r/ForeverAloneWomen

Most women who leave Reddit comments and posts always either talk about their boyfriends/husbands, exes, a friend group, an active social and sex life, and then there’s just me. Who stays at home most of the time due to extreme social anxiety, depression, trauma from bullying, being unattractive. It’s like most women are in a completely different world than I am, and I landed from another far away planet. It feels like they’re all in a special club that I wasn’t invited to. Reading them makes me feel outside the realm of normalcy, outside the realm of womanhood.

Last night I was with my parents watching some fireworks and all the people around us were couples. Gorgeous women with perfect bodies sitting with their boyfriends or husbands. Two young women came to stand beside me to see which spot would be best for a good view of the fireworks and standing next to them made me feel like a literal blob. They were skinny, perfect skin, perfect hair, crop-tops they could look attractive in because their stomachs were toned. Perfect makeup that I could only dream of doing. I couldn’t even look at them really, it was too painful. I got anxious all of a sudden wondering if anyone would look at us and think how ugly I looked standing next to them. I was glad when they eventually walked to a different spot. If only I could be that perfect looking. I can only dream.

Online women always talk a big game of "women don't need or want men anymore, we're all happy single and live happy and fulfilling lives by focusing on our friends and hobbies and families and careers and ourselves" and yadda yadda. To the point where you feel almost guilty if you say you want some romance in your life, even just casually or just a bit of male attention, because then you're a pathetic male-centered pick me who needs therapy and learn to be alone (I've been alone basically my entire life btw).

But then why do the women I see constantly date, flirt? Why is it that the vast majority of women I see online and especially irl are currently dating, engaged, married, ... ? Where do they have all their horror dating app stories from if apparently they don't bother dating in the first place? I can't go anywhere without women talking about "my bf/faince/husband this and that...." like, ??? I thought we were all happily single here, so why can I not escape the talk of romance and dating?

The fact that I DO genuinely try to be happy alone and these women make it sound so easy but then I go anywhere and don't see any other happy, single women? I'm still bombarbed with dating and romance EVERYWHERE. ESPECIALLY in female spaces and yes, your negative stories about dating and bfs also count ffs. I can't go into any female space without them talking about men 90% of the time, which I find very ironic.

In that vein, I hate how it's seen as worse to simply desire some male attention than it is to actively date. You get scolded for the former (which is simply a more "passive" desire) but not for the latter (the active doing). I find that weird. Actively spending your time, money, energy, ressources to hang out on dating apps and go on dates is fine but you mention you want some male attention or to be flirted with every now and then and you get treated like the devil and shamed. No desire of any kind is accepted and if it's just the grieving acceptance that you can never have romance anyways. Apparently all these women actively dating don't actually desire romance and sex but do so anyways just...because? Atp all the narratives around romance and dating in women's spaces just feels so damn performative from the perspective of a woman who has actually been alone for basically my whole life.

On a side note, I went out again yesterday with a group of people incl. a female friend and she got hit on and started making out and flirting heavily with a guy. She very clearly enjoyed the male attention. I feel like all this "we all hate men and male attention" thing is so damn chronically online because I have yet to go out with a woman who didn't find it fun to flirt with men or was so terribly offended by a guy chatting her up.

Tl;dr: Women talk as if not dating is the unquestionable superior option and you gain nothing from it, yet most women still seem to date.

/edit: And in a VERY similar vein, it's the same for not being attractive. Being a woman is so much about being attractive in our culture and society (if you think about it pop culture aimed at women is almost ALWAYS about being hot [usually specifically being attractive to men] or aimed at attractive women), yet when you lament being unattractive they suddenly act like women don't actually care about being attractive (despite the billion dollar beauty industry) and you're the weird one for caring etc.

What they preach and what they do just NEVER matches.

I just turned 30 and I think my self esteem is the worst it’s ever been. I was so optimistic at 20 that even though I didn’t have the teen love story we always hear about I would find love in my own time. I was never worried about those types of “milestones” like losing my virginity or whatever bc I assumed those things would happen naturally. Now here I am, first kiss at 27 with a guy at a club who I never saw again. Still a virgin. Never been on a single date let alone in a relationship.

Now I feel so far behind anyone else my age. I missed my chance and now everyone my age is settling down. Dating apps make me want to tear my hair out. Even if I could get a date with someone I was attracted to, I’m too insecure about my inexperience and the judgement I’ll face.

I’m so scared I’ll feel like this for another 10 years.
Is there any hope at all?

Around a year ago I joined a new job and “M” was assigned to help me get adjusted. A man, that too a good looking one, so I already was on edge. But that was unnecessary.

M was very kind and supportive, patient throughout my learning period. He also made it so easy to talk to him.

Over the next year, M made sure to include me in conversations and integrate me with the rest of the team. We also spent a lot of time together during work as our tasks were similar, leading to lots of shared lunch breaks together. He showed genuine interest in my hobbies and told me to post the poems I wrote online. Conversations with him were so fun and easy, we yapped a whole bunch.

And I, like a fool, started to fall for him. I have never had any man be so good to me.

I knew better, I knew guys have no romantic/sexual interest in me, but still I let myself get carried away. I found myself being delusional, thinking of us being a couple. I looked forward to work everyday. I even put makeup on lol.

We had talked about dating generally before, well he talked mostly, I just pretended I have had more experience than just online “relationships”. But, a few weeks ago he actually showed me a picture of him and his ex.

My chest legitimately hurt seeing her. Beautiful face and amazing body. She had a crop top and shorts on in the picture, the type of clothes I couldn’t dream of wearing with my body. Smooth skin with no blemishes. Simply gorgeous.

I knew right then M would never even dream of dating me. I look like a gargoyle compared to his ex.

Not that I had high hope, but still a tiny part of me was hoping, and that’s why it hurts so much. I even shed few tears lmao.

Sorry for a long post, I have no one to share this with. This finally pushed me to make an account to post on here after years of lurking.

at a kid’s bday party and this family friend who doesn’t actually like me or any of my family members (she’s invited bc my parents are very close friends with her husband and he’s cool) didn’t really acknowledge my presence. which is for the best probably. she and her friends were suddenly gossiping in a corner in hushed voices and all of a sudden just start staring at me? then she very loudly started to ask across the room, what do i do for work, what did i study in, what degree do i have, why don’t i have a masters, why am i not married yet, do i want to get married, don’t i want a family, etc. it felt like an actual interrogation. i asked very curtly and she ran back to her friends, relaying all my answers to them and they kept whispering and laughing.

these women are like in their fifties and have known me since i was a child. it’s already bad enough i cant get my life together and have people my own age judging me, now i have to deal with women who peaked in their teens making fun of me too.

i am so insecure with where i’ve ended up in life. i never thought i’d be here but i am. i am useless.

edit: forgot to mention, she said if i wait too long for marriage, i won’t be able to have kids. i am in my late 20s.

I was in school when a very pretty senior sat next to me for exams, she was too cool, and I remember wishing I was as pretty as her.

A year later, I discovered that she was my crush's ex, I started comparing myself to her very often. She was the 'it girl', everyone wanted to be her friend, everyone admired her looks and personality.. She got insane pretty privilege, anyone was ready to anything for her, she had hugeee friend group and had actually enjoyed her school life

School was over, so was my crush on that guy and my habit of comparing myself to her. I had forgotten about her gradually.

When a few months ago I see a familiar face in my reels, and it was her. With over a million likes. She is now a big influencer, getting brand deals, being admired by everyone on the internet, and I can't help but feel little about myself. This is more severe than ever. I am constantly checking her profile, watching her and comparing myself to her again and again.

Don't get me wrong, I do not envy her or want good things to not happen to her, I am so happy for her, even reached out congratulating but I can't help but feel LESS than her.

How do I deal with this?

Hey everyone. I just need to vent, and maybe find some people who understand.

I am from Ukraine. If you know anything about the culture here (and across the former USSR), you know that women are often treated like consumer goods.

We were expected to be submissive and stupid, to work both at work and at home, where a drinking man is better than a divorce. You either conform to the older generation's brainwashed Soviet expectations of endless self-sacrifice, or you fall victim to the younger generation’s Instagram/TikTok brainwashing where you have to be a flawless, plastic doll to have any worth.

I am so incredibly tired. I feel myself deteriorating every single day. Lately, I don’t even see the point in taking my antidepressants or trying to take care of myself anymore. What for? I’m just getting older, fatter, and uglier in a society that discards you the second you aren't perfect.

I don't want to perform anymore. I don't want to put on a mask. I just want to feel cared for, safe, and seen. But in reality, nobody wants a tired, angry woman.

Just needed to get this out of my head because the loneliness is getting heavy. Thanks for reading.

as we know , there are less good men than bad men and for women i believe the opposite is true . majority of us are good and only select few women are truly bad people in a sense . i’m gonna be very honest the true nature of men is very off putting to me . i’m a bit repelled by it , i don’t think i could ever live with a man or him invading my space . i don’t even have a desire to be with men anymore . i like my solitude and being by myself . they’re all so utterly rude to women they don’t find attractive . i don’t even have a desire to be a mother anymore , i don’t want kids . majority of men don’t care about women , believe me this is true . finding one who truly does is like finding a needle in a haystack and most of them are already took by other women , so what’s left for us then ? nothing .

It’s just so fucking unfair. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately because I’m having a horrible body image day (worse than usual) and I just want to throw myself a pity party. I had a mental breakdown this morning while getting ready because I’m just so fucking sick of being ugly.

I’m the only ugly woman in my family and it really sucks. It’s almost laughable how badly I lost the genetic lottery- I have a beautiful mother and a beautiful sister but I look nothing like them.

The reason why I’m ugly is because I look exactly like my father. I look like a man and I’m not even exaggerating when I say that my father and I basically have the same face- it was like he had gone into a lab and cloned himself because I inherited every single one of his facial features. His face shape, his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his jaw. I feel like if I had been born male, I’d be decent looking but nature decided to fuck me over and I was born female. My father’s features look horrible on a woman.

I know that this sounds horrible but I remember hating my dad when I was younger because I looked like him- it was because of all of the bullying, mockery and mistreatment I faced in my life because of the facial features he passed down to me. But as I got older I realized that I shouldn’t hate him- I really do love my father and I know for a fact that he’ll be the only man in my life that will ever love me. He just wanted to bring a child into the world to love and nurture.

My mom was recently cleaning out her closet and found a bin of old photos- most of them were taken around the time I was born so she asked if I wanted to look at them. I’m guessing that she thought I’d be interested in seeing my baby pictures, but the thing that caught my eye was how stunning my mother looked back then. She was 29 when she had me and I’m 32 now. She was already married and had two children by the time she was my age, and I’ve never even held hands with a man yet.

Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be if I looked like my mother instead of my father.

I believe what I’m about to say is true for most- if not all of us in this subreddit.

In the culture I grew up in, marriage has been placed as the most important thing in a woman’s life. I would argue most cultures push the idea of being a good wife before being your own person. I grew up in a toxic family which is quite common (culturally). My parents were emotionally unavailable. They never chose me. My mom tells me during every argument she wants me to die, she hates me, she wishes I would get in a car accident so my dead body is scattered across the road. She’ll call me ugly, stupid, uneducated (I have a University degree), unloveable etc. I was raised by narcissists who wanted me to hate myself. Most parents don’t choose their daughters. Instead they feed this narrative that if they are obedient and put effort into their beauty, then one day Prince Charming will notice them and choose to make her his wife. If parents chose their own daughters, a lot of us would never care for marriage at all which is likely why all this trauma was dumped onto us. They don’t want to feel embarrassed by having unmarried daughters who are independent. So instead they shame their bodies, take away their freedom, try to keep them as small and as invisible as possible.

Most of us on this subreddit have childhood trauma. It isn’t normal for people to believe they’re unloveable. We lacked secure, unconditional love from our parents, and therefore we internalised it. It’s significantly easier for a child to believe there’s something wrong internally rather than to blame their parents. If a child understands their parents arent safe, it shatters their whole reality. Self hatred is a coping mechanism of sorts. We carried this into adulthood bc we have always been looking for evidence to support this belief.

“If you’re not served love on a silver platter, you’ll learn to lick it off knives.”

“My family didn’t choose me. My friends didn’t choose me. I don’t feel secure enough to choose myself, but maybe Prince Charming will choose me bc this is what society has promised me. This is what my parents have been preparing me for.” The people in our lives tend to undervalue us bc we undervalue ourselves. I am 100% guilty of this myself.

The reason I wrote this is bc I see a reoccurring theme about girlies say there’s something wrong with them- myself included.

I would love the input of everyone on this page. Pls feel free to dm me too girlies if you wanna talk about this. I feel like this realised helped me understand myself a bit better.

I temporarily moved to a new state by myself. I remember my therapist telling me before I left that I should use it as an opportunity to start over and try to find people I can click with. But of course I’ve been here a while and I just can’t do it.

I can never just be normal and it feels like everyone I meet is just so different than me. Everybody has these like shared experiences that they can talk about and I’ve done nothing. I try so hard and just end up embarrassing myself over and over so after a month I’ve given up. I can’t take it anymore, I just spend my time rotting in my bed after work. I wish I could just be normal and likable.

I know social media is fake but it does make me sad when I see people post about enjoying their summer and I’m just working and rotting all day.

Downloaded a couple of dating apps recently to make an attempt to go on a few dates, meet someone, all that jazz. Awful mistake. Matched with a grand total of 6 guys in 3 months. 4 instantly unmatched and were just spam swipers, 1 superliked me and was a guy who bullied me in highschool- he said he thought it would be funny to do that when I tried to have a conversation, and the last guy I was having great conversations with for two days, and then he started asking for weird kink things and when I said no blocked me on everything.

I know I'm an unattractive woman. But my standards are pretty low, and my pictures make me look about a 5/10. My standards for men are literally: has any hobbies on their profile, takes decent care of themselves (ie hair is brushed- not talking about weight etc) and is looking for something more than a hookup. That's it. Got my friends and their boyfriends to review my profile, and they all don't understand why I'm not having any success.

I'm in my 20s- what the HELL is wrong with me that I can't get a single guy without ulterior motives to go on a date with me/even have a conversation with me. Even in highschool, I was the butt of every man's joke. I just want to be loved. I want a man to take an interest in me as a person like I take an interest in them beyond the platonic friendships I have with my gay male friends and my friend's boyfriends. I try my damned hardest, and for what?!

It’s days like these where I feel the lack of social life as people get together for activities like 4th of July and World Cup activities.
I don’t even know what people do on these days, have a bbq? Just go out? Fireworks? It’s the same with most holidays like St. Patrick’s day and cinco de mayo. I didn’t even know people celebrated these things until recently. But then of course, people look at any holiday as an excuse to have fun. It never occurred to me because I was used to not having much of a social life, so a holiday is basically the same as everyday for me. For others it’s something to look forward to and organize plans for, or just go out to a bar or something. I’m 26 but feel like a preteen.

I also keep seeing posts about World Cup watch parties, and how this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to go out and experience the vibe. I live near a city that hosted some World Cup games so there are a lot of World Cup festivities. Even my siblings went out for some, while I just watched some games on my phone and saw people experiencing fun watch parties on social media. What hurts more is that I’m 26 and am expected to have a friend group by now. If I wasn’t able to have one by now, it’s only gonna get harder as people get more established.

Granted, he's unavailable but I probably didn't do a good enough job concealing that I like him. I'm quite reserved but who knows what vibe I gave off. There's a hallway he almost always walks down in order to leave the building because his car is next to that entrance/exit (I happened to be going out of the building that way but at the time, I hadn't yet seen him in the hallway). Instead, he takes another exit from the opposite end of the hallway, and walks outside to the car instead. It was at least 95 degrees outside, so I can't imagine him wanting to do this. It could be just sheer coincidence but I'm a really sensitive person and it feels insulting.

This isn't the first time I've sensed this though. There was a time where we were close enough to the same door IMHO such that he could have waited for me and held it for me, but he chose not to. He saw me too, so it's not like he was oblivious.

I don’t even get hit on by people I’m zero interested in, online and irl life!
I literally posted nsfw selfies and I never got a single dm!!! Meanwhile other girls/women just post their face and they get tons of messages and comments.. 🫠 I mean I’m ugly after all lol what did I expect 🙃🤪

all I want is for someone to like me who I ALSO like. Someone who is interested in my hobbies and who I am as a person. Not someone desperate. Not someone looking for a quick pump and dump. Not someone trying to use me to make someone else jealous. And not someone who is an old ass creepy man but I feel like I’m asking for too much at this point.

I've seen it countless times where an unattractive woman talks about her experinces with negative treatment by men. They get ridiculed, rejected, called names, asked out as a joke, stood up on dates, ignored, so on and so forth. That will do a number on your mental health and I feel as though it's just never taken seriously...

Incels will tell an unattractive woman she is "experincing what average men experince" as a way to dismiss her negative experinces. Some of them even flat out deny that a woman, ugly or not, doesn't have any guys interested in them. Ugly women are literally gaslit to shut up about men's treatment towards them because incels believe every woman has men in their dm's and hitting on them when they themselves only really "care" about attractive women. If they admitted that, it would show how shallow they really are so they take the easy way out and pretend all women have the same experiences.

Other women who happen to be conventionally attractice by patriarichal standards also tend to gaslight unattractive women in their own way. An ugly woman will complain about how men are treating her like sht and other more attractive women will go "well at least you dont get catcalled", "at least you dont have so many men persuing you". It takes away from the unattactive woman's experience and makes it all about the attractive woman.

I just hate that unattractive women are not allowed to talk abour our problems and how we are treated like we either don't exist or that we offend someone before even opening our mouth. And if we point out how conventionally attractive women are gaslighting our experiences or even humble bragging about getting attention, we are the ones demonized and told we have internalized misogyny.

I just wish every woman had a voice to be able to share our experiences without feeling like we did something wrong. No one wants to feel ignored or excluded from their group because they dont fit "beauty standards" or because they're neurodivergent, shy, loud, etc. I feel like we could fight the patriarchy more if all of us women listen to each other and not silence the less attractive wome..

What do you think? Why do conventionally unattractive women get gaslight, ignored or demonized for talking about their experiences with rude men?

It might be very self-centered or even narcissistic but I’d love for a guy (a *normal* guy, not a creep) to have a little crush on me. Nothing huge, no incredible romance. Just seeing his face light up when he spots me, his heart beat a little faster when I get close, or having him seek me out to talk more than others. Maybe he’d be a bit nervous around me, or show those small, subtle signs of affection... But I don't think that’s ever really happened.

People tell me I’m pretty, but there are girls who are far more beautiful, more interesting, and have better figures. I’m too tall. I have no curves. I feel like no matter how hard I try, there's always something missing. I have friends, people like me... I can't be *that* horrible a person. But I have this feeling that it’s not for me, as if I’ve always been denied the very thing that most of humanity has always known and desired.

Same as title. Let’s face the fear.

It’s fucking brutal. I’m a cis woman and I put so much effort into my appearance, but because of my hideous face, people always assume I was born a man. Nothing against trans women, it’s just a bit dehumanizing after a while to hear people constantly assume I have a cock.