I'm 25 and have been watching internet porn on a regular basis since the age of 11. Back then, I was definitely interested in girls, but I never took the initiative with them, because porn was always a mouse-click away, and besides, I never had many friends outside of school. That being said, despite my porn addiction, there have always been several girls who were interested in me because of my looks. I just never felt the urge to take it further with them. Being socially awkward, porn was just way easier. If only I had realized that part of what made me awkward and antisocial was the porn use, I would've quit much sooner. In the past, I've stopped masturbating and watching porn a few times for up to a week, due to living situations, but I've never put two and two together until now. It's kind of frustrating that I've isolated myself for so many years, and am only now realizing the cause, but better late than never. So here I am at 25 years of age, never having had sex with a woman, and only four days into NoFap I feel like a chemically altered bull that has been injected with massive amounts of steroids! My energy levels are through the roof! My body has always looked great from years of weight training and dieting, but I've always had aches and pains and have never really progressed in the gym as far as PRs go. When I lifted today, I felt like a fucking beast for the first time in years! My veins were popping out and my usual weight felt way lighter! Screw steroids, NoFap is where it's at! Anyway, even at day four I'm already feeling this urge to have my way with every hot girl I pass on the street. Now I'm just wondering what I should do. Should I hope that continuing NoFap will make me so irresistible to women to the point where they will just hone in on me like a piece of meat, or will I need to take the initiative? I'm still feeling anxiety about talking to attractive girls, but I've barely even started NoFap. I'm a neurotic person in general, but my anxiety levels have definitely declined and I already feel more confident, bordering on arrogant. That said, I still can't see myself taking the first step at this point. Maybe if I continue NoFap, things will take care of themselves? What do you think?
Nofap isn't a way to solve all your problems. It's to make room for better problems. The quality of your life depends on your ability to handle pain, problems, and negative experiences. With porn and masturbation your problems were things like "how can I get instant gratification without dealing with anything difficult?" / "what's the best website or video that can turn me on so I can orgasm?" / "how can I escape reality right now?" With porn and masturbation out of the way, you now have problems like "how can I approach people better?" / "how do I understand women better?" You will have to learn to understand people better. To deal with rejections and things not working out in life. You will have to face scary, awkward, messy, unideal, painful, and uncertain situations. You will have to be uncomfortable and deal with difficult situations to grow. Higher quality solutions, pleasures, and positive experiences are gained through higher quality problems, pain, and negative experiences. Maybe women will come to you. Maybe not. Porn was all about making life easier and escaping reality. Learn to face problems rather than waiting for things to take care of themselves.
I truly feel like quitting porn will indirectly be the solution to all my problems. I already feel like a different person after only four days. Willpower has never been an issue for me when I understand why I'm doing something, and see the bigger picture. I've decided to quit porn for good, because I only just realized the harm it was doing to me. I would've quit years ago, had I known before. I'm feeling very optimistic which is unbelievable coming from me. I'm doing the 90 day reboot and am determined not to masturbate until I have sex with a woman, so that's a goal I'm looking forward to accomplishing.
Okay... so you'll be ripped, energy through the roof, and no anxiety after 90 days... What does that have to do with being able to approach women you're attracted to? That's a limit you put on yourself. You're getting in your own way. You think attractive women are above you and you have to close that gap by looking and feeling better / being fearless. What you haven't realized is that those women are already on the same level as you. You don't need extra skills or attributes. Porn taught you that women are to be idolized. To own and control them. Rather than going for what you want, risking rejection, and giving them the freedom to choose whether or not they want to accept you... but most people can't face the pain of rejection or uncertainty. So they focus on cold showers, supplements, workouts, fashion, 90 days / 180 days / 1000 days, motivation, etc to make sure that they won't feel that pain. Those things are bad for you only if used as an escape from what you really need to be doing. Anything to escape the pain of an uncertain and unideal reality. That habit of escaping the actual problem is what led them to porn in the first place. Day 1 is when you face your problems. Not day 90. Things don't fix themselves just because you quit porn. That's just the starting line. The minimum requirement.
I think the main reason I never approached women is because I was able to get my fix through porn. Now that it's no longer an option for me, my motivation to find a woman is increasing day by day. At the moment, I feel like my hormones are slowly normalizing after years of draining myself with frequent ejaculation. I feel like a totally different person. I no longer get the impression that attractive women are above me, and when I fantasize about them, I get turned on by passion and intimacy rather than imagining the graphic sexual acts of porn. I'm surprised at how quickly everything is changing for me. If you would've told me last week that I was going to feel this way, I wouldn't have believed you.
I didn't know what that was and just looked it up, lol. I've had plenty of girls who were interested in me throughout high school and beyond, but the feeling was rarely mutual. I think the biggest difference now with my hormonal changes is a motivation to be around women, and I'm also starting to feel very attractive and desirable, whereas before I knew I was attractive, but felt like a creep. Now I feel like it's me who's the catch, not the other way around. Oh yeah, that's how great I'm feeling, lol.
