the-alchemist said:
Does it sometimes feel like it's too late to do something about your life? Like too much time have passed and it's too late.
Man, I'm 23 now. Unfortunately I wasted my teens and 2 years of my 20s on videogames and comics. I was socially awkward and therefore I had no friends or anything. I have never been to a party, I've never had a girlfriend.
I'm 23 and I -just- got my first girlfriend. I spent the entirety of my free time from school years til the age of 21 playing video games and reading novels. And you know what? The girl I'm with can't get enough of me and doesn't give a crap that I'm inexperienced (even though she's been with probably a dozen or more guys in the past).
Don't sweat this, please. I can totally empathize that this feels like a HUGE issue, but when we manage to find perspective, it really isn't.
This year, 2010 I had resolved to do something about my situation, thus I set out to try to get friends and find love. Because I realized that no girl is just going to knock on my door. Although I have yet to kiss a girl at the time I'm writing, I have made strides in my social development. A lot of progress compared to the complete social isolation that was my teen years.
Good!
Let's repeat that to ourselves, only in bold, capital letters.
GOOD!
We don't get anywhere unless we try and we only fail when we give up and write the final stanza to the saga. You say you have made progress from your state of isolation. This is a huge success that you can
build upon. Once I started socializing, and just making myself endure the awkwardness and the anxiety, things got better over about the course of a year.
When I finally realized I needed to grow up and start pursuing women if I wanted to be with one, I experienced a multitude of failures, some of them crushing blows to my person. But I have now found success. Somewhere in the coal bed, we find our diamond mine.
But sometimes, I get very sad when I think back. While people were partying, having girlfriends, kissing their first girls, I was just home playing videogames or reading comics. I mean, people at my age have been in a number of relationships, they've been abroad, they've probably done activities etc. They have done so much with their lives. All I did was sitting in front of the computer playing games or reading comics. I just started going to university this year, at 23 years of age while others started when they were 18 or 19.
I feel like I've missed so much, like my life is worthless. I feel like I'm so old. I feel like I am past my expiration date. I have so much regret. I mean sure, I am still determined to make something of my life and salvage what is left of it, but sometimes it gets me down that I don't have the social resumè of my peers of the same age.
Man, it's like I'm looking in a mirror...
I didn't start college until I was 20. I'm STILL working on a 'two year' degree, at 23, and probably won't finish for another year and a half.
Dude, fresia it.
At 22 I started reminiscing a lot. I felt every regret that you just listed. I wished I could hit the Rewind button and go to school dances. I wished I could go back and have the courage to talk to girls, have the sense to do well in school and go to college straight off. But you know what? Those people who go to college right after highschool, and get their fancy four year degrees in Liberal Arts and Hurp-Durpology?
They lack so much ******* common sense and real life experience that they are unbearable to be around. As an EMT, I took a patient in on a very simple piece of equipment called a scoop stretcher. It separates in to two halves via two very simple latch mechanisms. When we went back to retrieve it, the incredible team of ER doctors and nurses had seen fit to dismantle one of the latches to get the patient off of it. To do this, they had to somehow acquire a set of allen wrenches; and I don't know any ER that just has allen wrenches around. I know they had to go look for that honeysuckle.
These people are frequently too dumb to operate a blanket.
The rest of the 4 year degrees spend ten years paying off student loans and trying to find jobs where only 20% of their numbers are actually in demand.
Dude, you and I aren't -even- close to 'salvage' material yet. So what if we were geeks? RELISH IT! Pride yourself on the geekness and wrap yourself in the warm memories of comic books and late night gaming sessions. It's a culture most people don't experience and it's no better or worse than having wasted your childhood partying. A lot of those party people haven't turned out so well, you know. In fact I would say more of them are close to 'salvage mode' than you or I are. Man, I used to be so ashamed of how I spent my youth. But you know what? we did it because we enjoyed it. It was safe and it was fun for us, was it not? We simply enjoyed our childhood how we saw fit. fresia anyone who says otherwise, they don't know what they're talking about.
When you and I find ourselves smoking crack and trying to find another part time job to support our $20,000 of unjustifiable credit card debt, after finding another flop-house to crash at for the week, THEN we can say we have to 'salvage' our lives. What counts is that you and I have determined now that we do have to take action to be successful. There is no cookie cutter for success or prosperity. There is no recipe that reads as follows:
-Eight highschool girlfriends
-Four years of college and partying
-Fifty college flings
-Two years travelling on mommy's dime
Place in the oven and bake for one hour for instant superiority over all other life forms.
Yeah, it's not in any cookbook, and I love to cook.
Keep being social, keep talking to people. You know what I did to get comfortable with girls? I made myself cold-approach various service employees and go out with whatever girls I could from Craigslist. Hours of collective embarrassment and anxiety. But I exposed myself so much that I don't even care now and it's brilliant. I can just...talk to them, and actually have a date, whereas three years ago I would have run home and hid in the darkest corner of my apartment sweating profusely. Do I still WANT to do that sometimes? Hell yes. But I know how to cope with it.
Keep going to school. You'll get there someday. I was shocked at the age range in my classes when I started going to the local college, dude. There's people in there twice my age embarking on incredibly ambitious goals, and they are GOING to succeed because they have the drive and aren't discouraged. Take your time, work while you're doing it. Save some money for yourself while you're at it. This method has it's merit as well.
And don't be afraid of the two-year programs or jobs that pay less than $60,000 a year. We're programmed to think that if we don't use the cookie cutter, we're messed. But it's simply not true as long as we have our ingenuity and our drive to succeed.
Above all else, keep coming here. This place is an excellent support, and a 'safe haven' when you're tense and worried, or disappointed over a setback.
It gets better, now that you're trying.
