I’m a 24 year old man and I haven’t dated. I’ve had a very hard time finding someone and I currently feel devastated because my crush at work told me that she’s seeing someone else. She told me this because I asked her to see a movie with me but told me that she was busy but was honest with me later. The news hit me hard, like a punch to the gut, and it made me reflect on my failures in love.

I’ve had trouble with finding love since I was really young. The girls I liked in middle school didn’t like me, nor the ones in high school, nor the ones in college, and now the ones as a grown up. I have always felt an emptiness in me that I could never fill. I asked for advice so many times and nothing seems to have worked. I feel that I have hit a brick wall and have no where else to go.

I have tried dating apps and even asking girls out in public to no avail. I hear a lot of woes from other guys my age online about how hard dating is now. The negativity is beginning to get to me so much that I feel like I’m going to cry. I have posted about this an embarrassing number of times already but this time, I feel the most helpless. I am beginning to think that I was never meant to have a partner when I can’t even find someone to date…

I spend a lot of time thinking about this, more than I’d like to admit. I thought that if I kept improving myself by exercising, asking for advice, and even taking anxiety medication, things would get better but they never did. I just don’t know what to do anymore and I feel trapped in an endless cycle of disappointment and sadness.