This loop is 100% for holding a hammer. Hence why my BD and Stio pants don’t have one, but my Carhartts and Wranglers do.

Yep, about right for me.

Very few people are dedicated enough to seek Lemmy out. Most will stay on reddit. Or never got on reddit, and are on IG and Tiktok. The main thing that will drive them here is negativity - noticing everything wrong about the platform they are using.

Weird coming from a religion that said the root of all evil was also a fruit.

Restrictions on lending can be explained by the fact that when those rules were made, almost no one knew math much better than counting on their fingers.

I’m sure there are some out there. But they won’t be any good.

Tinder, Hinge, Bumble. That’s what people are on. Maybe there is something else popular in your area - ask your friends. If you try to go somewhere else (unless you are trying to fit a specific niche like being gay or kinky or a farmer) then you will miss out on most of the online dating market. And spoiler: it will be the good part you are missing out on. The guys you want to match with aren’t making accounts on “random dating app lolz”, because there is no one there so it is a waste of time.

I don’t think you are totally wrong here, but I also want to push back a bit. I’ve seen this kind of take before, and heard it in a different form when I was struggling in my dating life. It took the form “you need to figure out {internal issue} before you start dating.” And the more I read it, the more frustrated I got, because the advice seemed to boil down to “you will only be ready to date once you have committed to a buddhist monastery, meditated for 10 years straight, and achieved enlightenment. Once all desire has left your heart - including the desire to date someone - you will be ready to date.”

Which is, of course, ridiculous. Overcoming your internal struggles or learning to love yourself is a process. It is a process that almost everyone is engaging in. And no one (or almost no one) really reaches the destination permanently.

Furthermore, we should recognize that overcoming your internal struggles can’t happen in a vacuum - or at least it will be a lot harder that way. Like, really, what should our incel friend do with their time? Literally the exact same thing they’ve been doing their whole lives, except they go to therapy once per week? If that is really all they can manage, I totally support that and applaud them for putting that effort in. But realistically, that needs to be a first step that leads to further action if they ever want to see significant changes in themselves and their lives.

If they have social anxiety, to overcome it they must go out into the world and talk to people. And by actually going out and doing something with the intention of improving yourself and your life, you learn to love yourself more. In this case, you might learn that people are generally nice, and will be nice to you. You might be proud of yourself for overcoming your fears and doing something that was difficult for you. And you might love yourself more because you have experienced that you have the capacity to change and become more like the person you want to be.

Of course, if you are truly dedicated to leaving the wheel of samsara, then certainly, focus all your attention on learning to love yourself. But my personal experience is that when I improved myself, my life got better, and I became happier - even if that initial spark of wanting to improve came from feelings of inadequacy or self hatred or frustration or rage. And through the process of improving myself, I was forced to confront my inner demons in a far more visceral way that helped me overcome them. And now that I have improved myself and my life, I am in a much better place to work on my internal world and learn to love myself more.

It’s okay to chase the dragon of self improvement, or of achieving worldly desires. The buddha is equally found on the meditation mat and in the snake oil in the GNC pre-workout aisle.

All I can say to that is - can’t do attitudes can’t do anything. You created a list of problems, and are acting like they are unsolveable, instead of seeing them as a checklist of things to get done to obtain a better life.

Same. Glad I saw it as a kid. Now I’m retired.

I mean, I feel like the real lesson from Office Space is the importance of having an exit strategy.

People work in grey cubicals or Applebee’s because they feel like they don’t have a choice. Everyone in these jobs is unhappy, because if they believed in their ability to find happiness elsewhere they would already be gone.

Okay so you don’t understand that youre talking to anither human and just think disagreement is a kind of attack.

No. I think that moving is an underutilized option. If you live in Alaska but hate the cold, move. If you live in Alabama but hate gun nuts, move. If you live in Briton and hate… being miserable as a lifestyle, then move!

Like, there are all sorts of ways to mitigate unhappiness. But at the end of the day, if something intrinsic to the place you live is really making you unhappy, then there is an obvious answer.

1. You can adapt to high temps. Drink water and consume enough electrolytes, and your body will learn to be more adept at keeping itself cool. Meanwhile, your brain will get used to high temps. The problem is that you are avoiding the heat, which means your body never adapts.

2. For heavy exercise, simply do it earlier or later in the day when temps are cooler. Warmer regions developed the siesta for a reason.

3. If you really hate it so much, move.

Get this… Many good friends!

*Losing

I mean, I think the problem you are talking about is actually a solution. You ditched a bunch of people who were your “friends”, but who didn’t actually care about you. Good! That’s what you should do! Building a good social circle isn’t about being friends with literally everyone, and it isn’t about staying friends with people who don’t value you - it is about finding the people who value you for who you are, and who actually give a shit about you.

Your abusive upbringing, your experience having bad friends - I don’t wanna say that shit doesn’t suck. But my advice here is to look for the lesson that you can learn. I’m not religious, and “everything happens for a reason” doesn’t resonate for me - but I do believe that in every painful human experience, there is an opportunity for growth and learning if you look for it. So with your shitty friends, you learned something about how you don’t like to be treated. You learned about some personal standards you will hold future friends to. Same with every other time you got taken advantage of - you learned what shitty people do, how they manipulate you, what warning signs to look out for. Every time you have a shit experience, you learn more and more about how to identify the assholes so you can filter them out of your life quickly and efficiently.

The fact that you are comfortable doing things solo is great. Being able to feel good and get shit done on your own is a foundation of living well. But at the same time, I wouldn’t use it as an excuse to retreat from social life. However far you can go solo, whatever you can accomplish, however good you can feel, I guarantee that you’ll be able to go farther and get there faster, with less effort, with friends - good friends.

I am trying to rebuild my life, and part of it has to involve (early on… as early as possible actually) to get a girlfriend.

This is an awesome goal, and I 100% support you. However, I recommend you reframe this to “I want to rebuild my life, and part of it is becoming the type of man who is confident in his ability to get a girlfriend.” Because when your goal is just “get a girlfriend”, you can end up with someone who isn’t a good match for you just because that was your goal. And if you don’t feel confident that you can get another girlfriend, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking “well, she’s good enough, it’s not like I could do any better” or “I don’t like it when she does that, but I better not say anything or she’ll leave.”

I always keep a small circle of friends when I do have them and I would rather keep it that way. I am picky about that for a reason.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with having a small circle of close friends. I’m not recommending, like, trying to get 100k followers on IG and calling them all friends or some shit. But the “when I do have them” part is concerning. If you only have 3 people you consider friends, but none of them are that close and you periodically lose them, then you have a very shaky social support system. What you should aim for is having a small circle of really close, really supportive friends who you are fairly certain will not ditch you. But no one just shows up in your life and immediately becomes a close confidant - you meet acquaintances, then those acquaintances become loose friends, then regular friends, then close friends. At each stage, most people in each level will not make it to the next level for whatever reason. Meanwhile, your small circle of close friends will often shrink for one reason or another - hopefully for good reasons, like a friend getting their dream job on the other side of the country. But that means in order to maintain your strong social support system, you need to always be feeding your friendship pipeline. If this sounds Machiavellian, I can assure you that in practice, it isn’t. It just looks like doing things like what you are already doing, like going to meetups, meeting new people, spending more time with people you like, not spending time with those you don’t, and becoming comfortable opening up emotionally to the people you like the most.

I want to convey that, no I will not be using her as an emotional dumping ground. That’s just not style. It never was.

I will say that if you have never used a girlfriend as an emotional dumpster, then you probably will soon. It’s kind of just an inevitable part of the process of becoming a more dateable man. You have a bunch of pent up shit, and then you end up finally feeling close enough to someone to open up, and then it ALL comes out. Therapy can be helpful, but isn’t really the same as dumping all your shit on someone you know. I’ll also say that if you aren’t talking to people in your life about your worst shit, you aren’t really making the progress towards emotional openness that you need to form good relationships long term. Your eventual goal should be to have a solid group of friends you can talk about your deep shit with, plus a therapist, plus a girlfriend. That’s called redundancy.

On the topic of NG/CA, I think your concerns and experiences are 100% valid. Like I said, I think it is pushed way to hard as “the way to meet girls”, when actual success rates are rock bottom. I think you are holding on to some limiting beliefs on this front, but at the same time, I don’t think they are worth addressing at the moment. You’d do much better focusing on SC and OLD. If you wanna try to pick up girls in the club - at any age - I think it is possible and I think you have a shot if you put the work in. But it’s inefficient and there are easier ways to meet girls that won’t fuck up your circadian rhythm. It sounds like you don’t wanna do that, so good! Don’t do that. Same with CA.

Also, you hit the nail on the head with how dating advice is doled out. It is at once extremely generalizable and extremely specific to the individual.

On the other hand, you say you lack a good social circle, and in my opinion, that will be a big hurdle you will have trouble avoiding. I would like to gently recommend that you consider that you might not be as introverted as you think you are, but that you feel introverted because of your social anxiety. That your social battery doesn’t run low just because that is the way you are, but because it is draining to feel anxious and to hide yourself and to feel like you will be judged and rejected in social situations. This isn’t to say that you need to spend every minute of every day out meeting with people - but you seem you almost seem committed to not being social. And the reality is… women want to date guys who have friends. They want to date guys who have a good social support system outside of them, so they don’t become the guy’s emotional dumping ground. The friends you have and your ability to make new friends has a huge impact on where you will be able to go in life, your success in your career, your ability to take care of yourself, etc. Humans are social animals, and not being social at all is going to be a big red flag to a lot of women.

I 100% support you seeing a sex therapist. Professionals exist for a reason. I wouldn’t depend on your therapist to solve all your problems - you have to be the captain of your own ship - but therapy definitely sounds like a piece of the puzzle for you.

As far as the 15 years spent on lifestyle - I think you can do it faster. What those years were spent on were overcoming social anxiety, building a community of supportive friends, establishing habits around diet and exercise, getting my career to the place where I didn’t hate my job, finding hobbies I enjoyed and getting good at them, and then also a lot of pointless floundering. I got myself from being completely isolated, hopeless, and depressed, to being hopeful and somewhat happy, with communities based around things that I found personally meaningful. Ie, I created a life that some women would find interesting and want to be part of. So when I actually buckled down and made a tinder profile, I was already pretty fit and had cool hobbies to show off and a good lifestyle to talk about.

I’ll dm you the tinder guide.

I think you do kind of need to get over resistance to engaging with some PUA material. The reality is, male sexuality is demonized in mainstream society, and so any frank discussion of how to improve your dating life as a man gets pushed underground. It’s like buying drugs - there are lots of people in the drug world who are honest and reasonable, and just want to help others have a good time and make some money. But because their product is illegal, they are always going to be mixed in with seedy crooks. So try to think of “PUA” stuff as more of an ecosystem than a monolith. There are some people giving really terrible advice. Some people who have some good tips mixed in with their toxic bullshit. And a few people, often hidden, who have a lot of really good, solid advice that can help you.

Manson was a PUA. He blogged for several years about men’s dating advice, refining his ideas until he published Models. The latest edition is the most polished, and gives an excellent and fairly obvious framework for becoming a more datable person. If you read the forward to this edition, it is fairly obvious that his ideas evolved somewhat between the first edition and the second. The impression I get is that he wanted to rewrite several parts to emphasize the idea that becoming more dateable is about becoming more emotionally open and becoming a better person. But also the impression I get is that he simply removed some of his more controversial statements and coded others, because he was trying to sanitize his past for his move into mainstream writing for the upcoming publication of his next book. If you are hesitant to engage with his content because of his PUA history, I recommend reading a book called “Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser”, which was written by a female feminist, kink-friendly, rationalist-adjacent blogger. Her blog and the comments on it were also a very good read on the intersection between kink, feminism, and pickup - but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to exist anymore, and it looks like it was taken down from the wayback machine.

Anyway - you should read Models. Manson is a smart guy, and the title is a clever joke. It is meant to draw in the typical guy who would normally take PUA advice - the kind of guy who wants to fuck models - but then the book quickly explains what the title actually means. It is about creating mental models of what it means to be an appealing and dateable man. The book is, in large part, a response to the toxic pickup culture that Manson was a part of, and his attempt to create an alternative that is less toxic.

Tinder can be frustrating because you put in all your effort up front. Being successful on Tinder is all about having good pictures, and it can be a lot of time and effort to get good pictures. Like I said, my success on Tinder was a few months of direct effort, but 15 years of indirect effort. The indirect effort was all about cultivating a good lifestyle where I was physically healthy, had overcome some of my social insecurities, and was doing cool things I actually cared about. The direct effort was getting a haircut, putting on some nicer clothes, and shooting photos where I looked like a cool, confident dude who would be a good fuck. I can send you the guide I followed. Again, the author had a history in the PUA/red pill space, but has since renounced most of that.

So, there are 4 major arenas of dating that we talk about in men’s dating advice. Daygame/cold approach, night game, online, and social circle.

In my opinion, the PUA advice emphasizes CA and NG too much, when most guys have the most success in OLD and SC. I think this is because CA and NG are harder, and so guys like to talk about how successful they are at them to prove what hot stuff they are. If you don’t have much experience, you should make things as easy as possible so you can get experience.

In OLD, you know that every girl you message or swipe on is looking to date - that’s why they are there - so you are absolved of any feeling that asking a girl out or flirting would be inappropriate. If you get a rejection - even a harsh rejection - it is usually just through text so it stings less. And if you have a good profile, it is easy to set up multiple dates each week, so you can get a ton of experience really quickly.

Social circle is where you meet girls via mutual friends or in clubs or hobbies. In social circle, you benefit a lot from already being a known entity - a girl you meet already knows other people trust you, so she is more likely to trust you, and therefore be open to your advances. Plus, you tend to be more confident around your friends, or while you are doing something you enjoy and are good at - and confidence is sexy.

DG/CA and NG have their place, imo. First, they are good if you just want to make a hobby of chasing girls. If you just find you really enjoy walking up to strangers and introducing yourself, then go ahead and do it. Also, if you really want to date/have sex with the hottest, coolest women, then you will need to do pursue these avenues. First of all, because these women already have tons of suitors online and very booked out social lives, so if you don’t introduce yourself when you randomly see them you will never get the chance otherwise. And second, because walking up to a stranger and straight up asking if they are interested in you takes some balls, ie, confidence. And, again, confidence is attractive. Getting good at these avenues can also be good because then you are open to opportunities which arise even if you don’t specifically spend time pursuing them. For example, if you are spending time in a nightclub or a coffee shop just as part of your day to day life, and then you see a cute girl you are interested in, having DG/NG skills lets you confidently make a move on her rather than nervously glancing at her until you or she leaves and you think of what could have been. But finally, really the most important reason for most guys to do CA/NG is simply to overcome social anxiety and gain confidence - but this is for guys who are somewhat experienced already, who want to take their dating to the next level.

In general, I would recommend not talking about your dating life at work, at least until you are more experienced. It can be dangerous for your employment status, as you already know. Keep your conversations about dating to close friends who you can trust.

Well, I gotta say, that was a wild ride.

Personally, I grew up emotionally disconnected, unsupported, socially isolated, and bullied. Like, kids at school making fun of me for wearing clothes that hadn’t been washed, because my parents either didn’t notice or didn’t care. I ended up depressed, socially anxious, and socially stunted as a result. For years as a kid, I prayed for the day that I would have the courage to pick the lock on my dad’s gun and blow my own brains out.

Luckily, I moved out of my folks house at 18 to go to college, and have barely been back since. I avoid spending time with my parents as much as possible, since I seem to have pavlovian conditioning such that being around them triggers my depression, and leads to excessive alcohol consumption.

After agonizing about it for years, I finally lost my virginity at 23. After that, I failed to sleep with another girl for years. At 29, I panicked, said FUCK THIS!! and decided to do whatever it took. So I found a paint-by-numbers guide to getting laid on Tinder on the internet, followed it to the T, and managed to actually start sleeping with women.

I’ll say, the experience made me happier and changed my life for the better. It made me a better person. But at the same time, it didn’t solve all my problems. And also, the couple months of effort that I put in at 29 was really just the culmination of work I’d been putting into myself and my life since I was 13. I still have some heavy emotional problems I’m dealing with - but feeling sexually desireable isn’t one of them anymore, and I’m grateful for that.

To me, it sounds like you’ve been through the shit, and you are taking the right steps. You’re cutting out people who make you miserable - that’s excellent. You are going out to meetups and meeting people. Awesome. You are going to therapy - that is fucking amazing. Seriously, the fact that you’ve been knocked down so many times and are still getting back up is something to be proud of.

Our culture is really weird about sex and dating, so it is really hard to find good advice. I think my best advice is to focus on improving yourself to be more datable for a while (like, yeah, it’s okay to want more people to be into you!), and then to take a break and focus on other things, before coming back to it. You get better at things when you focus on them. But you also need to relax and be happy and not be one dimensional. So alternate back and forth, hopefully without burning out.

I recommend you spend as much time as possible meeting new people and cultivating friendships. Dating and improving yourself is so much easier when you have a deep and wide network of friends to lean on.

For a macro view of how to become a more datable man, I recommend the book Models by Mark Manson. It boils down to “don’t be needy”. If you want to know how to not be needy, you might have heard of the next book he wrote to answer that question - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

If you have problems moving things forward with women - anything from introducing yourself to asking them on a date to getting them into bed - the best advice I ever heard is “stop trying to be smooth.” You are autistic. This is actually a superpower in dating, because you will have a hard time sending and receiving the subconscious, unspoken cues most people give each other. Instead, you use your autism to be direct - tell girls exactly what you are thinking and exactly what you want. Ask them what they are thinking and what they want when you are uncertain. Just be autistically honest. As long as you are honest and respectful, just say anything that pops into your head. “Hey, I saw you over here and thought you were really pretty. What’s up? I’m John.” “I’m glad you agreed to go on this date with me, but I have to say, I’m kinda nervous.” “You have a beautiful smile and it makes me want to kiss you.” “I’m having a good time with you tonight. Do you wanna go back to my place?” “You seem nervous. Are you okay?”

At the same time, learning to flirt and communicate effectively is a process that doesn’t happen overnight. To learn how to flirt, I recommend a book called “The Inner Game of Tennis”. Read it, and everywhere it says “Tennis” just replaced that with “flirting”.

Imo, more childish to deny people’s basic needs and desires. They aren’t that complicated.