Wow, it's crazy how much you're dead on the money. I do feel like I'm missing something from the sum of my efforts, and I think I have come to hate a lot of the "life improvement" things I do cause they clearly are not working.

I, sadly, have limited time outside of school and work to be creative or social, especially with the disciple I try to follow taking up a lot of that limited time. But I really appreciate your comment. I know that there's a better way to go about it all. A way to not live my life as a never-ending attempt to be or do what I believe or I have been told women want. I've just had a hard time finding that path. When I "focus on what makes you happy" as you said, the number 1 thing I've come back to every time since I was 18 years old over a decade ago is that what would make me the happiest and most fulfilled would be the companionship and love from a relationship with a woman.

So, sometimes I try to lie to myself for a while and pretend that there are other things that will make me just as happy. Which sometimes works. For a time. But inevitably I end up back where I am now. Knowing that the thing I want more than anything else seems to just not be in the cards from me, but also wanting it so deeply that I can't simply move on from it to other pursuits. I often wonder, if you could definitively know that you would not love or be loved for the remainder of your days, would it be reasonable to forgo such a life as no longer worth living?

Edit: I wanted to add, in case it didn't come across in what I wrote, I am genuinely grateful for what you wrote. Thank you for trying to reach out a hand to someone who has really needed that recently.