What if I'm a loser my whole life, and no one will ever want to be with me?

Christ, I'd sell my soul for a failed relationship. At least I'd know i were capable of being in a relationship, and i could build on that experience. I fear having never had a relationship, it will only get harder and harder to get in one, and when women find out I've never been in a relationship they will regard me as a damaged goods loser, and they'll move on.

26 and my life feels over already.

You need some sort of part time job that isn't isolated. I've said this already and you said you didn't need it. You can't want to meet people badly enough.

Brian, I hear you.

I have failed to connect with any woman romantically and I'll be 29 this year. I did try with a girl from work last year, I really did, but she only sees me as a friend.

I will probably end up a 30 year old kissless virgin, and all due to my awkwardness, Aspieness, and insecurity.

You are not alone at all. All around me I see people pairing up and getting married. They move on with their lives, and I'm just left behind in the dirt. Still on the starting grid.

Sorry to use you as an example. But this is why I insist I can not let the girl I fell for know how I feel about her.

It is a self-defeating view, but hits close to home for too many of us (myself included) to be disregarded because circumstance is KING and we have special circumstances to navigate around that normal people don't.

I've heard that some aspies would trade their shortcomings for a terminal disease and a greatly reduced life-span. I am in that boat. To be normal for one month, make great relationships with good male friends who enrich my life, get good with my family who think I had a bad acid trip that lasted for a few years (aka ret*d), long enough for me to have a week of just hitting on girls for fun, a week of sleeping with any and every girl I can, a week to meet the girl of my dreams and a week to spend it with her, to better my relationships with my coworkers, and apply for jobs in fields that I love like being a salesman at nieman marcus or a lead in product development for some fashion retailer - would be my dream. I'm Brazilian in that regard that one moment of greatness can make up for a lifetime of "barely good" or "good enough". I've seen the others enjoy the richness of the "FULL" human experience and feel robbed being sidelined by a condition I can't help.

Even romancing normalcy is masturbatory because its not a reality that I'll ever live. It hurts but thank you for sharing. I don't know the answer but I've seen my life story posted on these forums a few too many times, and while painful, I take an ounce of solace knowing that I'm not the only person going through this.

Brian, you are a f*****g time bomb. Get help, man.

Last edited by RICKY5 on 01 May 2011, 1:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Get an escort and be done with it.

Has it occurred to you that some men want more than to stick their penis in another person?