this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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[–] Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 1 points 5 hours ago

Thanks. I did hear about some of those books, but I am VERY wary of a lot of things that have a PUA feel to them, since the PUA stuff has been the biggest problem to me in my social development (as I noted) and I am very hesitant to return to any such material as long as I know they might carry that label. I did read The Charisma Myth (and I need too look at it back again), but I will look them up. Models kinda has that trigger to me right now. But it could be that I am confusing it for something else since I did hear it.

you did mention Inner Game of Tennis, but I assume that you are the one who replaced 'flirting' with it, and it can work. I am not a 100% beginner, and like I said, there's been some very strange things happening to me lately, and they're kinda on the good side... but I can't be sure yet. Seeing your results in finding sex on tinder is encouraging, but my experience with Tinder has been very discouraging. I went on Tinder from May to November 2015 and I only got one date, one other girl to date, and after I turned 32 in October, despite expanding my demographic to include everyone from 18 to 35, I got ZERO matches despite hundreds of swipes. It was almost like I had expired after 32. But seeing you get what you wanted after just a few months was good... but for me, due to a plethora of other factors (I was stalked and cyberbullied by many PUAs online and they even harassed my family for months. One guy was actively trying to get on my facebook page for 4 YEARS after the fact) due to my panic factor probably being far, far, far higher than others and my sheer insecurity at being an early something wanting a younger girlfriend. I hope that this time it doesn't take me 18 months to find a girlfriend or go on dates. I was mostly doing 'day game' and 'night game' which was never the thing for me and the absolute worst crap I ever did. Also I had a tremendous amount of stress at my old job when my emotional state became apparent and they just tried to fire me immediately when I mentioned I was having dating issues and my whole issues with sex. People didn't talk much about sex at the job, but when they did they mentioned dicer stuff than that... but apparently I struck a nerve and everyone thought I was a predator and needed to be gotten rid of immediately. They spent nearly 3 years trying to firing me and the stress from all that was physically killing me like cancer.

Fun fact: It was only when the stress got so bad that upon my Union representive's recommendation that I go on a sick leave was when I was finally relaxed enough and... yeah, that's when the one girl I met said yes and we went dating. She was 19 and I was 33, but you'd think I would be the more mature one but... nope. She was in full control of absolutely everything. In fact she was kinda surprised how I managed to reach my age and maintain a positive disposition towards people after a lifetime of suffering from incredible abuse, as she would have expected me to be an intensely closed-off person if I was 'normal' under the circumstances. I wanna make it clear that this girl did more for me in the few months we dated than anyone else in my life did in decades, and I will never forget her and I will never say that I don't feel anything towards her anymore, because she is that good. This is considering when I was 25 I lost my virginity to a 31 year old... virgin girl, and that experience was one of the most shattering and destructive experiences I had in my life. Even one of the PUAs I spoke to (the type of guy who I legit believed really did bang over a 100 girls before the age of 24) said that if he had an experience like that now, he would give up on women and becoming a monk. That experience is also one reason why I am kinda hesitant to date someone older than me even though it was probably that she was a one-off and not all girls older than me are like that.

I am mildly apprehensive about online stuff, but at the same time I do want to try. While before I was focused principally on younger girls, and while I am going to be expanding my horizons and putting my age range from 25-45, I don't want to be left out by any group. I had a lot of problems in my life and I felt robbed and left out of so much time for a million reasons that I just feel like any group that puts in an age limit is a personal affront to me, even if it isn't that.

My current job is also highly supportive and I am going to get my sex therapist through it. I don't talk about dating on the job, but I have a feeling that if I did bring up the topic to my boss, he would be OK with it. So I know I won't be under ANY stress from my job, and that stress along with other stuff in my life previously is what was the biggest hinderance in finding a date/girlfriend.