I (26M) have struggled with a feeling of loneliness/not belonging for most of my life. Ever since I was forced to move from my home state to a “retirement community” with my parents, it has only gotten worse. The friends I did make around here at the community college either moved far away, were bad people I had to cut off, or weren’t interested in maintaining a friendship. The one IRL friend I did have around here who I would go to metal concerts with just dropped me over a political disagreement! My nearest non-internet friend lives almost 3 hours away and I don’t even get to see him much. I had to finish college online since my campus is an hour and a half away and it was too expensive for me to go in person and I couldn’t get into the university closer to my house. Even though I got a little bit of the social aspect out of college, I feel like I really missed out on a lot of things.

My dating life (or lack thereof, rather) is abysmal. Truthfully, I’ve been hurt/let down so many times that I don’t want to be seriously involved with someone because I don’t want them to have the opportunity to hurt me again. Sometimes I meet girls online (on Reddit and other places) and I’m ashamed to admit that I get attached to them and they end up just using me for validation/attention and ghosting me later. The straw that really broke the camel’s back was about 2 years ago during the last few months of my stepmom’s life. She was terminally ill with stage 4 cancer and she died 2 weeks after my 25th birthday. During her last few months, I met a girl who lives 2 hours from me and we would talk all day every day for 3 months. My therapist even said “Yeah it seems like she is romantically interested.” We were even talking about meet up. The conversations slow down and I saw the writing on the wall, so I told her I had feelings for her and tried to make an actual plan to meet up. She hits me with “we’re not compatible and have nothing in common.” Okay, that wasn’t the impression I got….So then she ends up ghosting me too. I write her a long message telling her I miss her and how much it hurt me that I couldn’t talk to her anymore and she ignored it.

Recently, I tried reaching out to her on Instagram hoping to reconnect and she just blocked my ass. I regret opening my mouth and a part of me blames myself for what happened. When I told my therapist that shit hit the fan, she said “She had to have known romantic feelings were involved. There is no way she couldn’t have known. She was using you for attention.” I used to hate this girl’s guts for kicking me while I was down, but now I just feel sad about the situation and miss the Hell out of her. I hope in vain for an apology text but I know it ain’t coming. I just want to go back to when we were still talking and my stepmom was still alive! My stepmom was my de facto mom for half my life and she was one of the few women in my life who never did anything to hurt me. I want both of them back!

I’m trying to be kinder to myself about not having found someone or had sex yet and posting on this account scratches the itch somewhat and boosts my confidence, but it’s not a substitute for the real thing. I have platonic female friends, I get along well with female family members, I frequently get compliments whenever I’m out about, so I know it’s not because I’m weird/creepy/ugly. Also, I do try to put myself out there IRL. I play bar trivia, go to language exchange events, and go to Discord group meetups in the college town 40 minutes from me. Still, I haven’t met anyone I would consider a friend yet. I just want companionship and connection but I guess that’s asking the universe for too much…