I Feel Stuck While Life Passes Me By!

Hi Doc,

This might be outside your scope, but I’m going to give it a try and reach out. Lately, I’ve been really struggling, to the point where I’ve had some dark, depressive thoughts. My life has been a tough journey, and right now, I’m really wondering if there’s any light ahead. It feels like it’s just too dark right now.

I grew up in a very difficult environment, marked by emotional neglect and bullying. Ever since, I’ve been trying to find my way, but I’ve often ended up in toxic social circles and had bad experiences in work. It’s only in my 30s that I’ve started trying to heal, but it’s moving so slowly, especially since I’m still stuck in the same environment where a lot of the pain started.

I desperately want to move forward with my life, but the financial strain and lack of job security are holding me back. The issues with work were never my fault – I just had a habit of choosing bad employers, and it involved some battles (which I ultimately won). On top of that, I’m in an area where there’s not much for me to do, and people my age are nowhere to be found. Everything interesting or fulfilling is far away, so it feels very isolating.

Because of all this, I don’t have any real friends. People generally say nice things about me, and I can tell they like me, but I also notice I’m often kept at a distance. While others are chatting in group chats or making plans, I’m usually on the outside looking in. For instance, I overhear people at work talking about their most recent outings together, and I’m sat there wondering why I was never included. It feels nearly impossible to form deeper connections. I used to go to one meetup where I was a regular, usually being the one who would try to arrange other get-togethers, but I stopped attending a few months ago, and it feels like my absence hasn’t been noticed.

On top of that, I haven’t dated. Honestly, I wouldn’t even know where to start even if I were in a better place mentally. I know social media and public life aren’t always an accurate reflection of reality, but seeing couples and attractive women often leaves me feeling envious. I realize you’ve mentioned FOMO before, but I can’t help feeling like I missed out on my twenties, and now, it seems like my thirties will be a repeat of the same loneliness.

So here I am, depressed and alone, occasionally hugging a pillow and bawling my eyes out. It feels like I’ve regressed to an angry teenage version of myself. I honestly don’t believe I could ever be loved, either platonically or romantically.

I get it though – anyone who’s endured trauma is going to come out of it scarred in some way, and it’s a miracle I’ve made it this far without completely breaking down. The fact that all these emotions are finally coming up, piece by piece, is probably a good sign that healing is happening, but it’s still a painful process, especially when I’m isolated and stuck in an environment that feels suffocating. Plus, dealing with aphantasia makes a lot of the therapeutic work, like “comforting my inner child,” feel impossible. I’m lucky to have a good therapist helping me, but I can’t shake the feeling that even she might be losing patience with me.

What frustrates me most is that deep down, I know I’m a great person. I’m empathetic, kind, and deserving of love and happiness. I’m adventurous, playful, smart, and capable of doing amazing things. In some alternate reality, I’d be the guy who has a great circle of friends and is the one everyone loves. I have the character, the looks… I just don’t know how to get there from here.

Up Against The Glass

Before I get to the meat of your question, UATG – have you talked to your therapist about how often these feelings are coming up, or that some of the advice they give is harder to put into practice because you have aphantasia? You are allowed to say “hey, I don’t know if this is working the way it should be”, along with “I’m experiencing a lot of X, and I don’t know if that’s normal or not but it’s been distressing to me”.

But one of the things that leapt out of your letter at me seemed pretty important: you make a lot of assumptions about how other people feel based on nothing other than your self-perception, and you treat it as though this were 100% fact. Both “it feels like my absence hasn’t been noticed” and “I can’t shake the feeling that even she might be losing patience with me” are statements that go more to how you feel about yourself rather than how other people feel. It’s a statement that you can’t imagine that other people care about you, not that they don’t, and treating that as fact quickly becomes a way of punching yourself in the nuts for no reason other than you continue to exist as yourself.

I think that is something you should be digging into, because it ties into something I say over and over again: it’s very hard to accept love from others when you don’t love yourself. You don’t believe it’s possible for other people to love you or to accept it from others, simply because you don’t believe you’re deserving of it or have qualities that people would value.

This is why I kinda question whether you actually believe what you say at the end about having those great qualities and being deserving of love. I’m not saying that you don’t and that you aren’t; I’m saying that I hear you say them but I don’t know if you mean it. It’s easy to say the words, but it’s a lot harder to say them with the conviction that they’re true. And if that’s the case… well, honestly, that’s a place for you to start: to say it until you make it come true.

This is part of why I tell people that one of the best things they can do for themselves is to fake it until they make it. This isn’t about putting up a false front or pretending to be something other than what you are, it’s about teaching yourself how to be the person you want to be – which includes loving yourself in the way you deserve to be loved. Humans are bad at lying – our brains don’t like the dichotomy between what we say and the reality around us. So part of how they deal with that cognitive dissonance is to start accepting the lie. This is one of the reasons why, for example, actors who play lovers often end up in relationships or sleeping together; going through the motions of being in love convinces their brains that hey maybe this is love.

Well, you can do the same thing for your life. Treating yourself as though not only are you deserving of love but that you are loved helps train your brain to respond accordingly and to believe it. And what’s especially nice about doing this for yourself is that, well, it works.

To tie this to another piece of advice I give regularly to people in situations like yours, if you go into situations where you assume that you’re already friends with people, you’ll find that yes, they do in fact like you and want to be friends. I know it sounds like woo-woo-manifesting nonsense, but it’s actually a lot simpler and more grounded: people like you because you’re acting like you like them. When you assume that you’re already friends with the people you’re meeting, your body language is more open and inviting, you show more interpersonal warmth and interest and you prime your brain to interpret their actions and behaviors in a more positive and welcoming light. This has the overall effect of creating a sort of feedback loop; you give off friendly and welcoming vibes, people respond to those vibes and return them and so you feel valued and appreciated and thus give off more friendly and welcoming vibes.

Put that together with behaving and treating yourself as though you were already loved and appreciated and you create a self-fulfilling prophecy: you find that yes, people do love and appreciate you, because you believed it first. After all, if you’re going to see evidence that confirms what you already believe, you may as well believe in things that help you. And trust me, you can do this. If you believed in Santa Claus for years with minimal evidence, you can believe in yourself too.

This is going to be important because, honestly, I suspect that it’s not that your coworkers are holding you at arm’s length, you are. When you don’t feel like people like you or that you’re not likeable, you’re more likely to keep your distance, to not get as involved and not make as strong a connection as you might otherwise. It feels like you’re being excluded, but it’s more that you’re not making an effort to include yourself because you have already assumed that they don’t like you and your presence would be an intrusion. And – in the inverse to assuming that people like you – when you feel that way, your brain interprets everything they say and do accordingly. You’re going to read hesitancy and rejection into every word, tone and gesture, you’re not going to make the same effort because you think you’ve been rejected in advance and when you do get a “no, thank you”, you’re going to accept it as being because you’re unwanted and be less inclined to try again… even if the real reason was “we’d like to, but we’re just busy.”

And look, I get it. It’s really easy to interpret radio silence as being a lack of interest, but the truth of the matter is that these days people in general are really bad about reaching out, even if you’re close. Even I deal with this on occasion; I’ve got friends I know like me and like to hear from me, but I worry that I’m bothering them if I message them first. I also have friends and acquaintances who feel the same way about me, even though I’m thrilled to hear from them. So sometimes, you just have to be willing to be the one who does most of the reaching out, until an equilibrium can be reached. It can be frustrating, sure, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t like you or don’t want to hear from you; it just means that everyone’s caught up in their own bullshit and anxieties and that can make it hard to realize how it seems to others when we’re the ones who’re responding rather than initiating.

So, I think part of your fake-it-till-you-make-it, assume-you’re-friends-already practice should involve reconnecting with your meetup group, making a point of talking to your co-workers and simply treating them as though you are friends instead of worrying about if you are. This includes recognizing that it can take time before you’re at the “getting together outside of $EVENT” stage of things. A lot of the time, this is a matter of just conversations and time spent at the event – whether at work or the meetup, as you get to know each other and move through the stages of “stranger” to “acquaintance” to “friends”. It really is a matter of time spent, more than any other factor.

Just as importantly, you need to recognize and understand how goddamn difficult it can be to make plans as you get older. One of the jokes in my social circles is that we have to plan lunches and hangouts weeks to months in advance, simply because there’re so many responsibilities and obligations that we’re all dealing with on a daily basis. To paraphrase the sage: life, uh, uh, gets in the way.

The last thing I will suggest is that part of the cure for despair is action. You talk about feeling stuck in place, especially in a place where there’s little to do and few people your age. Well, that’s a place to start taking action.

For one: there may be more going on than you realize; it’s just that none of it is happening in places or at times when you’re likely to encounter them. If you’re in the habit – as most people are – of doing the same things every week, taking the same routes to work and home, eating in the same restaurants and so on, then you’re not going to have as many opportunities for discovery. You’re on autopilot and a lot of what you perceive is what you expect to perceive because it’s more efficient for your brain that way. Shaking things up – going places you don’t normally go, looking up opportunities in your local alt-weekly or your city’s subreddit or Facebook groups – forces you out of the routine and you’re going to see stuff you never realized was there.

Another thing you can do is to start taking steps to move. Opening a savings account and putting money aside to cover rent, living expenses, moving costs and a cushion for finding work is going to provide you with a tangible sense of “I’m making this happen, I can see the forward progress I’m making”, that helps counteract the sense of helplessness. Even if you ultimately decide that maybe your current locale offers more than you thought, knowing that you’ve made it possible to pull up stakes reminds you that you have agency and options. You’re not as stuck as you think; you simply needed that little reminder that you really are in charge of your life.

But even if you do move, the rest of my advice still applies. Just changing your locale can do a lot but as the wise man says: wherever you go, there you are. You bring yourself with you, so it’s time to work on being the “you” that you would want to be in that new place, even before you go.

So start taking those steps to teach yourself to be the man you know you can be. I think you’ll find you like who you’ll become when you do.

Good luck.

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Doc, I’ve read your column for a while now and frankly I don’t know why I’m writing to you because I feel like you’re going to give me just more feel good bullshit. I’m tired of all the crap about how women want men who are this and that and the otaher thing because in my experience? It’s all lies.

I’m in my 20s, I’m a guy who’s got all the right qualities: I’m smart, successful, decent-looking, emotionally mature, and I treat people with respect. You name it, I’ve got it. But no matter what I do, no one ever seems to notice. Every woman I meet goes for the guy who has none of what I offer. I go on the apps, I get nothing. I talk to women, they ignore me. I ask them out on dates and they go date the tall asshole who’s going to treat them like shit and dump them two months later, and then they cry about it and go do it all over again.

I don’t even know what the point is anymore. I’m putting myself out there, doing everything right, and still getting passed over for the guy with no ambition or the one who barely even looks like he has his life together.

Why bother being the “right guy” if women are just going to pick the wrong ones? I’m sick of hearing about how women want a good guy, how they want someone who’s got their act together, and yet when I show up with all that, nothing. Do the qualities actually matter? Or is it all some myth women pretend to care about while they chase after the same guys with the right hair and face?

If I’m doing everything right and still getting ignored, what’s the point?

Signed,
Why Should I Believe A Word They Say?

Quick question, WSIBWTS – you say you have these qualities that women want but why should they believe what you say about having them?

Here’s the thing I notice in letters like yours: I hear a lot about the qualities that guys like you have, but they’re all internal ones, inherent ones. The ones like “I’m ambitious and I’m respectful and I’m emotionally mature”. OK… and? I mean, that’s great and all, but how’s anyone supposed to know you have them and why should they care?

The problem that you – and a lot of guys like you – have is that you’re dealing with the classic Nice Guy^TM issue: you’re talking about who you supposedly are but not what you do. And one of the things about attraction is that attraction is sparked by what you do for others and how you make them feel. Being “emotionally mature” is great and all but that’s not something that is going to make people want to spend time with you. Successful? Great… how are you going to turn that into something that is meaningful for the other person who doesn’t know you?

Allow me to give you some wisdom from one David Mamet: “Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you – go home and play with your kids!! You wanna work here? Close!!”

The scene itself is about sales and the necessities of capitalism overwriting basic humanity but there’s a nugget of truth there: those inherent qualities aren’t going to make a difference if you’re not doing what needs to be done, which in your case is “get them to like you”. People will care about those inherent qualities when you’ve given them a reason to care. Otherwise, they have no way of knowing that you have them and no reason to consider them to be more significant or important than what someone else has. They’re part of why someone will stick around, but they’re not going to attract them simply because those are things that you are, not what you do. And doing is part of how you get people to like you. Doing, in this case, is entirely about how you make other people feel. If they don’t feel good around you – because of what you do – then they aren’t going to prioritize time spent with you over someone who does make them feel good.

This is why I ask people “what do you bring to the table?” It’s got to be more than “I’m a good person”; it’s about what makes people want to spend time with you. This is why, for example, dudes who can cook, or make people laugh or play music or do any number of things tend to have women lining up, even when they look like a drowned sewer rat who also sells meth behind the Waffle House: they are bringing something to the table that people want and value – a good time.

The supposed “asshole” who’s going to mistreat them? He’s actually charming. He’s talking to them, he’s making them laugh and feel special. He’s not sitting there hoping that someone’s going to see his great inner qualities, he’s showing them a good time. Maybe he’s going to treat them like shit, maybe not, but in the here and now, he’s providing a meaningful answer to “why should I spend time with you”, and that answer is “because I’m fun to be with.”

(I will also pause here to note how often “asshole who’s going to mistreat them” is usually code for “dude as what got what I wanted and I don’t feel that he deserves it like I do.”)

So if you’ve got these great qualities that make you a good partner, that’s awesome… but those come into play after you’ve gotten over the initial hurdle of “well, here’s why you’ll enjoy my company”. It’s why the Glengarry Glen Ross speech is so appropriate here: you have to sell yourself. It doesn’t matter if your soda tastes way better than Coke or Pepsi if nobody has any reason to try it that doesn’t go beyond “this exists”. You can’t just put it out there and hope folks will stumble across it, pray that they get curious to look closer, buy one and then realize that oh, the mouthfeel of the carbonation is crisper and the aftertaste is so much nicer. You have to give them a reason to try it in the first place. And from the sound of it, you’re not doing that. You’re hoping that women are just going to divine that you have these qualities or that they’ll believe you when you say it, despite a lack of evidence.

This is why you can’t just say you “have” these qualities and assume that’s the end of it. You have to either be able to show those qualities in ways that people will appreciate, or have other things that you bring to the table that will encourage them to stick around and look closer. So show them the things you want them to see, the things they value, and do it in a way that makes them want to spend more time with you so that those qualities actually come into play. Otherwise, all you’re doing is being upset that women aren’t seeing the mystical aura that says “I’m The Good One”.

Good luck.

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This post was previously published on Doctornerdlove.com and is republished on Medium.

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