Exactly 1 month since my last O, approached a girl for the first time ever - and got her number

This is a bit of a long post so if you're here, prepare yourself for a bit of reading.

So, the title pretty much says it all. The last time I PMOd was on the 6th of January this year. I made it to about 20 days hard mode and then I edged and after a few days and another such incident made me decide to reset my streak. I'm currently on day 5 of hard mode then, but it has been 30 days since I last O'd.

I am 19 years old and have never had a girlfriend. Since I was 16 I knew I had an addiction because I tried many times on my own to quit PMO but I could not do it. I have been having a hard time pinpointing it, but I believe that I have been addicted since I was about 12. I tried many times over the course of the last few years with on and off motivation, but since I found out about this site I am fully committed and dedicated to reaching my eventual goal of completely getting rid of my addiction and rebooting my brain.
Now, alongside never having a girlfriend, I have pretty much never approached a girl I thought was good looking and talked to her. I have known girls in school and in university who I was close with but never anything serious, I've never even kissed a girl. I've probably tried talking to girls I thought were good looking before but I can tell you it would have been pretty pathetic.

As a result of doing noFap, I noticed a lot of benefits already in not only my mentality but also my physique. I have a stronger taste for the "real world." By that I mean, I spend much less time inside and on my laptop and on social media/phone and live life the way it was meant to be lived - outside and being up and about. I started exercising a lot and as a result I have gotten pretty fit and pretty much have a six pack now and feel great about my body and also my self and my personality. My eyes I have also noticed have more life in them, and are fuller and more friendly. There are many more benefits, but this isn't a post about the benefits. I'll make another success story when I reach 30 days hard mode for the first time in my life discussing all my benefits. By then, I will be on almost day 60 without an O. I can't wait to see what my life has in store for me when I get there.

Now, along with all these benefits I decided to try to make more progress in my social abilities and started challenging myself to be more social. So, last week I set myself the goal of saying a nice thing to just one random girl. The first day, I tried so many times, had so many opportunities in perfect circumstances, but every single time, even when the words were on the tip of my tongue, I just chickened out. I was pissed off at myself for not being able to do it. So I tried again the next day and the exact same thing happened. The next two days were the weekend and on Sunday I decided to forget about that goal for the time being and just wait for a time further down my streak when I have progressed more in my rebooting process. Well, today was the first Monday back. It was a bit of a slow morning, I got up relatively early but I decided to stay in bed because it was perfect staying-in-bed weather and I was simply so cosy and warm staying under my blankets and such. After a couple of hours of watching South Park, something struck my curiosity and I ended up stopping the episode and doing some math for what was probably an hour (I am a math major). This is also a good thing because I believe a month ago I wouldn't have bothered to get up and find a pencil and paper to make many pages of mistakes until eventually figuring out the answer. Well, anyways after I did figure it out, I decided that enough was enough and even though it was almost 3pm that I was going to go to university and do the work that I needed to do.
And so there I was on campus walking along my usual path to get to where I needed to be, and along this path there's a sort of lounge room where students sometimes go to eat or to study. Classes aren't currently running so they're usually empty, but today I looked through and saw this really good looking girl in there preparing some food. I was intrigued because as I said, there is usually nobody there, and now this is the important part. I just walked in and said hi and asked her what she was doing at uni and it turned out we were both doing the same thing but for a different subject. We started talking and we ended up spending about 2 hours (no exaggeration 3-5) doing just that - talking. We really hit it off. I made her laugh a lot of times and she made me laugh as well and it turned out we had a few friends in common and I think we really started something really good. Whether or not it turns into a full fledged relationship or just remains an acquaintanceship, I don't really care. But as I said in the title I have her number and we already have made plans to meet up when semester starts but I intend to ask her out to lunch some time before that since that's like 4 weeks away. But like I said, I don't really care what happens next. Because what matters is this:
First of all, she is a really really pretty girl. I'm talking, tall, beautiful smile, slightly olive skin so basically a natural tan, and straight black hair. Seriously, one of the prettiest girls I've ever seen on campus. The point here is, I didn't once think about sex with her, nor did I perv at her body while she wasn't looking. These are typical things I know myself to always do. But I didn't do them. Well, she was wearing a really pretty blue skirt and I glanced at her legs but it was totally innocent, and when this did happen I said to her "wow that's a really pretty skirt" and she enjoyed the compliment, so there I took care of last weeks goal without even intending to. Anyways, all I cared about was just talking to her, getting to know her, enjoying her conversation and her stories etc. and I simply can't believe it. I was so happy with myself for being able to manage all that. I'm not saying I don't completely objectify women. In fact it's one of the things I've seen the least improvement in until today. Whenever I see a group of people my eyes straight away fix on the girls. Though I'm trying to fix that and have probably come a long way without realizing it due to the gradual change, today's experience taught me that yes, I am growing, and I am becoming a better person. A person whose only thought isn't what's under a girls clothes. And I think I finally understand what all these people mean when they say in their success stories "I don't objectify women anymore." And it's great.
Second of all, and this is of course related to the whole objectifying women theme, a month ago, there is no way in hell that I would have had the courage to go into that room and say hi to her. But today, I literally did not even give a single shit. Not a one. I didn't even stop to think about what I was doing - I just waltzed in and said hi. In all fairness it was fucking badass. It was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced myself doing and is simply cold hard proof to myself that my journey so far is doing wonders for me. In the last 40 days, I have PMOd 5-6 times, don't know the exact number. That's usually the amount that I would do in the space of 2-3 days. To have gone so long really seems like magic. I love it. The whole day I felt so good about myself not only because this gorgeous girl expressed some real interest in me but also the fact that I actually took the initiative to meet a new person today that just so happened to be a gorgeous girl. (Well, I'm not going to lie. If it was a guy in that room I probably wouldn't have bothered. But that's not the point of my story. The point of it is that she was a fucking GIRL. And I talked to her. I made her laugh, I got her number, and I practically already have a date with her when classes start and everybody is going to campus regularly.)
Third of all and lastly, the entire time I was talking to her, I was looking her dead in the eyes. Now, ever since I noticed it, which was roughly at the beginning of high school, I have never been able to look someone in the eyes for longer than 2 or 3 seconds. It just felt so uncomfortable to me all the time. I remember forcing myself to just look at the person while talking to them or while they were talking to me but I simply for the life of me could not bring myself to do it. I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about. I suspect it's because of something like, when we PMO we force ourselves into this tiny little isolated world and so don't feel natural when we interact with others. Today, another first for me, I looked her straight in the eyes the entire time. Well, not the 'entire' entire time. That would have been creepy. But it simply felt like the normal thing to do, to look her in the eyes while I was talking to her and while she was talking to me. And she looked me back. And I think she liked what she saw. As I mentioned, I have noticed a change in my eyes over my noFap journey and it looks like I'm not just imagining it since she showed me that beautiful smile many times and it felt as if she was looking into my soul when we had eye contact. As I've already written a few times, I fucking felt amazing because of it.

So.. in conclusion, I guess all I can say is holy shit. What a change. I think that finally, at the end of my teens, I am once and for all becoming a man. PMOing is known to decrease testosterone after all - it's also apparent in my facial expression. I look more manly. Another person mentioned this in their success story (I read a lot of success stories because they motivate me heaps), noFap gives you this aggression in your eyes and attractiveness. Fuck though, I can't believe I am experiencing all these effects, it feels amazing. I will keep strong with noFap and I hope that this little story can prove to you that quitting PMO is pretty much the best thing you could ever hope to do in your entire life.

Hope you enjoyed the read, look forward on posting again here in 25 days, or 55

 

I like your explanation, it makes perfect sense. Glad to know I'm out of that hole now.

No worries man, I'm glad somebody could get some inspiration from my success!

 

Will do friend, thanks for your belief and your support!

 

I agree with EVERYTHING @JWwantsalife said. Man, unless you are devoted in changing your lifestyle, you are never going to give it up. Since I started noFap, I have started exercising so much, and have picked up a couple of hobbies and simply have grown to love spending time outside (in fact, being indoors is almost repulsive to me). PMO is an addiction and you can't just 'drop' an addiction like that. It takes a lot of mental dedication, and noFap isn't just a challenge that you can 'do.' It is a whole new life that you are taking on. Unless you are serious about it, you'll never accomplish it. But one thing that I realized in week 2 of my first real proper streak, is that when you do PMO all the time, you have apparently no control over your life and its outcomes. You have no desire to change it and to improve it. When you do noFap though, you realize that you can make your life literally anything you want it to be, and so I decided what kind of life I wanted, and I made it into a reality. It's easier said than done, and I'm still in the process of doing it. It's filled with ups and downs and while the ups are easy, the downs require some real strength - but that's where you build character and lay the foundation for you new life. Early on in my streak I compared my, at the time, 50 day streak on duolingo (a website for learning languages) to what it would be like to go that long without PMO and my first thought was "holy shit that's gonna be so boring without wanking" and that made me realize that I too wasn't really ready to give it up. I spent time working on that and today, I feel like I will never in my life again watch P. I despise it. It disgusts me. But I am yet on the early days of my journey so far and the future has much to bring. Well, I say bring it on.
So, my advice to you is to really search your soul. Find out why you do/don't want to give up PMO and once you know that, then you can finally begin your journey. Best of luck brother.

 

Hahahahahha, cheers mate. Will do, so look out for it!

 

You will man. You know why? Because that's what real life is like. In real life, guys go up to girls and talk to them, and girls enjoy it because girls like guys. The whole point of noFap is to get out of this dry unhappy world we have created for ourselves and get out in to the real world. I mean this both physically and mentally. That is, I have a passion for being outdoors now, for looking at the clouds, the trees, the sunset, and appreciating the beauty of mother nature. That's the physical side of being in the real world. The mental side I'm talking about is things like of course, interacting with people but that's not really what I mean. What I mean is, the world you create for yourself in your head. Your thoughts, your beliefs and thus your actions etc. In fact, the whole act of talking to girls is a consequence of this effect, of clearing your mind from years of exposure to this twisted fantasy world that means fucking shit all. You'll get there bro. You just have to hang tough. Even one month ago, I was such a different person. I was tiny. Now I am a mammoth. Not talking anything about physique here at all. Some people of course it takes longer than others, but I hope for your sake since you are still only 17 that your recovery will be like mine. One piece of advice though, is don't wait for results to come. That'll just make you impatient. Just let it happen.
You can do this bro.