Wasted my life, midlife crisis and still lost

[Thrasymachus]

I have absolutely wasted my youth trancing out like a zombie in front of the tv and computer. Pretty soon I will turn 29 years old and as always when I get older or a new year dawns, I start reflecting back and getting morose. I beat myself up in my mind worrying about my status in life and the dead end I always stay in. I sabotaged (and still do) all my chances in life. As a result I still live with my mother at this advanced age. I have no degree or job skills. I do not really have any friends. I never had a girlfriend my whole life and am still a virgin. Basically at everything in life I have failed, whereas by now most my more responsible peers have established themselves financially, got out and dated while they still were young and have their own families by now.

For most of this lost decade, I refused to even work and when I did it was always in low paying crappy jobs that are not worth staying at for long. I tried going to community college back in 2006-7 but I could not do what it took to co-operate. Also it is against my ethic system for the university to exist, let alone to successfully participate in it. I have never really committed to a career path or vocational training, because I cannot see myself doing the same thing for a decade. Right now I have a shitty part-time job at Fedex as a package sorter that pays $11.75 a hour, which only lasts 3 hrs per day at most for 5 days a week(however I still collect partial employment from a past job). I know I need a full time job, but I do not see how I could get a good one, and getting comfortable again in a dead-end job could result in having the same problem at 35, 40, etc. I also still feel trepidation at committing to vocational training or any apprenticeship to command a higher salary.

I do not have any male friends. The one person whom others could consider as a friend is someone I knew from junior high and high school who I am more rather simply comfortable with. I have to know a person for years or else I always feel I need to be on my guard against them. Really this guy is toxic and I should distance myself from him, which I have started doing. He likes doing copious volumes of alcohol, drugs and trancing out on the pc and internet idly(I do these later two activities myself too much, but consciously if not subconsciously I want to quit). He is even worse off then me, I do not know how I got into it, but he works 8 miles away as a gas station attendant and I have to drive him to work if my brother does not. Basically I am always there for him when he needs it, but he is so fallen apart, he will never be able to reciprocate.

I had the opportunity to have at least 4 girlfriends in my life, but I never took the opportunities. That is a common problem of mine, I never make firm decisions and am rather characterized by doubt, indecisiveness and full of excuses why I should not do anything and continue doing nothing. One chance I blew perhaps should not be counted, because when I was 12 the neighbor's kids and my brother started to declare that I liked the girl next door when I infact did not like her or have any sexual urges at that age. But just the same they dragged us together and I could have went along with it. One other time I remember this younger black girl strangely started walking home together with me for about a week and finally handed me a paper asking me if I would go out with her. At age 19 when I vacationed in Greece one of my cousins told me that a girl in the village liked me. In my early twenties when I worked as a painter one day I didn't need to show up at a job for the day and a young women asked where I was and displayed to my boss she was interested in me. Now I realize that I handled everything wrong by avoiding all these girls/women and that now at 29 with no good job. the unacceptable situation of living still with mom it will be even much, much harder to start.

Looking back I cannot fathom how I messed up so bad trancing all those years away in front of some electronic images and sounds refusing to take part in any serious real life activities peers of my age engage in. I wanted to retreat from any sense of reality to lock myself at my mother's home having as little relations with the outside as possible. In that I succeeded at the price of failing at life. I don't know what to do, the closer it gets to my birthday, the more disconsolate I will be. I find myself constantly wishing for a time machine to give a beating and instructions to my younger counterpart. I still cannot picture myself having a steady career, a wife and a family. Neither do I look forward to bouncing through jobs, and being alone forever. I am sandwiched between two unattractive final prospects and so I fear I will continue doing much the same -- nothing.

 

[Sci-Fi]

Wait, wait, wait, you are turning 29? You have not yet wasted your life or are you hitting that midlife crisis so get that silly notion out of your head. Hell I'm 35 and I don't even consider myself anywhere near my midlife crisis. Sure you may think you wasted the past years but think of them as this way, they were a learning experience for your present and future. Stop beating yourself up, just stop doing it. I could sit here and give you suggestions (but I really need to get out and plow snow) and none of them will do you any good until YOU decide to pull yourself out of your self pity and loathing. As soon as YOU decide that you no longer want to be stuck in the way you are and want to honestly make a change then change will come. It is all up to YOU to do though, it has to be your decision and that includes in letting you sabotage yourself. If you want a better career and job then go back to school, go to your employment office and find out what kind of programs there are. Start making a positive change in your life, a proactive one. Get your life going in the direction you want then worry about relationships.

Most of all though stop being so destructive to yourself.

 

[Kenny]

That's what drugs do for you. Pot smoker? Sound like one. Put that honeysuckle down and quit hiding from life. I understand in this difficult economy and hard times that many of us find ourselves back at home with our parents or utilizing social collateral in one form or another to help us. But "falling on hard times" and needing help is way different from "failure to launch" which is what you are suffering from.

You are ten years into adulthood! You haven't pursued a career, an education, a goal, a family. Nothing?

The problem here is that you have been enabled. Your mom needs to throw your ass out. That is the BEST thing that could ever happen to you. Like the baby bird being tossed from the nest because it just won't jump, but it's mother knows it needs to learn and try.

Get the fresia out of that house, get off the computer, get off the dope.

You have got to do something.

"I just can't see myself doing the same thing for decades" IS NOT A valid REASON or EXCUSE for doing absolutely nothing with yourself and hiding from life while mooching off others. Tough economy or not, my friend, you are obligated to do SOMETHING with yourself.

Sorry if you don't like the tone of my response, but the last thing you need is to be coddled. Your mommy has done enough of that.

 

[SophiaGrace]

The question is Thraymacus. Who do you want to be?

 

[redrotary13b]

Go back to school.

I understand your hatred for school too.
I had and have the same feelings but do something with your life.

No excuses, my father was 4 when he took his certification for acupuncture. After 3 years of studying, he did it. So can you.

 

[Kenny]

No excuses, my father was 4 when he took his certification for acupuncture. After 3 years of studying, he did it. So can you.

Your father was 4? With 3 years of studying? Wow, he got a really early start in his professional career!

 

[Peter Lorre]

Also it is against my ethic system for the university to exist, let alone to successfully participate in it.

I'm curious about this, why is it?

 

[Kenny]

I'm guessing communist, marxist, socialist.

 

[Elgin]

Dude, I am your age. I have no sympathy for you. You talk like a menial job is beneath you and not good enough but let me clue you in, somebodies got to do them. I never went to college, no money but I didn't sit around playing on a computer all smoked up sucking the life out of my parents. I went out and got sometimes as many as 3 jobs at one time so I could make it on my own and I have been for the last 8 years. I just got off my shift working a toll booth, the pay isn't great but the benefits plan is good, and by 5 tonight I'll be waiting tables.
On Fri and Sat nights I can walk out with 2oo-300 bucks in just tips alone. I got a nice apartment, nothing too fancy but it's mine. I keep a car on the road and can even throw a couple of bucks at my mom now and then because they're having it rough because of medical expenses. I'm proud of that. I feel good about holding down a job and being able to help them.
I date all the time and get along with people just fine. I would NEVER date somebody my age still freeloading off their parents. I'm not talking about somebody who got laid off and needed to crash with the parents until they got another job, I'm talking about free-loading lifers like you. Put down the dope and get the F out there and figure it out. People like me with a simple job that doesn't require college are way past you. WE know how to live and be independent. I know a lot of people with fancy degrees and they're waiting tables right next to mine. No college is an excuse. Laziness is all you suffer from.

 

[Kenny]

Dude, I am your age. I have no sympathy for you. You talk like a menial job is beneath you and not good enough but let me clue you in, somebodies got to do them. I never went to college, no money but I didn't sit around playing on a computer all smoked up sucking the life out of my parents. I went out and got sometimes as many as 3 jobs at one time so I could make it on my own and I have been for the last 8 years. I just got off my shift working a toll booth, the pay isn't great but the benefits plan is good, and by 5 tonight I'll be waiting tables.
On Fri and Sat nights I can walk out with 2oo-300 bucks in just tips alone. I got a nice apartment, nothing too fancy but it's mine. I keep a car on the road and can even throw a couple of bucks at my mom now and then because they're having it rough because of medical expenses. I'm proud of that. I feel good about holding down a job and being able to help them.
I date all the time and get along with people just fine. I would NEVER date somebody my age still freeloading off their parents. I'm not talking about somebody who got laid off and needed to crash with the parents until they got another job, I'm talking about free-loading lifers like you. Put down the dope and get the F out there and figure it out. People like me with a simple job that doesn't require college are way past you. WE know how to live and be independent. I know a lot of people with fancy degrees and they're waiting tables right next to mine. No college is an excuse. Laziness is all you suffer from.

Halelujah!

 

[SophiaGrace]

lol. Don't you think Thraysmacus hates himself enough already?
You're adding to it with your judgemental comments. Awesome.

Sorry that Thraysmacus doesn't fit your mold. He's obviously expressed a desire to change, but hasn't posted in this thread again. Oh, maybe it's because he feels ashamed. You're probably adding to his feelings of shame with your "constructive criticism". I asked him who he wanted to be because once he knows who he wants to be he can work towards it and become that person.

Now, does anyone want to help the guy up, or are we going to sit here and judge him and be condescending?

 

[Elgin]

lol. Don't you think Thraysmacus hates himself enough already?
You're adding to it with your judgemental comments. Awesome.

Sorry that Thraysmacus doesn't fit your mold. He's obviously expressed a desire to change, but hasn't posted in this thread again. Oh, maybe it's because he feels ashamed. You're probably adding to his feelings of shame with your "constructive criticism". I asked him who he wanted to be because once he knows who he wants to be he can work towards it and become that person.

Now, does anyone want to help the guy up, or are we going to sit here and judge him and be condescending?

I posted my opinion just like you did. Get over yourself. If he didn't want to hear what people had to say he shouldn't have put it out on a public site. That's half the problem in the world. People expect to be treated like a baby and have everyone pussy foot around and encourage their ways. Then there are other people who want to do all the babying and think eveything is all about coddling them. It isn't. Do you work 3 jobs and live independently? Do you help your parents pay doctor bills? If you do and still think his post didn't sound like a lazy person looking for sympathy then your just a real winner but for me. I stand by my words and reasons for writing them.

 

[Thrasymachus]

Elgin, having worked 3 jobs to maintain a lifestyle you obviously cannot afford is not something to brag about. Life is for living, not for working like a stressed pack mule your whole life. That friend whom I mentioned in this thread, works 12 hrs. a day at a gas station for 5 days a week, which is 60 hours(he used to work 6 days for 72 hrs.!). I drive him to work and he takes the train home. He says on the days he works he only has about 2-2.5 hours to himself, after sleeping. He lives with his mom still like me, if he lived on his own he would have even less time as he would have to maintain and clean an apartment in his few precious moments left to himself.

Actually in most parts of the world, people do what I do, they live with their parents until they become married or parents themselves. They live at home until they start their own families. Even in America this is how things were until the post-WWII economic boom, which is now a bust. People are already starting to stack back up into the multi-generational living like the pre-WWII days. The big difference with me is I never really wanted to be part of this society and coped by holing up away from the world.

I did do drugs for a while in my mid twenties, but I was never that heavily into it. I just socially used because those around me did it. I did marijuana and cocaine at most, only with my brother and usually the one friend who works now at the gas station. But that is not why I wanted to avoid the world. I think most people in my generation have had and still have alot more problems with doing alcohol all the time, then I ever did with street drugs. I never did it every day habitually for long periods. Right now I am totally straight edge, no alcohol, I will not even take prescription or over the counter drugs. This actually a huge problem for me fitting in right now, as most adults in the West just want to sit around all their days off and drink alcohol at home or some building you have to pay to get into or stay in(bar, club, strip joint). And when you refuse to be an alchie like them, you lose alot of rapport and they keep pestering you to come into their drinking frame.

 

[Elgin]

Elgin, having worked 3 jobs to maintain a lifestyle you obviously cannot afford is not something to brag about. Life is for living, not for working like a stressed pack mule your whole life. That friend whom I mentioned in this thread, works 12 hrs. a day at a gas station for 5 days a week, which is 60 hours(he used to work 6 days for 72 hrs.!). I drive him to work and he takes the train home. He says on the days he works he only has about 2-2.5 hours to himself, after sleeping. He lives with his mom still like me, if he lived on his own he would have even less time as he would have to maintain and clean an apartment in his few precious moments left to himself.

Actually in most parts of the world, people do what I do, they live with their parents until they become married or parents themselves. They live at home until they start their own families. Even in America this is how things were until the post-WWII economic boom, which is now a bust. People are already starting to stack back up into the multi-generational living like the pre-WWII days. The big difference with me is I never really wanted to be part of this society and coped by holing up away from the world.

I did do drugs for a while in my mid twenties, but I was never that heavily into it. I just socially used because those around me did it. I did marijuana and cocaine at most, only with my brother and usually the one friend who works now at the gas station. But that is not why I wanted to avoid the world. I think most people in my generation have had and still have alot more problems with doing alcohol all the time, then I ever did with street drugs. I never did it every day habitually for long periods. Right now I am totally straight edge, no alcohol, I will not even take prescription or over the counter drugs. This actually a huge problem for me fitting in right now, as most adults in the West just want to sit around all their days off and drink alcohol at home or some building you have to pay to get into or stay in(bar, club, strip joint). And when you refuse to be an alchie like them, you lose alot of rapport and they keep pestering you to come into their drinking frame.

Dude Your the one who came in saying your life is a dead end, that you self-sabotage yourself and acting like your to good for jobs that don't require a college degree. YOU got plenty of free time. Is it making YOU any happier? You said you wasted your youth not me.
I didn't brag about working hard, but I am **** proud that I can do it and help my parents instead of free loading on them. You complain about what a wreck your life is and then try to justify what you do that you complain about. There is where you screw yourself over.
There are plenty of people who chose to live off the system or their parents or anyone else who will foot their bills. Does that make it right?
Has it made you happy?
You ***** about what you do, but you want to keep on doing it. Keep running in the circle dude, and you'll stay in that dead end for ever.
You want to make my life sound bad, but dude, I'm pretty content and have friends. I don't ***** about how bad society is, I get out there every day and LIVE in it and know how to cope with what comes.
I might work like a pack mule but at the end of the day I'm cool with it because I can and do live an independent life.

 

[Kenny]

Now, does anyone want to help the guy up, or are we going to sit here and judge him and be condescending?

No one was condescending him. We were just giving him our unfiltered truth in the situation. He has obviously been coddled. If you would like to coddle him some more so that he can feel good and loved in life, then by all means do proceed. I happen to know that he has "failure to launch" because his mother has enabled him to sit in her house for eleven years and do nothing with himself. He needs a RUDE awakening. Why do you suppose they call it a "RUDE AWAKENING"? (hint: it isn't because it's polite)

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This actually a huge problem for me fitting in right now, as most adults in the West just want to sit around all their days off and drink alcohol at home or some building you have to pay to get into or stay in(bar, club, strip joint). And when you refuse to be an alchie like them, you lose alot of rapport and they keep pestering you to come into their drinking frame.

Wait...hold on. Um, did you just claim that most adult humans in "The West" (as in America?) want to ... "sit around all their days off and drink alcohol at home or some building and be alcoholics"?

Did I actually read that correctly?

You truly believe that all the adults in a land of 300,000,000 people do this?

If that is so, you are truly delusional and are just making lame excuses for why you are afraid to walk outside of your mommy's house.

 

[SophiaGrace]

Thray are you going to anwer my question about who you'd like to be?

---

Oh by the way, We're still being condescending people.

 

[Kenny]

Oh by the way, We're still being condescending people.

Once an individual is charged with the responsibility of feeding, clothing, sheltering and caring for himself as well as others, things take on a new light.

Condescension is a small price to pay if it forces a baby bird to jump from the nest. We are talking about human survival here. What is this guy going to do when his parents die? Should he continue down this same path of pity, and shame and self-indulgence for another decade, thereby digging himself even further into a hole?

This guy could have a doctorate degree by now. All he would have had to do was go to college while living for free at home for a decade. My parents didn't offer me that privelege, I was thrown out at sixteen years of age. Perhaps being thrust into adulthood early gives one a unique perspective as opposed to those who still sit at home for free.

 

[yesm]

Elgin, ever here the saying... if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all?
This is a forum for lonely people. Chances are many of them are going to be reaching out and "HOPING" for sympathy... at the VERY least.

Your statements would be the equivalent of some one going to alcoholics anonymous meeting and getting upset calling everyone a bunch of addicted helpless alcoholics for being there.

Your obviously able to support yourself through your hard work... good for you... do you have to take away from some one else less fortunate to feel good about yourself?

IMO your worse off than Thrasymachus... he may be in a worse position as far as self sufficiency is concerned, but at least he doesn't waste his free time trying to make other people feel worthless to validate his own self importance...

 

[Kenny]

Elgin, ever here the saying... if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all?
This is a forum for lonely people. Chances are many of them are going to be reaching out and "HOPING" for sympathy... at the VERY least.

Your statements would be the equivalent of some one going to alcoholics anonymous meeting and getting upset calling everyone a bunch of addicted helpless alcoholics for being there.

Your obviously able to support yourself through your hard work... good for you... do you have to take away from some one else less fortunate to feel good about yourself?

IMO your worse off than Thrasymachus... he may be in a worse position as far as self sufficiency is concerned, but at least he doesn't waste his free time trying to make other people feel worthless to validate his own self importance...

Alcoholics Anonymous is a place for alcoholics.

A Lonely Life is a place for lonely people.

However, the original poster is not complaining about loneliness. He is justifying locking himself up inside his parents' house and living off of them without doing anything to become a self-sufficient individual in life. That doesn't need "understanding" as it is unacceptable behavior. He needs to get out of that house and begin to live his life. He can either do that of his own accord or he needs to seek help so he can make that step. What he doesn't need is "coddling", which is what he has been given. Seriously, there is no debate. If a person's parents let them live at home for over a decade without working, educating themselves, or becoming self-sufficient in any way, THAT is coddling and it is NOT healthy. It is understandable if a person has disabilities or other circumstances that prevents him or her from being able to do these things, but if his only "disability" is laziness and apathy, how sorry should we feel for him? He's almost thirty years old.

It's understandable to sympathize/empathize with loneliness because it's not always a choice.

It's a bit harder to sympathize/empathize with someone who makes loser choices because they are "choices". How do you sympathize with someone's poor choices?

 

[Dessa]

I think you need to do some serious soul searching. But what the hell do I know, right? Only you can decide the kind of life you want for yourself. You need to set priorities and work towards them. Totally not an order, just a suggestion.

Start with something small?