EPTWomen friends: 0
Friends: 0
Any friends: 0
Job: none
Money: enough for next month's rent but that's about it
Fun: sometimes, sometimes quite ok but there's so, so, so much missing
Exercise: fairly consistent, haaard workouts, very fit, 9/10
Diet: 8/10, excellent, safe for occasional sweets
Trajectory: clear sense in general, very unclear specifics
Destination: clear sense in general, somewhat clear but not certain specifics
Overall progress trajectory: very uncertain, the relationships thing appears like an enormously hard-to-approach struggle that's very tricky and elusive for me to resolve
Sense of fulfillment:
* * *
Subjectively, love life, women and friends status is non-negotiably unacceptable and long-term intolerable, a complete waste of life;
reading stories, seeing or hearing or just noticing how people form cool relationships, have all these awesome and fun experiences, live and interact with others frequently, having fun adventures and all that stuff, it feels like something was vacuuming out my internals;
I can't stomach how I'm fucking 29 years old and in this position in life where I have 0 love life, no women, 0 friends, 0 relationships whatsoever, where my youth and all of these wonderful associated experiences were completely missed by me and, despite having changed so much, learned so much, developed so much (especially socially), I'm still in this position;
repeated attempts to solve the relationships status end up in nothing, I consistently fail to take the right action to truly set realistic course in terms of solving that problem;
I can't fucking comprehend how is it that I failed to solve this problem, how is it that somebody like me, who was so insanely hard working, so driven, so fucking enthusiastic about everything, so completely and utterly engaged, so passionate and energetic, someone who's spent so much energy and time and hard, hard, haaaaard efforts on fixing that problem, is still in the position where all the love life, relationships, friendships stuff, life, passes by, like water between the fingers;
I could solve the problem of securing a high end, awesome job.
I could solve the problem of how to actually learn web development from scratch, 0 prior experience, on my own, 0 tutors, 0 bootcamps, nothing except online & free or very cheap stuff/books, to secure that fucking job.
I could solve the problem of how to actually accomplish the above, despite living in a house that had such toxic atmosphere which I hated so fucking very much.
I could solve the problem, before that, of how to study well, how to write a very solid master's thesis, how to prepare and absolutely nail the final exam, to finish my master's degree in economics and university.
I could solve the problem of how to properly strategize, endure and essentially shawshank-redemption my way out of that house, rent something suitable and start living on my own, whilst also working insane hours in the first months of getting the dream job in web dev.
I could solve the problem of living on my own with absolutely no help or mentoring on anything about it or anything related from anybody whatsoever, since I didn't even see how someone would have any problems with it, it was very simple.
I could solve the problem of learning how to get myself out there and talk with people, despite initially feeling very awkward about it due to extreme lack of experience in that area. Over time, I learned how to just relax and how conversations happen naturally. I learned social skills to a really decent degree and saw myself warmly welcomed to social scenarios such as going for a smoke, dinner, bar every now and then, a party every now and then.
I could solve the problem of how to start learning how to talk to girls, whilst working the web dev job; how to go out and take small steps, approach, did over 100 approaches over the course of a month at one point even; until I derailed myself very heavily off from that trajectory due to very poor preparation, naive expectations and insufficient resilience (100 rejections in a row, with 10+ phone numbers that all ended with nothing, I was not prepared to handle that, I increasingly experienced extremes of bewildered self-hatred, self-disgust and hopelessness that went to levels of physical pain).
I could solve the problem of how not to get bogged down by depressive moods here and there and keep going strong in web dev.
Until I couldn't for much longer. Where, after a few months of deteriorating, and ultimately, comically failing performance, I had to quit. Did so on very friendly terms and all was, as usual, so fucking friendly, appreciative and nice because I was, by all means, well-respected in the place I worked at. I was also dying inside. None of it, none of it constituted any deeper non-work relationships.
Sure we'd go to a bar every now and then but I felt close to no one. Most of these people had their own friends. Their wives, their best friends, their own parties, their own whole fucking life. To them it was just extra, oh a nice party here or there, some gym together, go drink some beers every now and then, just some standard socializing.
I also had a huge crush on this pretty girl that worked there first 3-4 months when I got in. It didn't help that I botched it and nothing came out of it. It didn't help that similar thing happened with another awesome women who joined a few months before I left, except I wasn't heartbroken, I was just resigned by then. We were flirting, there was chemistry but I botched it as well. She didn't choose me. She chose another dude who was just so much more comfortable with women and socializing in general, and given all these fucking accumulated failures and utter fucking null and void that was my love life, even despite my efforts and some progress.
The last few months of my job as web developer, there was already quite a lot of apathy and resignation. It was a ridiculous and absurd reality to face. I would finish a giant fucking project. A large set of app features that dealt with payments and multiple currencies, that had to be in an old framework, that had a ton of stuff that was quite beyond my level. That I wasn't sure if I could handle.
When I finally did - instead of enjoyment, happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, joy, I wanted to fucking kill myself. My thoughts were, "awesome, let me walk out of the window to celebrate that, yaaaaaaaaay!!!". Or "great, now that I've worked on something for so long and succeeded, I can share everything about it with the empty fucking room to which I come back after work, awesome! that's just great!!! WOW!!!!!!!" Or "so I succeeded at this giant task and now I don't fucking have one person to tell them about it...wow, isn't that fucking amazing? wow..."
I felt burning alive inside. This all made no sense. Life makes no sense when you have no one and I'm not talking about interactions-deprivation. I'm talking about the lack of meaningful and genuine connections and relationships in your life. You can have some interactions, even daily. They can even be with cool, honest people. That helps to some degree, sure. But ultimately, I felt completely pointless. This was just totally nonsensical.
With experiences like that, I no longer had the burning motivation to do amazingly well at my job. I felt such hatred. Deep, visceral, encompassing self-hatred and disdain. I couldn't understand what the fuck happened. When I've set out on the journey to become web developer, this isn't what I imagined my life would look like after succeeding in that quest.
Nothing to do with web dev itself. It was a cool and awesome job. It really was. The people were cool, too. Having worked 6 months in a warehouse, recently, I can totally appreciate how cool those people are. Even more so, given that I'd recently went out to have some beers with them.
I didn't imagine I would be so alone. Again, nothing to do with web dev. I had no fucking idea it would come to be such an impossible struggle to overcome my complete lack of love life, of meaningful relations, of friends. It seemed to me that if I was able to actually become a web developer, if I was able to learn all this and actually secure a real job and work in this industry, then I'm set. I have a job that's both cool and respectable, I do what I like doing, I earn money, I do something with my life, relationships would happen naturally.
Except they didn't. Not only naturally but then, with great efforts, they still didn't. None did. All that time. None. Zero. Fucking. Zero. No relationships. Work. Empty room. Work. Empty room. Work. Empty room. Add some beer every now and then, sometimes weeks, sometimes months. Work. Empty room. Work. Empty room. Work. Empty room. What the fuck?
Of course, empty room wasn't empty, I just mean I was by myself. It also meant starcraft or league or chess or something that interested me, with cool music, so that helped to soothe the effect a bit. However, obviously, that scenario was absurd.
I could NOT, no-fucking-matter-what-in-the-fucking-fuck would I try or not try, do or not do, consider or not consider, figure out how to solve the problem of complete lack of fulfillment and complete lack whatsoever of love life and any genuine connections and relationships in my life.
This drove me to states that were complete misery. I can't fucking comprehend what in the fucking fuck is fucking wrong with the pathetic piece of fucking worthless shit that is me, that for so long, can't fucking make friends, can't find at least somewhat acceptable forms of loving relations, have some cool social circle and life going on.
It's not that I cannot explain it at all or it's incomprehensible. Pervasively toxic, draining, negative emotional atmosphere at home for 26 years, check (many people have that checkmark, nothing special there). Divorced parent who remained divorced & single for all those 26 years and still is, check. Very heavy and toxic, negative conditioning from the early childhood, from a parent whom I love dearly & am grateful to but who was perpetually alone and in some emotional disarray and chronic unhappiness, check. Repeated draining, toxic, negative interactions and fighting the battles to minimize those over time, even when working full time in web dev, living on my own, with good $, check. Not going out, check. Accustomed and used to an extremely solitary lifestyle, check.
There are more factors and it's not like it doesn't make sense. It's not a riddle that makes no sense. It's just a riddle I'm struggling so fucking hard with and that I've failed to solve for all this time. That's some time. 29 years. That's a lot of years.
Years that passed by and are, like empty slots, not filled with all the experiences, all the loves, all the fun, all the journeys, all the parties, all the adventures, all the companionship, all the sharing, all the belonging, all the relationships, all the sense of community, of belonging, of having people who understand you, who are on your wavelengths, all the petty and non-petty dramas and joys of all of it, that virtually all my peers, have filled them with to the brim - or at least somewhat.
At this point, I don't know what the fuck to do. It's another fucking lonely friday. I'm on my way to 29th no-party New Year's Eve. My last birthday was the shittiest day ever but even more shitty than the ones before. Nobody even knew about it and I didn't tell anyone because it would just be awkward and forced, and fuck that, that's even worse. Just as the year before that. Which was the same as the year before that, and the prior years were exactly like that, too. Same as my 18th birthday. Same as all the fucking birthdays.
To be clear. I don't have a victim mindset about this. No, it's not someone's fault. No, it's not my upbringing. No, it's not this or that happened and that's why. No, it's my fucking fault and I don't mean that as a judgement. The solution to that problem is something that's my responsibility and if I won't solve it, if I don't figure out what I need to figure out and get the help I need, then that's that. Success or failure, the outcome will be mine to bear so there's no one to blame.
It's just that I don't know how to solve it. I don't know how to get the help I need to solve it. I've failed to solve it for 29 years. And it's soul-crushingly depressing at times.
Am I closer to getting on the path of solving it than I was before? Yes. But I don't know how to fucking solve it. Or how to get the kind of help, with the kind of quality and authenticity, that I need. For one, all this time, I have failed to solve that problem. I'm as alone as I was. It seems to take so much time. Two, I don't know what's what, when it comes to this issue. It's a real struggle to identify what's what, it's confusing. Third, I don't know how to set a course that would ensure high chances of solving it in the long term. Fourth, and this big, by this point I honestly feel very heavy with it all. At some point, these giant doors to the reservoir of apathy and resignation opened a bit, and then opened a bit more. Some amount of resigned apathy did flow in. I don't always feel apathetic but it does occur from time to time.
Last few months of my web dev job, I did force myself, with drive, discipline and willpower, to give it my absolute all and restore my job performance and get the job back on track. Then I could decide the next steps. That seemed like a reasonable course of action.
What ended up happening, I would notice myself staring at the code, cursor blinking, and my brain would refuse to work on that. It's as if I was getting the message, "no". "Nope." "You're mistaken, you can stare at this cursor all day, it will not force me to work on this". And I would stare and my brain would not work on this. Not that I was daydreaming or allowing my focus to just slip, no, it was a very weird experience.
It was as if a crane on mental resources pipeline was turned to off and I would find myself struggling with even the most basic things, something I wouldn't struggle much even prior to having ~2 years of commercial experience. So there's that. At this point, I'm feeling huge amounts of resistance to the idea of putting extreme and intense volumes of work to solve issues, where before, it failed. Certainly not for as long as I'm still fucking deprived and devoid of any connection, any real relations. That kind of feels like the most certain kind of a "NO", absolutely not, not even a consideration.
I also detest the idea of someone having pity over that stuff. Call it insecurity, okay. Few things would make you feel inferior or inadequate as effectively as someone pitying your solitude or trying to "oh, poor thing" you. I'm not inferior, I just have a problem that I don't know how to solve. And I want to solve that problem, not agonize or cry about it. It's just that it's a very fucking hard problem for me to solve.
+ Show Spoiler +
You can seek help. I did. Professional help is mostly unreliable unless you're able to find the rightly qualified person. I wish it wasn't. I tried it. I wish it was reliable. Psychologist's job is to be able to find the issue with your way of thinking and perceiving, and help you fix it. Essentially, like a mechanic who could, with all the proper precautions and care to not damage anything in the process, investigate the issue, identify what it really is with sufficient accuracy and precision, and then offer a path of safe tests and fixes that culminate in a lasting solution.
If a car mechanic happens to be sub-par, it's not the end of the world. Well, if you come with a very expensive car, it's a bigger deal then. You wouldn't want to go to any mechanic or even an okay mechanic. They could fuck it up and then what?
Not their fault, it's more a representation of the industry. I don't blame them or the industry, it's just something that's relatively new and needs more time to properly mature.
And I don't blame them but I also will not be fucked by it.
Some people in this industry, quite a few in fact, are like someone who brings a hammer set to examine and fix hardware such as CPU and graphic card. And their way diagnosing problems is more like a set of labelled boxes that say from which side should they swing the hammer. I'm not kidding.
It's a hard job, it requires a ton of proper preparation and characteristics that are often missing.
Either way, I'll still try finding a psychologist, when I'll be able to afford one.
We're here to help.
