u/PetropavlovskYakutsk

18M, I’ve never dated. The reason I’m asking for advice is because I accidentally made a life where I have barely any opportunity to even connect with women.

I’m intellectually gifted and because of that, I decided to choose incredibly advanced classes for my grade level because I needed the challenge to not get bored. But, it so happens that these said classes create like no opportunity to connect. Partially because some are online. And, my general social preferences lock me out of a lot of normal ways to meet people. I never hang out with anyone, I’m very introverted and anxious, I dislike social events or parties, I don’t have much of a social media presence, there aren’t really any clubs that interest me, I don’t have any social presence outside of school, my hobbies are solitary, etc. and probably the worst among all of my social limitations is that I cannot get myself to initiate conversation with women unless there is an absolutely clear reason to do so and haven’t been able to since I was 11… meaning, I cannot easily make small talk. This was fine for a while, but as I got into more and more advanced classes and had less forced contact, the amount of interactions I had with women slowly dwindled into basically nothing…

I’m not lonely in the usual sense. I have many male friends (10+). But my social network is exclusively male. And sometimes I think maybe I’m just so unattractive that women don’t even want to talk to me or look at me. But also, over the years, I’ve become socially avoidant… I don’t really hold eye contact, I avoid looking at women especially if I’m attracted to them, I definitely don’t approach them or show interest in any way, and I get very anxious around them. And that could definitely contribute.

And even when I did have connections with women in the past, I struggled heavily to deepen them because again, I couldn’t initiate conversation. So it was all dependent on her. If she decided for whatever reason to stop talking to me, the connection ended. If the school year ended, also, the connection ended. And if I put myself in her shoes, it makes complete sense why the connections wouldn’t deepen… I personally wouldn’t want to deepen a connection with someone who only responds and never initiates, only looks at me if I talk to them, and doesn’t show any interest in me.

The part that I hate about this is that it made me view women as romantic objects. Because I have such little contact with them, my brain can just ruminate endlessly and obsess. But I recognize that women don’t owe me anything and it’s their choice to not talk to me, even if it causes me pain.

(17M). I have no woman in my life at all right now… no female friends and definitely not a relationship. Most days, no women talk to me. And it’s affected my mental state a lot…

I have many male friends, but that group is basically exclusively male and they don’t introduce me to any women.

I used to get female attention when I was young, like 12-14, but now I don’t seem to anymore. No women approach me and some even seem uncomfortable to see me or be near me. Some just simply stare at the ground instead of look at me. Some appear visibly uncomfortable from my gaze, even if I’m not trying to look at them. I don’t know if I’m like repulsive or just incredibly unapproachable and intimidating.

I’m a very quiet person and struggle to initiate conversation with women especially and have for years. Basically, the very moment I hit puberty when I was 11-12, I locked down completely. I stopped showing affection to anyone including family, stopped talking to people at school, and made intellectualism my identity. And ever since, I haven’t been capable of interacting with women unless they start the interaction. I get freeze responses or anxiety if I even think about it.

I’m also intellectually gifted and it’s isolated me heavily. I’m in such advanced classes where it restricts my opportunities to meet women severely. And I don’t like women who are intellectual like me. I like contrast.

Women have become completely unfamiliar to me. Their faces, their skin, what they do, how they sound, etc have all become unfamiliar because I have such little interactions with them…

And the reason I’m even saying all of this is because I’m not indifferent to it. It’s affected my mental state a lot. My mood is determined by whether a woman talks to or looks at me. I constantly long for closeness and imagine what it would be like to have physical affection. I’ve experienced limerence at least 4 times, and the most recent one was extremely painful. It’s taken months to get my system to even look at women at all… and it gave me a taste of what it was like to click with a woman, but it ended without closure and she hasn’t gotten off my mind after 9 months of not talking to me. And my concentration, memory, and motivation are all also affected by this and can be alleviated by a simple greeting or conversation from a woman, but only temporarily. For like 6 years, I’ve hid all of my attraction and have never even tried to see if it could be reciprocated. I struggle to show preference in women and struggle to deepen connections. And everyone around me just think that I’m uninterested in women or relationships when that’s actually painfully wrong but I just hide it completely.