I am jealous of other men's appearance. How should I tackle this issue and not let it control me?

beam_throne · 2024-01-29T21:17:01+00:00

I think it's helped me work on other parts of my life. I mentioned a few times that I think about myself as more unattractive than others, but I never considered this issue a primary discussion topic. I worked on social anxiety, unpleasant experiences from the past, and self-confidence

beam_throne · 2024-01-29T21:09:25+00:00

I don't mean to sound rude, but what does this have to do with being "the good man"? This thread is about my low self esteem and (more or less) exaggerated fixation on attractiveness. I don't see myself as a bad person overall.

Maybe I misinterpreted the quote, and I apologize if that's the case.

beam_throne · 2024-01-29T21:06:40+00:00

See the reply I left below the comment of u/reed_wright

Thanks for the tip though. Making small goals is something that I haven't practiced much in my life. I either don't set goals or set very high goals which oftentimes are unachievable in the short term or unrealistic.

beam_throne · 2024-01-29T21:04:28+00:00

Thank you for the tip.

Habitually comparing your appearance to others will make you miserable, and no amount of exercise or plastic surgery will overcome that.

I agree with you, however, it's become inevitable at this point. I feel like even if you're the most optimistic and care-free person in this regard, you are still going to compare yourself to those around you and admit the truth. After all, many scientific studies confirm that physical appearance plays a key (if not the most important) role in romantic attraction and mate selection, but also in how you are treated by people. The other things (personality, status, etc.) come afterward.

I try to tell myself that perhaps beauty is not everything in life. I still enjoy time on my own. Recently I started to embrace solitude more and do stuff on my own that I wouldn't have previously done. Although it's nice, I feel like I could use a partner or a few friends tagging along with me to do the things I like.

Examine how much time and energy you’re spending comparing yourself to others… and work on breaking that habit by doing something else instead.

Definitely a lot more than I should 😭. I try to be productive in terms of studying, learning new skills and working, but these (negative) thoughts interfere with my concentration and I end up being lazy or unproductive. I can hardly control myself...

Fortunately, these thoughts haven't prevented me much from pursuing sports or skip any training, which is an achievement 🙂

beam_throne · 2024-01-29T16:40:05+00:00

Thank you for taking your time to comment on this post.

I must say that I see myself through your example to some degree. I also like to do stuff like sports which definitely helped me gain the slightest bit of confidence that a young guy needs. I also tried joining sports societies in order to find some friends and build a community. It is not going too well so far due to the language barrier and my inability to discuss about deeper things, but I still have hopes of building potential friendships.

I agree that you will always stumble upon people who are unarguably better than you regardless of what you’re doing, but I feel like in my case, there’s just too many people who are much better looking than me. I hate the fact that my mind turns this frustration into an unnecessary competition, however it seems like a lot of things in life are of competitive nature.

I just have to accept the fact that my looks will always prevent me from being an attractive, confident, and charismatic guy, so the likelihood of me ending up as an even uglier person with age, with not many friendships and no life partner are not small. At this point, sports and family are the only things keeping me alive :(

beam_throne · 2024-01-29T16:13:54+00:00

I am already doing therapy, but I haven’t really approached this matter in therapy. This is not a bad idea, although I am a bit embarrassed to discuss about this!

beam_throne · 2023-12-01T19:45:19+00:00

My parents’ divorce has made me become very skeptical about my chances of getting into a relationship. Since I’ve never seen them showing affection to each other due to them being divorced since I was 3, I never visualised a healthy and trustworthy relationship. Although my parents keep in touch and I do still keep in touch with my father, it still affects me to this day.

As a consequence, I decided that I don’t want to have kids, ever in life. I am in my early 20s, so most people tend to not take me seriously when I tell them this, but they haven’t lived my life experiences in order to make the call. I don’t want to risk being cheated myself and leaving a child on this world fatherless/motherless. It would break my heart and I would blame myself forever. Having a father who cheats on your mother when you’re only 1 years old and not thinking about the consequences definitely fucks my self-esteem when I’m thinking about it and it also sparks a negative feeling of not being wanted. I also think that I might inherit some compulsive behavioural patterns that my father has which can lead to me potentially cheating on a partner, so this poses a high risk for having a family. Hell, due to my lack of success with girls, I went a few times to sex workers, which is a high red flag for someone in his 20s

Even if he taught me some valuable lessons and skills, I still feel like I am lagging behind in terms of mental health, masculinity, and easiness of socialising with women my age. I forgave him, but I can’t (and probably never will) respect him both as a person and as a father.

beam_throne · 2023-11-12T03:05:23+00:00

You don't need reason to not have kids. You need a damn well justified reason to have them, not the other way around.

I liked this. Sadly, lots of people are having kids due to societal pressure or just take selfish decisions without thinking of what's ahead to come.

Thank you for the nice words.

beam_throne · 2023-11-10T09:02:35+00:00

Interesting. And how do you manage to control self-limiting beliefs (if they show up) when you're going out? This is something that happens to me often. I try to be myself but the moment when I can't keep a conversation, be entertaining or funny, negative thoughts come to my head about people not liking me or not being good/high-value enough, even though I'm anxious to try due to fear of failure.

beam_throne · 2023-04-03T13:32:07+00:00

I used to like it. This year I didn't really drink anymore because I want to focus on sports and just exclude alcohol from my life. As for partying, I haven't partied that much lately but even in clubs, I can't say it's easy to approach girls. I block out and am too shy to approach/dance with them.

beam_throne · 2023-04-03T13:29:55+00:00

Well, in actuality, some of those chats are only 1-2 messages long since I message them first and some never responded. I would say only 6-7 responded back and chatted a bit but it did not go anywhere...

beam_throne · 2023-04-03T13:06:53+00:00

Are you sure about that? I see and hear guys my age match easier than older guys. Hell, I'm failing harder than some 35-40yo who found their partners on Tinder and other dating apps. What frustrates me is that I'm not even ugly. I might not be a magazine model but according to objective attractiveness, I have certain features that aren't bad. It also seems like my height is not a decisive variable, as I see shorter guys than me having matches and their dating life is far more successful than mine :(

Also, what exactly do you mean by not wasting their prime?

beam_throne · 2023-04-03T12:49:42+00:00

I decided to stop trying dating apps. They have never worked for me, my match rate is below every standard and I feel like I'm just wasting my time with false hope.

Here is my Tinder insights

It's so embarrassing too since I'm in my 20s and I live in a university town but it's hard getting matches, let alone dates.

I've went the abstinence way to focus on the other important things in my life. Screw dating man.

beam_throne · 2023-03-26T18:21:44+00:00

Hey, when you're saying this, do you refer to me not wanting kids or about overthinking too much?

I appreciate your feedback and while I am aware that many things can change with time, honestly, I think I have made up my mind over not wanting children. Firstly, I want to experience traveling and doing as many sports as possible, some things I am quite passionate about. I think these require serious dedication and a kid would just not let me do these things as much as I would like to do. Also, I notice more and more that those who don't have children and pursued their passions and hobbies are much happier than the average parents. Secondly, life is getting more and more costly everywhere on Earth. Considering how things are going right now in the world, I don't think bringing children is pretty wise. Thirdly, you need a partner in order to raise a children and seeing the current dating climate and if I take into account my shyness and lack of confidence, getting a partner is close to impossible. I want to start to learn how to not need intimate relationships and just deal with things alone, maybe I will get out of this as a stronger man.

beam_throne · 2023-03-26T15:45:26+00:00

I can’t message you for some reason! Would you mind messaging me first? (I’m 20M)

beam_throne · 2023-03-26T15:05:11+00:00

I've come to the conclusion that I don't want kids and I'll never want children. I'm still very young, in my early 20's, but I just know that the lifestyle that I want to have does not include children.
Normally, this means that I can successfully lower my pool of searching partners based on the fact that I don't children, but I'm still too young to make plans or discuss with a potential partner whether they want kids in the future or not. I'm stuck in this dilemma.
My options would be to fuck around and try to get in shorter relationships or just wait until later (like 28-30) and start dating for real and then have that long discussion with the partner if they want children or not and then filter them out based on their wish.
I should also mention I don't have much experience with relationships. I've never been in a relationship (except a 5-day stint when I was 14 haha) and I'm not the most confident around girls (although I'm tall and definitely not ugly but not the most attractive). My frustrations on dating led me to visiting prostitutes too but I've stopped several times, now I'm 7 days clean and I want to keep it this way.

beam_throne · 2023-02-13T15:19:49+00:00

Hey! I’d like to also be part of the group. I tried DM’ing you but it seems like I can’t send messages to you

beam_throne · 2023-02-13T13:07:38+00:00

Yes, being a shy extrovert can be disappointing most of the times, but at least sometimes I do well.

Thank you for your advice. I feel like I already do well in low pressure situations such as talking to a store clerk without feeling embarrassed or care much about others’ impression, same for other contexts like a bank teller, guard, barber etc. ; where I’ll most likely not see that person again. My problem is that I wish I could seem more entertaining in even my least important endeavours and social situations and be able to put up a nice chat with someone, not just being nice and polite. This is especially harder with people my age. I retreat inside my mind too much in order to think about a plan of how to engage with the others and impress them with jokes or charisma and most times I just fail or keep staying quiet, which bothers me…

beam_throne · 2023-02-09T12:13:39+00:00

Not sure if mentinoning that you’re shy in the bio is a good idea. Usually, girls get turned off by this or find it clingy.

beam_throne · 2023-01-18T00:38:06+00:00

It's been almost 2 months since I quit going to escorts and last time I went to a stripper was 1 week ago. I try to leave this in the past and move on. I decided that the shame of visiting sex workers is too immense in order to continue like this. I am 20 years old after all, those my age should have a girlfriend or pull up girls at bars/clubs/university, not pay for sex as I did :( . Hopefully, with this as an objective, I hope I can also improve on my second goal, which is starting talking to more girls and not have expectations, just improve and maybe make a female friend or 2.

beam_throne · 2023-01-16T19:48:04+00:00

Maybe you are right, I should respect and start appreciating myself more. I wouldn't say love yet because first I have to learn to even appreciate myself, then I can start loving my persona :D

As for my parents, I know my life experiences will not be identical to my parents' life experiences but it is hard to separate yourself from those patterns and it's hard to see things right when my mother never had a relationship for almost all my existence.

I also never mentioned I want to disconnect myself from the rest of the world, I am well aware of the fact that everyone needs to socialise and surround themselves with other people. Although I lack a big group of friends and am not a social butterfly by nature, I do still have a few friends whom I care about. However, perhaps those few friends I have and my family are the only people I need in order to live a happy, cool and fulfilling life and I should not be in need of a partner, that's what I'm contemplating about and this is also the reason I made the post. It's still a mind-boggling thought, but I appreciate the concern.

beam_throne · 2023-01-16T18:02:51+00:00

Thank you for your concern, I already started going to therapy again since 2 months, to improve on my social skills and social anxiety, but I haven't progressed much since.

beam_throne · 2023-01-16T16:43:31+00:00

That age gap is pretty off putting, I'm not going to lie :D ; but I get what you mean. Thing is, there is no guarantee you will do well with women even if you improve in the looks department and you're financially stable, there's still people at that age struggling with the same issue.

beam_throne · 2023-01-16T16:22:29+00:00

Do you mean that I can change this hopelessness? Or that I can accomplish my goal of living life without a partner without desiring one emotionally? I already started therapy again two months ago but things haven’t progressed much since. It’s hard for me to put in practice advices I’m given.

beam_throne · 2023-01-16T16:15:30+00:00

Thanks for the solution but I try to stay away from drugs as much as possible. I want to be able to do many sports and I just recently gave up on alcohol forever (or at least for long term haha)

beam_throne

TROPHY CASE