maybe i can shine some light on this issue with my personal experiences, for those that care. otherwise, you know how to filter. i don't like making things long-winded, but the details are important.
my younger years up to age 23 were defined by missed opportunities because of fear. no love, no career, no sex. shallow entertainment in video games, movies, anime. anything that's instantly gratifying. not because i was lazy but because i was afraid. i stayed inside. the outside world was risky.
one day in my early 20's, i got tired of being afraid. i saw how some people had come much further than me and i wasn't moving at all. i decided that whatever failure awaited me, i had to try to do the things i wanted to do. the guilt of ignoring my dreams and the regret of passing up every opportunity to come my way got too much to bear.
of course, i failed. the first 4 jobs i got were exercises in humiliation and every girl i tried to date learned to hate me – for running away from all of my problems, for putting everything off until the last minute, for being afraid to face trouble. for not being a man.
i gave up a few times. for a week, maybe a month. then i'd try again and fail again.
little by little, i learned. with each failure i thought that surely the world would catch onto how pathetic i was and stop giving me second chances, but that never happened. as long as i was sincere and earnest, i could keep trying, keep learning.
at some point, i started lifting. i didn't see any results at first, but i was filled with so much anger that it was a good outlet. i didn't notice myself growing and getting stronger at all, not until people started pointing it out. not until i found i could carry more. not until i lifted my girlfriend up and saw how light she was.
i never noticed myself getting better at socializing, either. there was a time when i'd agonize for hours to just make a phone call, only to embarrassingly stumble my way through it. at some point, it all just became second nature. i didn't have to think about my tone anymore, or the words i chose. i knew what people wanted to hear and how they wanted to hear it, and i'd say those things.
in retrospect, there's no blueprint i could give anyone. i'd like to help people who were in my position but i don't know what i did. i just kept trying and somehow everything fell into place. maybe i'm smarter than i give myself credit for or maybe the world is easier to live in and succeed in than i thought. i never had the crippling self-esteem problems i see other people trying to compensate for. i never became promiscuous, and even today i've only had sex with one women, but that's out of choice. i feel like i navigated a minefield blindfolded, unable to map out my own steps and bewildered at having done it at all.
now, women respect me, and with respect comes admiration and affection. but what do they understand about what i've been through? do they know how much work went into building these muscles they love so much? do they know how much i had to study to be able to help them with their inane non-issues? do they know how much i've had to humiliate myself to learn about other people, and be able to understand them in all of their pretentious non-complexity? do they appreciate any of that? no. and what have they done? they've had dozens of sexual partners. they've gone into debt. they've eaten themselves fat and let their bodies atrophy. they've dumbed themselves into adult children, entitled and whiny.
but it's not all of them. i know that. it doesn't scare me that so many are so bad, because i only need one, and try as i might want to, i can't save other people from themselves. i can only provide for myself and those i love. what does scare me is that now, having achieved what i thought i never could, i see another minefield. this one isn't a system based on any kind of merit. it's purely random. whether or not i find someone worthwhile has nothing to do with my quality as a person and has everything to do with being in the right place at the right time, which may never happen. if i make the wrong decision, if i find the wrong woman, everything i've worked for will be destroyed. i won't make a family, or not the one i want anyway. one unknowable misstep and my family's legacy dies with me.
i feel demoralized. immobilized. i feel inside my small, dark room again, staring at a computer screen. can i test fate again?