I mean, I didn’t have a partner till I was 20, and didn’t have any friends (aside from partners) till I was almost 25.
It is super discouraging, after a lot of effort and crying, I finally have a pretty satisfying social life. It’s not impossible.
I pretty much re-invented myself around 20 and became a much better person for it and have had a pretty great life for the past fifteen years or so.
Ironically I had a lot of friends growing up but almost all of them turned into garbage monsters and I actually chose to be friend-free outside of my significant other not long after 20 and I really don’t miss the friend experience. I do have a lot of casual acquaintances and my wife tells me I’m great in social situations but I just don’t feel the need any more to expend energy on friends when I have my family and hobbies.
I pretty much re-invented myself around 20
Same. I was an absolutely horrible person. Was a total failure headed for jail. Finally realized it one day when my ex girlfriend sprayed me with mace. Was that day, face puffy and swollen, that I realized I had become bad guy that people live in fear of. I completely reinvented myself. Lost all of my friends, girlfriend, apartment, basically everything. Joined the military with $200 in my bank account and no debts unpaid. 10 years later and I have a successful career, good friends, wife, and expecting my first child in two months from now.
Yeah I started dating at 20. I’d always had friends but it for so much easier in my 20s to befriend people who treated me right.
Yeah it sucks. But also, anon’s advice is true. A huge step for me was getting the fuck over myself. Anon isn’t doomed but he has his work cut out for him
I don’t know, I feel like anon’s advice is misguided at the very least.
It assumes that OOP is more or less choosing to be this way, instead of struggling with issues outside their control, be it self-image issues, anxiety, depression, money or a myriad of other things. Depending on the particukar combination and severity, anon’s situation may not change for a very long time, including forever.
I believe proper advice would focus on making them accept their situation. It’s OK to have no friends or partner(s). They are not a necessity in order to live a meaningful life. Perhaps it won’t be the most meaningful life possible but it is certainly possible to find meaning while feeling lonely. Though finding a job is somewhat important, especially if they live in countries without social welfare, they should focus on that for a bit.
I don’t have any positive stories to share on how I overcame the issues anon is facing - considering I’m in my early 20s and have nearly all the same one’s. But acceptance has helped me cope with my situation in a not unhealthy way and reduced some of the pain of loneliness and self-doubt.
I didn’t have mine until I was 23. That’s when I had my first kiss too. I’m also a huge lesbian. It’s a bummer for sure, but definitely was NOT the end of my life.
For “it’s too late for me” thinking, imagine what you’d think at {your_current_age}+10. For a teenager, work on developing a skill or talent, nothing else matters. Become independent and self reliant, and don’t be a jerk to others.
If you’re a teenager, just know that your stupidass brain won’t be fully developed until your early/mid 20s. So just roll with it and stop imposing arbitrary deadlines on anything.
“In 20 years from now, you’d give anything to be your age again with the opportunities you have available to you right now”
Lmao OP’s post reads like all of those posts on the self improvement subreddits
I was still a virgin who never kissed a girl when I was 19, not for lack of trying (being an arrogant, shortsighted asshole certainly didn’t help me score). Took me another year before I had sex for the first time.
About the same for me. My solution was Accutane.
I can’t imagine growing up with social media. Probably not good for development.
i grew up during the wild internet days
saw one man one jar, two girls one cup, smile HD, happy tree friends, and incredibly graphic gore when i was at the ripe old age of 12
considering the circumstances i think i turned out fine, well, as fine as a person with empathy can be in this hellscape
You misunderstand. That was when the Internet was good. No amount of scat or gore or violent cartoons will ever hold a candle to the crushing algorithmic power of modern, corporate social media.
Millennials like us didn’t just grow up with the Internet, the Internet grew up with us too. We got to exploit bleeding edge technology to build the Internet we were using. Gen-Z and Gen Alpha are growing up on a mature but enshittified corporate social media landscape designed to exploit them for profit.
i’m technically old gen z, i got the end of the wild Internet, and beginnings of enshitification, though by the time it was starting i was already off in niche corners of untouched Internet, until those spaces started to die too
Yes, but that was still before social media. As weird as it sounds, social media is probably more damaging than the early oughts shock sites
Yeah social media just adds so much undue mental pressure, especially the non-anonymous ones.
People are constantly seeing perfectly filtered and perfectly arranged photos of influencers apparently enjoying the perfect life and then comparing their own reality and feeling inadequate.
The FOMO pressure to be always available and seek validation via DMs, comments and likes.
The bombardment of political slop and seeing the opinions of every single fucker in the world and a few million bots about some mundane shit is bad for your mood.
Sending and receiving Goatse was just a tiny bit of fun in comparison.
They killed the pro-ana site but replaced it with the mass normalization of lesser body image issues. Replaced stormfront with wide sharing of fascist talking points from people who wouldn’t call themselves national socialists. They sanitized the worst aspects of the old internet, but in trying to get people hooked they took a lot of the same things they sanitized and promoted versions that were palatable to the masses. They made an Internet that feels safe in the same way painkillers do.
trueee, the closest i got to social media back then was a forum for a game i liked with less than 50 regular members
goatse.cx and Lemon Party
And goatse gave us the ability to laugh at that Micky Mouse clock
And honestly, I was a full on adult when covid hit and I regressed. It’s got to have been awful for kids
Aside from no friends, the rest of those things apply to a ton of 19 year olds. I don’t think it’s entirely Social Medias fault they have a weird expectation; even I had that as a teen and I heard my dad’s generation did too.
I think it’s mostly because people see movies where sex is commonplace in high school and losing your “V card” is a thing. The expectation to drive and work has also just been there since forever ago, but this current generation is even less likely to need to either. At least I know there are some non-chan places also pushing to get teens to understand those expectations aren’t normal…
giving actual life advice instead of an hero on live stream? the fuck happened to the chans?
At 19 I had friends but other than that same.
The biggest problem with 4chan is all the users are about 12 years old but have the cynicism of a 45-year-old.
when i was that age i too had trouble looking beyond the next few months
Legit though, a REAL bro would offer to let them give a blowjob. To the bro. Counts as sex! You suck my dick, you are officially not a virgin! Now, go out there and kiss someone with the jizz still lingering on your lips, you horny motherfucker :)
There worse things than being a virgin.
Not to an incel, they base their entire life around it. Everyone else just gets on with their life until they randomly meet someone.
Trying to force a relationship out of thin air never works, which is part of the reason why dating apps would never work even if they weren’t paid to win.
Dating apps used to work very well before the shareholders got greedy.
And even today they work somewhat well
Dating apps do work enough that people use them. Heck I met my wife through a dating app. When I was single hearing that would just frustrate me because I couldn’t even get matches and at a certain point of that I had to take a break for a year+ just for my mental health. But it did eventually work out.
Dating apps are an option if you don’t meet people of your preferred gender and age group somewhat regularly.
How do you not panic and delete it every time you get a message that’s not immediately identifiable as a bot? Lost my nerve at the first human looking “Hey” and nuked my account.
First job and license at 21. First relationship, kiss and sex at 22.
Poe’s law
Maybe Anon is neurodivergent and doesn’t even realise it.
I know people who are diagnosed later in life, which explains a lot when we were growing up.
Or anon is a lazy defeatist incel
deleted by creator
Entertainment had people believe that beautiful girls would be with the loser in the right circumstances. People don’t take in to account that these are fantasy stories.
It does sometimes happen. It’s just that it’s far more often the beginning of a different story in which she gets her shit together and dumps her loser boyfriend/husband
While I agree that if you are dog shit you can not expect people wanting to be with you. But your judgement is one-sided. Entertainment also made people believe every successful, jacked, Hollywood star wants to be with average Jane coz she is princess. Not all problems of zoomers created by zoomers
Zoomers aren’t in Hollywood. Every YA in film is played by someone 25+
Do you take everything written on internet literally?
It’s a weird hill to die on but okay.
If you say on the internet that the sky is red and someone comes back and says no the sky is not red it’s blue is your response going to be, “it was a joke don’t take it so literally?” Because if so then that’s bloody stupid.
I only pointed out that zoomers are not the ones creating Hollywood content, which is accurate.
I’m not dying, or was that a joke? Then you are bloody stupid
