Hey, I’ve been on NoFap for two years now. Sometimes I’ll be on a 40+ 100+ day streak. Sometimes I’ll be on two weeks. Sometimes I’ll be binging during a stressful time. But in those two years, my life has changed drastically. I went from no real friends, studying a college major I didn’t want to, and failing classes. To now having a few close friends, being in touch with my emotions on a journal, studying the major I want, graduating early in December, and making money from an internship. I’m doing great. But, I’m still single. I’ve been rejected a ton, and I’ve even taken a really hot girl on a date. But I was still developing in that time as most college students are. I’m taking classes until December (summer & fall) and working. But I’m free nearly everyday from 5-10pm. (Unless cooking for the week or hanging with a friend.) I really want to make progress in the girlfriend area of my life, but it’s hard. I need the last hour of my day to unwind before bed, so I’m only really free from 5-9pm. I’d need to find an activity to do during that time with lots of girls and to ask them out. But I hate doing an activity solely to ask out girls. That’s extremely time consuming. But I’m willing to do it if there’s actually an activity where I can talk with a girl, get to know her a little, before asking her out or trading numbers. I have money from my internship and second job. I even installed Tinder and paid for it yesterday, been getting lots of likes atm but not sure how many will turn to dates. I really want to succeed. I really want to find a girlfriend. The right girlfriend. Please share advice.
It sounds like you are still in active PMO addiction. I would strongly advise to have a long-term recovery from the PMO addiction before engaging in a relationship with another person. It is not fair for the other person to get involved with an active unrecovered addict. I would suggest at the very least 6 months of continuous abstinence before even starting dating or engaging with persons of the opposite sex. Good luck on your journey.
To Tbh I’m considering a 3 month reboot this Summer. But I don’t think I’m addicted anymore. When I started I turned to porn every night and going 3 days without was impossible. Now if I see a girl in class or in a friend group I wanna ask out and I’m not gonna see her for a week, it’s pretty easy for me to not PMO for a week. As long as there’s someone I care about that I’m emotionally intimate with (whether it’s before/after I ask them out) once I’ve decided 100% I’m gonna ask them out I can withhold. The reason my streak is low rn is because I just went thru a stressful (but successful) finals week, and I also installed a dating app which I’m not used to consistently having yet.
The reason I’m so focused on dating and girlfriends now is because the rest of my life is pretty set. This is the last thing I have left to work on as long as I maintain everything else I’ve built in the past 2-3 years. I don’t use social media. I’m graduating early in December. I have a paid internship. My family & friend relations are stable for the most part. This is essentially the last thing I have left to do before I’m done with the “investing in myself/education” phase of my life and move forward to making enough money to buy a house by 30.
Just relax, don't over think it and find some girls to take out to have fun and good conversation. If they are gf material, all the better. Good luck
I think I locked in a little too hard last semester, and now that it’s Summer, it’s hard to find a group to relax with in the evenings. Maybe that’s what I’m missing.
Emotional stress is the typical excuse for FAPPING. You don't acknowledge it but your self-sabotage persona knows. Once addicted, you are for life. Find other ways to deal with emotional stress. Go to the gym in your free time. You will meet girls there and at the same time, you will release the built-up stress, and improve your emotions, and ultimately your body.
Like I said before, I believe what you are doing is irresponsible and it does not sound like you are taking your PMO recovery seriously. If you relapsed over final exams, imagine how much more difficult real life situations are going to be especially when you are dating a real person with real feelings. I also doubt that you will tell a woman on the first date, "By the way, I look at P compulsively and I cannot stop for longer than a couple of weeks at a time"..
I support @Be Inspired ‘s assessment. Being able to abstain from porn, unless you’re in a stressful situation, or only when you’re focused on a potential mate, is definitely better than where you were two years ago, but not nearly good enough for a girlfriend. You’re going to get bored with a girlfriend, you’re going to have a lot of stress while having a girlfriend, you will even have a lot of stress because of a girlfriend; you need to build the resilience, and be assured you already have that resilience, to go through a difficult time and remain abstinent. Otherwise, you haven’t recovered from a porn addiction, you’ve just put it in remission. I sincerely hope you opt to fully recover, and I know you can do it. I don’t think, however, that you’re taking addiction as seriously as it needs to be taken. Porn addiction is bad for studying and working and conducting regular relationships in your day to day life. It is absolute poison hell on a romantic relationship. Unless you have gone at least ninety days, and through stressful times, without using, you are not ready. Full stop.
Finding friends is difficult, but you are in college where you will never be again with this many people your own age, doing what you are doing. It's the easiest time in ones life to find friends and girlfriends. Get out there and find them. Don't PMO or look at porn, that will only complicate your search for what you want.
What do you guys think if someone is not using porn and only masturbating? I have tried that and been successful.
It's certainly better. The question is why would you want to masturbate when you know it's better not to?
Congratulations. It sounds like you now have much more self-care and connection in your life. That's great, PMO is mostly about disconnection and self loathing. So I think you are well on your way to overcoming your addiction. As some brothers have told you is not good idea focus on getting a gf, it's a mistake. You seem to have done well without one. Try instead to connect with girls.
I masturbated for a minute earlier today, but stopped myself to think about this first. The reason I’m content with Masturbation is because I think Porn is the bad. Masturbation seems absolutely natural to me. In fact it makes me not need a girlfriend, and makes me content. But that’s also a new problem. Masturbation makes me absolutely 100% content with where I’m at completely removing the driving force to improve. I’m just “okay.” It removes my desire for self-improvement. It’s almost like not orgasming pushes me to take action. Action beyond the motions maintaining what I already have. And I want to keep taking action a bit longer. My classes are online for the rest of May, and club activities are inactive for the remainder of the Summer. So at least until my in-person Summer classes start in June, I won’t be seeing girls my age. But I want to improve a little more. I want to get better at guitar before I do it as a hobby activity before bed. I want to nourish relations with the 2 clients I have for my agency I’m starting. I want to keep going to work and getting better at my craft. I wouldn’t make progress in these activities over the summer if I was masturbating. I need the energy from Masturbation to be redirected to this. So, I will do a 90 day reboot this Summer. No porn. No masturbation. No orgasm. For 90 days. After 90 I will decide for myself. Not going back to porn. Perhaps masturbation. Thinking no Porn or Masturbation as that’ll make the most strong and push me toward greater improvement.
Tinder premium account 6 month subscription that I bought 2 days ago deleted. I’m gonna be serious about this.
Well... there are friends and just meeting people. A friend is someone who builds a relationship with you, and meeting people is talking to random strangers anywhere, and eventually, you will find people that align with your personality. It can be in the gym, library, elevator, in your neighborhood, coffee shop, playing sports, friends of friends, bars, work etc... You have to expose yourself. To make friends you have to meet strangers. To meet strangers you can't be shy. Learn how to talk, how to be more confident, be interesting, don't be the nice guy. Work on you and fuck the world!
It doesn’t work, long term. I don’t like to contradict others on the forum, I don’t like to make things harder, I don’t like extreme morality for points in some imagined purity game, but I’ve tried it & seen several others try it, and it almost never works. You can do it a few times, but you’re prone to slipping into bad patterns again. The association is too strong. Aim for 90 days hard mode. Not that there’s anything magical about 90, it’s just a substantial yet attainable goal.
I agree with the post above! If you can't be without masturbating, it just proves that your addiction is strong. Just suck it, man. Let the old habits be gone. Just accept it. Do it. But it's not about the 90 days. Like, once you get to 90 days, then you can get back to PMO. NO! when you get to 90 days, you have to keep going, forever. Eventually, you will start meeting girls and you will have real sex and not stupid shitty pixel girls from pornography. Go hard mode. NO PMO for you. Your future you will be thankful.
Less than when I had it installed. Then I worked on some career shit which brought it down more. But now the weight of 2 jobs and summer classes are kicking in for the next two weeks so I'm stressed again lol. But still less stressed than when I had the dating app installed. Stuck with 2 jobs for a minute because I can't leave my old one until May 23rd unless they might dispute my internship credit. Don't wanna leave the new one because it's my first client for the agency I'm starting. Actually, fuck this I'm not going to torture myself. Putting in my request to leave tomorrow. Sleep schedule and mental health are more important. One more thing. Horny as hell though. Tryna make my sleep schedule earlier but due to obscene busyness today my mind is chatty so I had to get out of bed and journal. And I'm also horny as fuck. Tomorrow marks a week since I last PMOed. Thursday is the last day I Med with no O. If I don't leave my old job ASAP, I will relapse. I need to give myself ample time to rest. And I need to give myself ample time to talk to women; otherwise, I'll go back to old ways like dating apps and escalate to masturbation and escalate back to porn.
