Well, its time for everyone's favorite topic again. I sure some of you are beside yourself with joy right now. However, this is something that has been bugging me for a while now, and I'm sure it it won't go away until I talk or post about it; since I probably won't get an answer from my cat, posting will have to do.
The problem I have is that I get this feeling that I'll never been able to actually acquire, maintain and develop a good, stable, personal and healthy relationship with a woman. As someone I knew once put it, the "40 Year Old Virgin" was actually just a future history version of my life, but they put in the happy ending because the original ending was too sad and depressing.
To start with, I never had an easy time with girls. In elementary/middle school I was the school punching bag, and was regularly teased and beat even by the girls. As a result of this and my living at the edge of the school district in an old farm zone, I spent the vast majority of my time alone. It was also when I learned to love video games and anime due to an accident one summer which broke my collar bone and made me unable to go to any kind of camps or summer activities for the entire season.
Then it got worse when I went to an all-boys private high-school where there simply were no girls around, and since I still lived so remotely I spent most of my time alone.
When I got to college, things didn't get much better. While there were women there obviously, there were very, very few of them - 7 men to every 1 woman was the conservative estimate the school put out. And as many of the men (and probably some of the women too) will tell you, they weren't very "high quality" - the saying around the school tended to go "A University 7 is a real-world 3". A lot of the women just had attitude problems too - a lot of them were just plain mean. Though its not like I didn't try outside of the college either - but none of those went very well either. I even tried dating sites and such.......but after two years not a single person has ever sent me a message or responded to me. Which is probably a bit more disheartening than anything else here when I think about it.
(To top it all off, my parents and family were never terribly good relationship examples either - though I suppose I learned what not to do...)
Personal issues cause problems too. Most people will tell you I'm quiet and reserved - I don't speak unless I feel its important, or its to question/investigate a topic at hand. My conversations with people whom I'm not on a name basis with tend to be punctuated with "Sir, Miss/Ma'am" or their title (Doctor, Professor, etc.). I don't ask and avoid talking to people about trivial things like music, sports and the like; and I avoid boring or making things awkward by talking about stuff I like or do. Nor am I a particularly attractive person - while I'm not ugly, I'm not going to be singled out for my looks either. I've never been a fan of crowded spaces, and I avoid making myself the center of any kind of attention unless I need to.
When I attempt to talk to women, my brain almost stops working. I have to fight for words, there are a lot of long, awkward pauses and me trying to end the conversation quickly because I'm obviously making them uncomfortable or I'm making a fool of myself. I guess that fortunately there isn't much for me to talk about usually.
Then there is the problem of the things I do like generally not being popular AT ALL with women; namely anime and video games. Video games are kind of a semi-problem I guess, since plenty of guys get along with women and play video games. The real sticking issue tends to be anime; because while I enjoy the normal assortment of perfectly explainable and anime that even women might/do like, such as say Ghost in the Shell, Witch Hunter Robin, Spice and Wolf etc., among my favorite anime are shows that are extremely difficult to explain to any potenial woman/girlfriend, and something that I've had more than a couple people tell me is the problem.
Because among my favorite anime are such things as:
Sekirei
Witchblade
and Cat Planet Cuties
and I like stuff like Manyuu Hikenchou too.
Those are kind of hard to explain away, no matter how you try to explain the story of Witchblade, or how funny CPC and Sekirei can be. And this is after you get over the whole "all anime is weird" issue that a lot of people to have.
But people have tried to tell me that other than this kind of stuff just being weird to most people, since I've been watching it for so long that its actually made me "desensitized" (their words, not mine) to real women, and that combined with my spending most of time alone both now and growing up has pretty much destroyed any chance of interacting or having any kind of personal relationship with women. A few have them have tried saying that I don't "act" right about women - that I don't get excited or even look interested in even attractive women, but I'll seem more interested in anime women and such. I never noticed this myself - I personally think they just might be misinterpreting me being polite or nervous around women as something else, but eh.
And in a way, its hard not agree. Where I live and the places I could live all are pretty bad in terms of population of females my age, the things I like and like to do aren't popular with women, and I'm not very good at social interactions with women. Nor am I swimming in money or have other things. Pretty much on the short end of the socially acceptable relationship scale - the only way I could probably go lower is if I was sick or a criminal.
So there, thats my rant/tirade. Congrats, you made it through.
Here, have this as a reward.
The problem I have is that I get this feeling that I'll never been able to actually acquire, maintain and develop a good, stable, personal and healthy relationship with a woman. As someone I knew once put it, the "40 Year Old Virgin" was actually just a future history version of my life, but they put in the happy ending because the original ending was too sad and depressing.
To start with, I never had an easy time with girls. In elementary/middle school I was the school punching bag, and was regularly teased and beat even by the girls. As a result of this and my living at the edge of the school district in an old farm zone, I spent the vast majority of my time alone. It was also when I learned to love video games and anime due to an accident one summer which broke my collar bone and made me unable to go to any kind of camps or summer activities for the entire season.
Then it got worse when I went to an all-boys private high-school where there simply were no girls around, and since I still lived so remotely I spent most of my time alone.
When I got to college, things didn't get much better. While there were women there obviously, there were very, very few of them - 7 men to every 1 woman was the conservative estimate the school put out. And as many of the men (and probably some of the women too) will tell you, they weren't very "high quality" - the saying around the school tended to go "A University 7 is a real-world 3". A lot of the women just had attitude problems too - a lot of them were just plain mean. Though its not like I didn't try outside of the college either - but none of those went very well either. I even tried dating sites and such.......but after two years not a single person has ever sent me a message or responded to me. Which is probably a bit more disheartening than anything else here when I think about it.
(To top it all off, my parents and family were never terribly good relationship examples either - though I suppose I learned what not to do...)
Personal issues cause problems too. Most people will tell you I'm quiet and reserved - I don't speak unless I feel its important, or its to question/investigate a topic at hand. My conversations with people whom I'm not on a name basis with tend to be punctuated with "Sir, Miss/Ma'am" or their title (Doctor, Professor, etc.). I don't ask and avoid talking to people about trivial things like music, sports and the like; and I avoid boring or making things awkward by talking about stuff I like or do. Nor am I a particularly attractive person - while I'm not ugly, I'm not going to be singled out for my looks either. I've never been a fan of crowded spaces, and I avoid making myself the center of any kind of attention unless I need to.
When I attempt to talk to women, my brain almost stops working. I have to fight for words, there are a lot of long, awkward pauses and me trying to end the conversation quickly because I'm obviously making them uncomfortable or I'm making a fool of myself. I guess that fortunately there isn't much for me to talk about usually.
Then there is the problem of the things I do like generally not being popular AT ALL with women; namely anime and video games. Video games are kind of a semi-problem I guess, since plenty of guys get along with women and play video games. The real sticking issue tends to be anime; because while I enjoy the normal assortment of perfectly explainable and anime that even women might/do like, such as say Ghost in the Shell, Witch Hunter Robin, Spice and Wolf etc., among my favorite anime are shows that are extremely difficult to explain to any potenial woman/girlfriend, and something that I've had more than a couple people tell me is the problem.
Because among my favorite anime are such things as:
Sekirei
Witchblade
and Cat Planet Cuties
and I like stuff like Manyuu Hikenchou too.
Those are kind of hard to explain away, no matter how you try to explain the story of Witchblade, or how funny CPC and Sekirei can be. And this is after you get over the whole "all anime is weird" issue that a lot of people to have.
But people have tried to tell me that other than this kind of stuff just being weird to most people, since I've been watching it for so long that its actually made me "desensitized" (their words, not mine) to real women, and that combined with my spending most of time alone both now and growing up has pretty much destroyed any chance of interacting or having any kind of personal relationship with women. A few have them have tried saying that I don't "act" right about women - that I don't get excited or even look interested in even attractive women, but I'll seem more interested in anime women and such. I never noticed this myself - I personally think they just might be misinterpreting me being polite or nervous around women as something else, but eh.
And in a way, its hard not agree. Where I live and the places I could live all are pretty bad in terms of population of females my age, the things I like and like to do aren't popular with women, and I'm not very good at social interactions with women. Nor am I swimming in money or have other things. Pretty much on the short end of the socially acceptable relationship scale - the only way I could probably go lower is if I was sick or a criminal.
So there, thats my rant/tirade. Congrats, you made it through.
Here, have this as a reward.
)
