u/generand

Discovered porn when I was 12 I'd say. Since then, I've never once gone more than 90 days without consuming. I'm 35 today. This has been the longest I've ever gone without it.

After years of trying different tactics to slay this dragon, I finally found a single statement that neutralizes the interest as soon as it arises.

"This could be the first year I don't watch any porn."

And it's working. I'm so excited to make it to the end of the year. And after a full year, I know the interest will be completely gone. The same thing happened with alcohol.

As for fapping generally, that still happens. But weirdly enough, it's associated with physical location. I only have urges at home. But when I'm traveling, and I have been traveling quite a bit lately, there have been no urges.

Habits really can come from associations.

Anyways, I have a lot of not-so-fun shit going on in my life, so I just wanted to log in and share my success here.

Oh, and I have to say, I agree with all the pseudoscience around being porn-free and being more desired by women. It's proven to be objectively true for me this year. I haven't been trying at all, and the female gaze has been strong. Lots of dating and pretty active sex life. It's been nice haha.

NEVER PLACATE TO THEM. EVER.

The logic is that if you appease their requests, just to avoid any tension or disappointing them, you're garnering good will. Building up a solid base so that down the road if needed, you can maintain boundaries or not give them any reason to wrong you.

That's not how it works with narcissists.

They don't care about what you've done for them. If they feel your need conflicts with their world, they will take it as offense and seek retribution.

I spent a whole month placating to this woman. Helping her with all kinds of requests that I never should have been participating in. The whole time I was concerned she'd find a reason to withhold my deposit from me when it was time for me to move out.

My worst fears didn't come close to how much I underestimated how awful she was going to be at the end. Screaming at me, acting like I killed her pet, when I'd done literally nothing to wrong her at all.

I'm writing this from a state of pure disbelief. I cannot believe how this is the nature of many people.

So lesson learned. I will never placate to a narcissist ever again. The INSTANT I recognize I'm dealing with a narcissist, I'm setting firm boundaries and extremely far emotional distance.

I just hope I can remember this the next time I encounter one.

Feeling high levels of anxiety and insecurity around this. More and more often, the women I meet who I'd be interested in are married and have kids. It's weird to have it be this thing that almost never happened through the 20s, but now it's all the time.

This transition was so slow and sneaky. One day, it was the norm and I just didn't see it coming.

I know intellectually that there are women out there I could still end up with. But I struggle to internalize that on a deep, instinctive level.

Hoping for empathetic and civil responses here. Just feeling more vulnerable than I normally am, and hoping I didn't make a mistake bringing this conversation here.

Edit: If you interpreted my using the word "good" as objectifying, I'm not going to tell you you're feeling on that is invalid. I'm sure I could have worded that better. All I can say is that's not what meant. I have no way of proving that or taking it back. I can only clarify myself here in an edit. That said, we need to be able to acknowledge that while no one is inherently good or bad, individuals can be good or bad "fits" for each other.

So to revise my question: how do you overcome the fear that all women you think you'd be a good fit with are taken?