Something i need to express.

Hello Everyone.

I started on this forum a couple of months ago, and while not being as active here as i'd have wanted due to work and Master's Degree studies the testimonies and information i've seen here have been of a great help to me in my struggle to overcome PMO.

After giving it much thought, i decided to make this thread to discuss something which has been on my mind for a very long time and i think this would be a good place to talk about it.

I'll be turning 28 this year, next week to be exact. Currently living in my family house with my grandparents (who i help with whatever i can) , my uncle and my mother but with a fulltime job from Monday to Thursday and doing my Master's degree. Never once had a girlfriend in real life (only a long-distance one from 2010-2012/2013 over the internet) and still a virgin. Not in the least interested in clubbing, smoking or alcohol.

Social Interaction has been really difficult and alien for me ever since i can remember, i was never really good when it comes to social cues, unwritten rules, stuff like body language, hints, etc. However with a lot of work, and support from my family i've been able to overcome that to a great extent so now it's a lot easier to communicate with people and function well, still with a couple problems in some areas but managing well.

The bit i want to emphazise though is the whole love/romance/relationships ordeal which i'll try to explain to the best of my ability. Whenever i was interested in a girl it was a situation i never knew how to deal/cope with, most particularly when i was a teenager, for example: i had a classmate who i couldn't even approach. Not to mention, whenever i took an interest in someone what usually happened was the person was taken, or if she wasn't she would be not too long after she sparked my interest. I also admit to have fallen for people which were out of my reach or league in every sense of the word, and i'm not talking about celebrities no, i'm talking about people which were either in a relationship or married (though the latter only happened once) mostly older women. I remember when i started university studies in 2008 i had a classmate who was 7 years older than me (me 18 at the time and her 25), we became good friends and she confessed she was interested in me but prefered to stay as friends since she felt the age difference and life situations could be a problem for the two of us. We stayed friends in fact and that was it. However this acted as fuel for what would come later in my life.

As i stated before i never had a girlfriend. I met a girl online in 2010 who lived in another country and with who i had a 2 years and six months relationship, that time period was perhaps one of the happiest of my life if not the happiest. We had many things in common, similar life stories, both were quite the introverts, we we were even born on the same day. She was someone i loved a lot, as she didn't judge me and accepted me as what i was, i could be myself and acted as a major motivator, wanted to marry her and all. But in the end things didn't quite work out, circumstances given so the relationship ended.

After that as before my long distance girlfriend came a time period in which i really, REALLY wanted to be in a relationship, only in real life this time. I became even more of an anxious trainwreck around people and felt as though i went back to square one. Not only did i become interested in impossible to reach people but interest in older women skyrocketed, putting them in an even higher pedestal than i did with younger women (which in my case were also in quite a high pedestal). Needless to say PMO came back with full force and with is depression and anger.

Fast forward now, after going through quite a lot of things, a near death experience between them I really really can't care less about dating, whether i'm seen as dating material or not, how women view me, getting laid or relationships anymore, and have become more invested in my own personal goals, improving my life and becoming a better person. It's not that i'm bitter or resentful towards women, i may have felt that way in the past but came to understand it's ridiculous because said attitude would get me nowhere in life, that and i'm a believer in that a woman's choice is to be respected and if she says no to you then you move on and that's it, it isn't the end of the world and i see no problem if that person says she sees you as a friend, i don't see it as something as awful as people make it out to be. It took me a long time, but i finally understood you're not in the obligation to have a significant other to be happy, and you shouldn't give someone too much power when it comes to your own happiness.

With all of that explained my confusion comes from this: One of my long-term goals has been to become a father (mine neglected me basically all my life, divorced from my mom and only showed up once every blue moon never supporting me, also died recently), i feel the vocation to be a father but not the one to be a husband. In real life i just don't see myself being all lovey-dovey with some girl anymore, on the internet it was easy as there was no face-to-face interaction, but in person things like dating protocols, rules and all that are completely alien to me. That and while i'm not really ugly myself my personality (introvert, cold, analytical, barely smiling, serious, distant, hard to tell how i feel or what i think) often makes people not approach me, some even telling me of being afraid of doing so because of how they perceived me before defrosting to put it in some way. Even though i got used to it it still bothers me, not being able to connect with people and understand them as i'd like to.

Having learned to focus on my goals and not on chasing a relationship and live happily being single has been a good thing for me. But i wonder then why is PMO still a thing in my life? Why does it still continue to be a problem in spite of the new approach i have to life?. Could it be deep down there's a void waiting to be filled? A friend of mine who i told about this said the one for me simply hasn't appeared. Maybe so, but that's not the concern for me right now. What concerns me is if what i explained has any connection to my still present P.M.O addiction problem.

Anyway, sorry to bother with how long my post was but i needed to get this off my chest. Thank you for reading through all of this.
Bis Bald

 

Well regarding these two things. The whole being a father thing, i'm not entirely sure of it but i believe it comes from the fact my own father heavily neglected me my entire life, he divorced from my mother when i was only 1 year old and since then he never supported me, or bothered to keep in touch with me or even send me birthday cards (only called for my birthday and forgot about me the rest of the year, and this was when i was a lot older). Not to mention during my earlier years he often made remarks about me being a weirdo, view which he changed when news of me doing excellent in studies reached him and actually respected me, of course this i knew because of things other people told me. Spent a part of my childhood being picked on because i had no dad, and for a very long time i desperately wanted his approval or at least for him to acknowledge my achievements and have me know. He died in August last year, thankfully i had made up with him and let go of any form of resentment i may have had so i'm not bitter about it anymore as i also thank my mother for supporting me and everything she's done for my sake, but the issues regarding the whole lack of attention and support remained. So i believe the need to be a father kind of has its roots here

In regards of my issues with subtle rules and all, i forgot to mention that at age 13 i got diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome which wasn't known or talked about where i live at the time, so my mother and family were quite in the dark about what was really going on with me but in the end we found out so there's that. Like i mentioned, it's with a lot of support and work that i managed to learn about important social cues and all but i know there's still work to be done.

 

When it comes to the child i think it'd be what you said about giving them something different than what i had from my own dad, the enviroment i did not have, affection, support, acceptance and understanding. Now about your question about how a woman would come into play here. Answering that one is kind of complicated for me but i'll do my best. Being affectionate to a child is something i'd have no problem with, being affectionate romantically however is another story, i find it really hard and have no idea on how to deal with that sort of situations, it's confusing. Sure enough, i once thought of adopting, but i believe it wouldn't be fair to deny a child the opportunity of a loving home with the two of his parents, i don't know i feel like it'd be really selfish from my part if i took said approach i'd be putting a kid almost through the same enviroment i had. The friends i've told about this say the one for me simply hasn't arrived, and my mother (who is by the way the only one in my family who knows about my P.M.O addiction problem) says i've gone through so many things it's only natural i think like so but that it won't be permanent and need guidance, and that for the time being focusing on my personal goals like i'm doing is the best thing i can do so the rest will come over time.

Like you and @Roady said, there's layers to pull off to get to the bottom of all this, being honest with myself will perhaps be the most difficult part, however for the time being i will admit the fact P.M.O is still present in my life as is clearly tells me something in me needs to heal and be dealt with and is clearly related with what i said, that i won't lie about otherwise i wouldn't be resorting to P.M.O like i do and have such a hard time leaving it.

 

I'm Catholic. Now that you mention it, yes i've thought about being a priest in two points in my life: One when i was little (although i can't exactly remember at what point) and the other when i was like 12-14 years old, the thought came back this year a couple months ago as well. Adopting/fostering i thought about too, however at least here chances of being allowed to adopt are from slim to none if you are single, that and i think of the child wondering why he/she doesn't have a mother like other children (sort of what i went through only with my dad), and all that comes with it. Maybe it's only my perception, but i don't think it'd be fair to be honest. Having said this i really don't know what i should do, what's really going on with me and what direction my life should take, i'm really confused and need guidance.

 

Thank you for your words. I'll keep all of this in mind, especially the part talking to people at church which can give me guidance. I trust that'll lead me to the answers i look for as well as help me overcome P.M.O and all the problems it keeps bringing into my life. Once again, thank you.