I blame no one except myself. Perhaps I should’ve tried harder – though I thought I was! I’d ask out women in college and work and at the gym – no Casanova I, they probably thought I was either a jerk, weirdo or loser. Maybe all of the above? I’ve become rather timid and shy, a bit depressed. My idea of social interaction with a woman is being friendly to a 70-year-old librarian or a store clerk.

It saddens me because I think I could have been a good boyfriend or husband. I used to want to be a father. I always thought I’d meet someone but…oh hell, maybe I did and she rejected me.

It’s funny that my cousin, an ex-convict who radiates menace and still uses drugs, can get out of prison and 2 months later be living with a beautiful tax accountant. My brother can visit me and get a date with a woman in days. I went to the gym with my nephew and the girls started talking to him: his first visit, women approach him. Me? Never.

The movie with Steve Carrell was funny but painful: I should be so lucky. He had a job he enjoyed, friends, hobbies, and he could talk to women. He’d even had relationships in the past! My romances consist of a few dates with a girl “friend” in high school, a few lunches with various women (met through work) and … that’s it! Oh, once a woman at the gym smiled at me. Does that count?

A really good friend of mine against all odds – him being a super geeky fellow with weird opinions about aliens, sci-fi movies, videogames, a guy who made Pee Wee Herman look macho -met and married a somewhat less geeky woman (she’s a very good person)in college and they’ve been happy ever since. Somehow they recognized they would be good for each other. I wish I were him.

I don’t think things will change. I’m no longer filled with optimism that a new line, a new event, more contacts will matter. I don’t think sex is the cure-all for what’s wrong in my life. Perhaps I’d be even lonelier with the wrong person. I don’t know. I’ll never get to find out if I’ve been lucky all along.

I do like success stories, so I wish you all well. I think I have better odds of winning the lottery than finding love and companionship. But you guys (and ladies too): Good luck. I hope you all find what you need.

What developed over the years was a sort of magnified sour grapes that has become a pathological distaste for human contact. I cannot abide displays of public affection, whether in front of me or on TV or at a movie. I get very uncomfortable at sexual innuendo of any kind, even saying (or writing) the word “sex” makes me extremely uncomfortable. I do not like being touched, and my body language certainly shows that. When meeting a woman for the first time in a long time, she will hug everyone, but when she sees me, my body language screams “KEEP OUT!!!” In my younger days, I suffered humiliating rejection after humiliating rejection, after a while, where kids have had a series of “girlfriends”, I had a series of “crushes”. Lisa in 6th grade (I acted upon it and suffered very public humiliation), Amy in 8th grade, Dorothy in 9th grade, Joanna in 11th grade, and so on). This continued in college, where there was one girl I was very interested in, but she always had a boyfriend. I befriended her, we even went to various places together, but it never progressed beyond friendship. Years later, she said she was interested in me, was hoping I would ask her out, but I wasn’t assertive enough. I grew up in a house where assertiveness got you beaten down. I am the quintessential “nice guy”, and assertiveness (on a personal level) has never been a strong quality in me. Anyway, the constant rejection (or perceived rejection) led me to stop fantasizing about being with a woman, and instead became fantasizing about rejecting women, making them feel the pain they have caused me over the years. Now, the truth is, that there are approximately 3.4 billion women in the world that have never caused me pain, but that is entirely beside the point. Perhaps I just want to know how good a woman feels when she rejects a man. If she does, I don’t know. I know next to nothing about women’s wants, needs, desires or thought processes.

I foresee a life filled with myself, and little else. I have developed such a strong distrust of women with regards to relationships (but not in any other area) that I do not dare approach anyone anymore. I also have a fear of losing myself in another person, of losing my identity and freedom. I like my life to be simple and uncomplicated (and above all else…QUIET) and I don’t want it cluttered up. While I recognize the various character flaws and past abuses that have led me to this point, I have reached the point where I just don’t care anymore. If I have to spend the rest of my life being single and go the rest of my life without so much as touching a woman, I can live with that. This was made easier for me thanks to a massive pituitary tumor that rendered me completely sterile and kicked the legs out from under my sex drive. Believe you me, I am very thankful to that tumor for relieving me from years of frustration.

That’s all I have to add to this interesting forum. I find it disturbing that our society places such high emphasis on such things as sex and virginity. Sex is a vehicle whereby a species resupplies its numbers. To put any more emphasis on it than that is sheer silliness.