ME: one of the sets of self lies that I’ve told myself that have been particularly harmful are the ones about my love life. You see, I didn’t think that I got one iota of positive female attention until I was almost eighteen. I got a lot of negative female attention too.
Interestingly, there was one exception when I was fifteen. I was at at an out of state event. I just ran into this girl, she not only started the interaction, but she pushed the interaction to every level that it got to. Which was pretty far for a fifteen year old who had never touched a girl before. She lived too far away to visit, but she wrote me, and clearly wanted further attention from me. It’s very weird, that within a few months I’d pretty much erased this from my memory. As far as my day to day thinking was concerned, it hadn’t happened. That’s self lie #1. I am guessing that I did this because it didn’t fit the established narrative in my head.
After that there was “nothing” until after I switched schools a couple years later. Now, thinking back, there were a number of girls who were VERY interested, and I had a clue. But I Refused to believe it. Why? Because before that, I had some humiliating experiences where one of the popular girls pretended to like me in order to set me up. (Fear of embarrassment here). So I convinced myself that that’s what was going on and I didn’t take the bait. At the same time I agonized over the “fact” that no girl would ever want me.
Then I switched schools sophomore year, and was “faking” being the new me. I made a very close female friend the beginning of junior year. (She was also VERY interested. She told me later. She is still one of my closest friends). I complained to her about not being able to get a girlfriend, She set me up with a friend of hers who (Friend did warn me going in) was, shall we say, less than mentally stable.
She liked me instantly, like almost obsessively. Here’s what really was going on there. She had the same kind of desperate thing going on that I did. However I had learned to fake confidence well enough that she fell for it. Add to that that I had the appearance of a bad boy, and she was a good girl and we were off to the races. She also wasn’t very attractive. She wasn’t ugly, but definitely plain. Maybe a six at best. She let me, well, do the stuff I’d always wanted to do with girls though and she was very eager to please. I was convinced that this was the best I’d ever do since my prior thinking was that I was repulsive. It was odd, because there were multiple other opportunities at this time, and I even took some of them so I’m not sure why I still thought that.
So over two years, I kind of talked myself into thinking that I was deeply in love with her. This is self lie #2. We went to different colleges, and she fell headlong into drug abuse and a bunch of other crap (common in people who just escaped an abusive home) and she left me for a real POS. This devastated me. I was obsessive and mopy for a year and a half.
It was weird, because I was swimming in it during that first year in college. On one of my first days there a flat out hard ten blonde goddess started talking to me on the quad, and we wound up in bed that evening. There were many more. I stuck to two things though. On the surface, I stuck to the notion that girlfriend #1 was the love of my life or something. Underneath that I stuck to the notion that she was the best I’d ever do despite a plethora of evidence that I was far from it. These were both lies that I both told myself and believed. They were complete BS too. I wasn’t really in love with girlfriend #1 and I’m tall, muscular, good looking and smart, which made me a real magnet in my college years without much effort on my part (also might have been a DMSI like energy component too). This was despite really having no skills or game. Now, I could have done much better if I had seen the self lies for what they were and moved on. The consequences weren’t just not getting laid as much as I could either. I neglected class, and was on academic probation at the end of the first year. It also might have prevented me from having a real healthy relationship with someone who is actually worthy of me. (Not saying the wife isn’t, but she came along later and were still getting to healthy)
Then, the next year I was approached by a girl in the computer lab. She became girlfriend #2. She was cuter, but still well below a ten, and had an annoying childlike personality (maybe amusing and endearing in small doses) that SHOULD have really put me off. I did the same bloody thing though. I convinced myself that I was in love with her for absolutely no other reason than she would have me. This was due to the same fear, which was probably mostly subconscious at this point. That I was so undesirable that I had to take what I could get and hold on because it was likely to be my only chance. She was a little more savvy in a way. At least she recognized that as a reasonably attractive young woman, a lot of guys wanted to sleep with her, so she had some control. She played all kinds of power games which I didn’t recognize at the time. Generally she treated me in ways that I should never have allowed myself to be treated. She left me for some guy who she’d had an on.again off again thing with for years. I repeated the cycle. Spent the next couple of years miserable. This time I finished flunking out of school, moved home for a year.
Then recognizing that I had some problems, I decided to go back to school out of state to “get away from it all.”. That didn’t go well, because I met girlfriend #3 almost as soon as I got there. She was pretty but overweight, and a decent person who had some issues. The weird thing is that I didn’t lie to myself at first this time. She was cute, fun to be around, and I thought id have a light, fun relationship with her. Then after a couple of weeks she pulled away. Then something really weird happened. The same feelings that I had after both of my prior relationships came crashing back in. At higher volume. It was really weird, but what I’m sure happened was that her leaving me confirmed the old fear that I was undesirable which brought up the desperation and sadness. My conscious mind didn’t really understand that, so I made up a reason I was feeling like that that made sense. That was of course that she was the love of my life and all that rot. It didn’t have anything to do with her at all. I was lying to myself for more than a decade. There were multiple opportunities that year and after, some with real high quality women, and I passed them up because I was afraid I was disgusting and telling myself that I was in love with someone who I had only mildly liked. CRAP! Why did it take me until now to see that?
After that, I had a brief relationship with this girl who I’d met through girlfriend #2 She’d been obsessed with me for years, so I gave it a chance. She moved out from my home state, but I never really fell for her. She turned out to be a horrible person, and I was still stuck on the last one, so I ended that quickly.
Then I met my wife. If any of you wondered why I put up with the way she treated me for years, that’s why. I was afraid that this is all I’ll ever get. That’s despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Now, she is working on herself with the help of subs, she’s on meds, so I’m not ending it. But I recently demanded that she treat me better, and told her I was out the door if she didn’t. Things are getting better.
Anyway, there it is, a back trace of how one fear and the self lies that sprung from it harmed one aspect of my life.
Thinking that I am unattractive/repulsive lead to me thinking/fearing that no woman will ever want me which lead to me lying to myself and saying that I was in love with every girl who showed me any interest which lead to me freaking out when they left which lead me to accept poor treatment from women and miss so many opportunities that it isn’t even funny.
Odd thing is that I had a whole lot of hookups and FWB relationships throughout this whole thing. That should have given me a clue. Also, I had high quality women really interested too. The reason that I didn’t let anything happen there was that I couldn’t conceive of much above the bottom of the barrel being interested in me.
This all cost me a college education paid for by parents, many opportunities for relationships that could have been really good, many more hookup opportunities than I took advantage of, years of unnecessary emotional pain, and a good chunk of self worth and confidence. And it was all a bloody lie that I TOLD MYSELF and kept perpetuating for most of my life. Shannon is right, now that I’ve laid it all out, it’s smoke. I’ve been an attractive, desirable guy all along.
Now to get to what’s holding me back with money.
EDIT: Every time I did hook up with a woman who I would have considered out of my league, she lead the interaction from start to finish.
Interestingly, there was one exception when I was fifteen. I was at at an out of state event. I just ran into this girl, she not only started the interaction, but she pushed the interaction to every level that it got to. Which was pretty far for a fifteen year old who had never touched a girl before. She lived too far away to visit, but she wrote me, and clearly wanted further attention from me. It’s very weird, that within a few months I’d pretty much erased this from my memory. As far as my day to day thinking was concerned, it hadn’t happened. That’s self lie #1. I am guessing that I did this because it didn’t fit the established narrative in my head.
After that there was “nothing” until after I switched schools a couple years later. Now, thinking back, there were a number of girls who were VERY interested, and I had a clue. But I Refused to believe it. Why? Because before that, I had some humiliating experiences where one of the popular girls pretended to like me in order to set me up. (Fear of embarrassment here). So I convinced myself that that’s what was going on and I didn’t take the bait. At the same time I agonized over the “fact” that no girl would ever want me.
Then I switched schools sophomore year, and was “faking” being the new me. I made a very close female friend the beginning of junior year. (She was also VERY interested. She told me later. She is still one of my closest friends). I complained to her about not being able to get a girlfriend, She set me up with a friend of hers who (Friend did warn me going in) was, shall we say, less than mentally stable.
She liked me instantly, like almost obsessively. Here’s what really was going on there. She had the same kind of desperate thing going on that I did. However I had learned to fake confidence well enough that she fell for it. Add to that that I had the appearance of a bad boy, and she was a good girl and we were off to the races. She also wasn’t very attractive. She wasn’t ugly, but definitely plain. Maybe a six at best. She let me, well, do the stuff I’d always wanted to do with girls though and she was very eager to please. I was convinced that this was the best I’d ever do since my prior thinking was that I was repulsive. It was odd, because there were multiple other opportunities at this time, and I even took some of them so I’m not sure why I still thought that.
So over two years, I kind of talked myself into thinking that I was deeply in love with her. This is self lie #2. We went to different colleges, and she fell headlong into drug abuse and a bunch of other crap (common in people who just escaped an abusive home) and she left me for a real POS. This devastated me. I was obsessive and mopy for a year and a half.
It was weird, because I was swimming in it during that first year in college. On one of my first days there a flat out hard ten blonde goddess started talking to me on the quad, and we wound up in bed that evening. There were many more. I stuck to two things though. On the surface, I stuck to the notion that girlfriend #1 was the love of my life or something. Underneath that I stuck to the notion that she was the best I’d ever do despite a plethora of evidence that I was far from it. These were both lies that I both told myself and believed. They were complete BS too. I wasn’t really in love with girlfriend #1 and I’m tall, muscular, good looking and smart, which made me a real magnet in my college years without much effort on my part (also might have been a DMSI like energy component too). This was despite really having no skills or game. Now, I could have done much better if I had seen the self lies for what they were and moved on. The consequences weren’t just not getting laid as much as I could either. I neglected class, and was on academic probation at the end of the first year. It also might have prevented me from having a real healthy relationship with someone who is actually worthy of me. (Not saying the wife isn’t, but she came along later and were still getting to healthy)
Then, the next year I was approached by a girl in the computer lab. She became girlfriend #2. She was cuter, but still well below a ten, and had an annoying childlike personality (maybe amusing and endearing in small doses) that SHOULD have really put me off. I did the same bloody thing though. I convinced myself that I was in love with her for absolutely no other reason than she would have me. This was due to the same fear, which was probably mostly subconscious at this point. That I was so undesirable that I had to take what I could get and hold on because it was likely to be my only chance. She was a little more savvy in a way. At least she recognized that as a reasonably attractive young woman, a lot of guys wanted to sleep with her, so she had some control. She played all kinds of power games which I didn’t recognize at the time. Generally she treated me in ways that I should never have allowed myself to be treated. She left me for some guy who she’d had an on.again off again thing with for years. I repeated the cycle. Spent the next couple of years miserable. This time I finished flunking out of school, moved home for a year.
Then recognizing that I had some problems, I decided to go back to school out of state to “get away from it all.”. That didn’t go well, because I met girlfriend #3 almost as soon as I got there. She was pretty but overweight, and a decent person who had some issues. The weird thing is that I didn’t lie to myself at first this time. She was cute, fun to be around, and I thought id have a light, fun relationship with her. Then after a couple of weeks she pulled away. Then something really weird happened. The same feelings that I had after both of my prior relationships came crashing back in. At higher volume. It was really weird, but what I’m sure happened was that her leaving me confirmed the old fear that I was undesirable which brought up the desperation and sadness. My conscious mind didn’t really understand that, so I made up a reason I was feeling like that that made sense. That was of course that she was the love of my life and all that rot. It didn’t have anything to do with her at all. I was lying to myself for more than a decade. There were multiple opportunities that year and after, some with real high quality women, and I passed them up because I was afraid I was disgusting and telling myself that I was in love with someone who I had only mildly liked. CRAP! Why did it take me until now to see that?
After that, I had a brief relationship with this girl who I’d met through girlfriend #2 She’d been obsessed with me for years, so I gave it a chance. She moved out from my home state, but I never really fell for her. She turned out to be a horrible person, and I was still stuck on the last one, so I ended that quickly.
Then I met my wife. If any of you wondered why I put up with the way she treated me for years, that’s why. I was afraid that this is all I’ll ever get. That’s despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Now, she is working on herself with the help of subs, she’s on meds, so I’m not ending it. But I recently demanded that she treat me better, and told her I was out the door if she didn’t. Things are getting better.
Anyway, there it is, a back trace of how one fear and the self lies that sprung from it harmed one aspect of my life.
Thinking that I am unattractive/repulsive lead to me thinking/fearing that no woman will ever want me which lead to me lying to myself and saying that I was in love with every girl who showed me any interest which lead to me freaking out when they left which lead me to accept poor treatment from women and miss so many opportunities that it isn’t even funny.
Odd thing is that I had a whole lot of hookups and FWB relationships throughout this whole thing. That should have given me a clue. Also, I had high quality women really interested too. The reason that I didn’t let anything happen there was that I couldn’t conceive of much above the bottom of the barrel being interested in me.
This all cost me a college education paid for by parents, many opportunities for relationships that could have been really good, many more hookup opportunities than I took advantage of, years of unnecessary emotional pain, and a good chunk of self worth and confidence. And it was all a bloody lie that I TOLD MYSELF and kept perpetuating for most of my life. Shannon is right, now that I’ve laid it all out, it’s smoke. I’ve been an attractive, desirable guy all along.
Now to get to what’s holding me back with money.
EDIT: Every time I did hook up with a woman who I would have considered out of my league, she lead the interaction from start to finish.
