Hey there, so I've been hearing about how watching porn (let's assume it to be synonymous with masturbating) fucks with your sexual desire, mood, and the ability to establish new and maintain old relationships. I've been watching porn since I was... umm... 13, I think. Twice a day, on average. For a long time, I really didn't care about the "white noise" coming from my friends (most of them were the same, tbh) that watching porn is bad for me. Why, I thought, if it helps release the tension and it's enjoyable. Until 21 or so, I had such a low self-esteem so watching porn instead of going out there and looking for a hookup or girlfriend didn't seem to be a problem. I just couldn't imagine that a girl I genuinely liked would be interested in me, too. That's how fucked up I was... and still am to some extent. Ok, so then, when I was 25, I got into this friends with benefits sort of relationship. Even though I didn't find her so attractive, we had sex regulerly and it felt good. However, I still watched porn back than. Quite a lot. She happened to have a little bit more clingy and anxious personality, and wanted having sex more often than I did. We got into a lot of fights when she accused me of watching porn excessively. I thought she was just overly dramatic. Probably it was both, but this is not about her problems. Once I tried a no porn/NoFap challenge for 5 days and it was insane. After 2-3 days, my sexual desire for her or any other woman increased dramatically. I really wanted to have sex with her, which felt great (maybe for the first time in my life, I felt like a man) but scary at the same time, because I realized that one's thoughts, emotions, and desires can be influenced SIGNIFICANTLY by whether or not had I jerked off recently. Now I'm 30, I no longer have fwb with her. After "breaking up", I finally started going on dates. Long story short, I've really liked two girls but there was only a weak "sexual energy" coming from my side. At least that's what I'm thinking. And that's basically the reason I decided to join this page and post this. Because the second girl "happened" (or didn't, to be more precise) last night. We arranged some sort of language exchange - I'm Czech and she's American. We had two exchanges, and for the third one she invited me to come over to her place. To cook, drink etc. It's funny, or maybe sad for some, but this happened to me for the first time in my life. Since I still struggle with me confidence issues if it comes to women, I wasn't sure what it meant. But I was somehow expecting that something's going to happen. She was sweet all evening, we were drinking wine, chatting etc. And nothing happened. To be honest, I was so frustrated that I even started questioning my sexual orientation. Because logically speaking, how come that I just didn't even try to touch or seriously flirt with the girl I had had crush on for past two weeks? It may be more complicated, but I'd argue that the reason might be porn. No doubt there other issues I have to deal with in order to improve my sexual life, however I'm starting to believe that masturbating while watching porn doesn't help it at all. So my goal is to quit watching porn, learn how to manage my sexual energy and most importantly, be more sexual around woman - I may have some good qualities women like but if I don't demonstrate my interest/express my affection towards them, they'll fall flat. Thanks for reading dicuss. I welcome any of your experience and feedback. Honza
Thank you for sharing your story. Maybe you thought it was too soon to flirt with the babe right now. Or your gut instinct told you not to advance for now. Or you were very nervous. Not all girls are worth the "effort" of becoming closer to us if you know what I mean. Some girls are completely f*cked up in their heads. So you subconsciouly didn't risk the advance...YET. If it's "supposed" to happen it will happen. Trust me. You will "feel" it. On the other hand maybe your/our porn/masturbation addiction can disrupt our natural masculine instincts. And our perceptions. Some say we are more capable of attracting girls if we are not constantly "depleting" ourselves with masturbation. And I'm in favor of this opinion. Girls generally respond to me better if I am in a noPMO phase or streak. Maybe it's our pheromones that are more active...or our confidence that gets higher....or both...or even more stuff that we are not aware of... I don't know. I just know that girls seem to aknowledge when we are "full" or "empty" (if you know what I mean ) and favour the "full" state. My advice to you is to take the "only way to be sure" method. The "Hard" mode. The no PMO mode. If you want to know as soon as possible if your PMO is f*cking up your instincts and confidence etc go for the hard mode. It's "tougher" but it's "faster" (everybody is different - keep that in mind) to reset your brain (and your body). There are plenty of interesting stuff in this site that will help you to "feel" what is going on with you. Stay strong! Things will get better!
Welcome to NoFap where you are amongst friends who are here to encourage you and sometimes challenge you but not judge you. The enemy is here to steal, kill and destroy. What are your current strategies for combating the enemy called PMO?
Thanks for your responses, guys. Yes, maybe the combination of each of those. I was definitely nervous and hence not "performing" at my best. But I don't want to blame her. Provided she was interested, she basically did everything she could. She prepared snacks, poured wine, lit candles (omg), encouraged me to drink more etc. And I was just sitting there, probably waiting for her to get naked by herself. We'll see, but I'm afraid it's gone with her. But thanks for trying to cheer me up, anyway. I totally believe this to be true. Because when I did the no porn challenge back then, even after a couple of days, when I looked at girls (even random), at least some of them looked at me back differently. Of course it was only my perception - but they seemed to view me as someone who appreciated their "beauty", not some creep starring at them. How would you define "respond better"? I am really curious. Yes, I get you.)) Hmm maybe you're right. To be honest, my goal now is to quit watching porn, for good. I'll have to dig deeper into "why masturbation/orgasm may harm you in different ways" problematic before deciding whether to quit those, too. I don't want to sound like a heretic, but imo masturbation (using your fantasy), provided it's not excessive nor compulsory, isn't so bad. By that I mean - once in a couple of days or so. We'll see about that. And D.J. thanks for welcoming me on this site. I appreciate it. My strategy for combating... for now only "P", I guess... is: - delete all porn from my PC - block porn sites - estabilish a "no porn challenge" in my group on meetup com (ok, I'll probably just send an e-mail to male members) - try to figure out what triggered my urge to watch porn - when it usually happened - what was the reward. I want to come up with new routines giving me similar rewards. For instance - when I'll feel the urge to watch porn, I'll send a flirtatious text to a girl on dating apps (smt like that). Or even if I just jerked off instead, I'd consider it as a step forward. That's pretty much it for now. I just started reading the PMO ebook today so the list may become wider quite soon.
Check out In Case You Didn't Know for additional strategies and tips which may help you along your journey.
Oh I see...the candles... Well If she was interested she still is. The interest doesn't fade away so easily...If you want to try a "second round" invite her to your place (and you light the candles this time ) or invite her to do other thing. And you can explain her you sometimes feel weird in certain situations. Maybe she can relate to you. If she assumed it was a rejection of your part that idea will be erased from her mind with that explanation. But do what you think is best for you. Oh about the "respond better" I can tell you they smile more at me and they seem to aknowledge me more. More eye contact. It seems to me that they are more open to my approach. Maybe it's our pheromones that become more active or our confidence that grows because we are in a challenge that we feel able to accomplish. Or maybe there's so many things going on with us physically and mentally we don't know yet what cause that effect. For example, the other day I approached a girl because she was cute and had a gorgeous body. I was with a 12 days streak (without PMO). She was so stunning I thought "I have to talk with this girl". She was asking for directions and it was the perfect context to approach her. We talked and exchanged numbers. The strange thing was I never approached a girl so "out of the blue" as I've done this time. It's like your body and mind are saying: "OK. So you don't want to masturbate....then you have to approach girls. There is no outlet so you have to have the real thing". But I normally don't do that but I had the intense desire to know her. She was just too beautiful to let her pass by me. But if I was PMOing I think I wouldn't have had the "strenght" to approach her. Yeah I feel ya. In my case I decided to call an "artillery strike" (the hard mode). The main reasons are: I feel less urges and I felt some benefits from it in the past. I never passed the 30 days in my previous streak so that is my first challenge...but I want to make it 90 days. I think I never passed the 30 days barrier in 20 years! I'm curious. But yeah if it suits you better a no porn challenge, great. If you see the results you are getting are not positive enough you can still adopt another challenge. I have read an interesting article about masturbation. You can see it here. I was very open minded when I read the article. Some reasons were clear to me others not. Everyone has to decide for themselves. But the "gold" article for me is this one. Really has a strong ressonation with me.
