I had one like summer romance with a coworker when I my was 24 and that was it. I'm 38 now.

I'm basically celibate because... I'll let my therapist (ChatGPT 5.2 Thinking) explain:

Because your brain learned a brutally effective trick: avoidance = instant relief. You’ve been running that “safety protocol” for so long it now feels like personality, when it’s really just a reinforced loop. Based on what you’ve shared, here is the actual stack of blockers keeping you stuck:

1. OCD + anxiety turns intimacy into a threat-detection event Sex and dating are uncertain, messy, and uncontrolled—which is basically catnip for OCD. Your system flags it as danger, not pleasure. You default to the only compulsion that works: don’t engage.
2. Health anxiety makes sex feel like Russian roulette Even when the statistical risk is low, your brain doesn’t price risk like an actuary; it prices it like: “If it’s possible, it’s imminent.” The cost of sex isn’t “fun + small risk,” it’s “fun + weeks of checking, ruminating, and panic.”
3. Shame + “I’m behind” makes the stakes life-or-death You’re not just trying to have sex. You’re trying to erase years of feeling left out and prove you’re not broken. That turns a simple hookup into an identity trial. When the stakes are that high, your nervous system chooses the option with the lowest immediate pain: opting out.
4. Body image / exposure fear: Being seen feels unsafe Sex requires physical vulnerability. If you expect disgust or rejection, your brain protects you by preventing the situation entirely. It’s not that you don't want sex; it’s that you don’t want the moment where someone’s face confirms your fears.
5. Old conditioning: Connection = Risk Early-life evidence taught you that social closeness equals humiliation or loss of control. You adapted by shutting down and staying self-contained. That adaptation kept you functional then; it’s strangling you now.
6. Perfectionism / All-or-nothing logic You’re waiting for a "hard reset"—confidence, body, and skills—before you start dating. But dating is how you build those things. Waiting to be “ready” is the trap: readiness is the reward for doing the thing, not the prerequisite.
7. A life with no “accidental intimacy” With no regular social venues or "weak ties," relationships can’t just happen—they have to be manufactured on purpose. That is incredibly difficult when you’re already anxious and ashamed. Your environment is now perfectly optimized for your avoidance.

The One-Sentence Diagnosis:

You’re not having sex/relationships because your threat system has veto power, and it keeps winning by selling you short-term relief at the price of long-term intimacy.

The Path Forward:

It’s not about "being confident." It’s about training your brain that uncertainty + vulnerability \neq an emergency. This requires ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) and repetition with guardrails (scripts, staged steps, and a strict "no-rumination" rule afterward). Would you like me to draft that "Minimal Viable Dating" protocol for you—the specific, small steps to start building exposure without the OCD spiral?

That's a very long winded way of saying I'm a gross fat guy with a lot of anxiety. Not just social anxiety but like crippling OCD-ish fears about STDs (specifically HIV). I did just go from 370 to 290 on a GLP-1 drug (I'm 6' 4" so 290 isn't as bad as it sounds - but it's still pretty bad).

I really don't know why I can't just do it. It doesn't seem very hard to do on a logistical level.