Making efforts to date but it's difficult...

Salutations to you all. I thought I'd stop by and tell you my story. I've been on NoFap for 5 months with continual relapses every 3-4 weeks but fortunately I'm still seeing positive effects.

I'm now 33 years old, never had a girlfriend, still virgin, never kissed a girl and I'm pretty sure I'm suffering of "Avoidant personality disorder" and before last year I had never even had a date in my entire life, and that would've gone on for an other 10 years had it not been for a girl who approached me to do something with me outside of work. Since I had no clue what I was doing she went back home and we never spoke again. I was depressed for 4 months straight thinking to myself that things were indeed as I envisioned them to be "I'm a worthless piece of trash with women".

Eventually I tried to get out of my depression and told to myself "I managed to attract one beautiful girl without even trying, Imagine what I could do If I put some effort into it". So I went after a girl I knew a little, again a really attractive girl. I flirted on and off with her for 4 months or so. Honestly I was just trying to get used to talking to girls (Cognitive Behavior therapy) and figuring out what triggers what reaction, what creates attraction, that kind of stuff. I almost got somewhere with her but I backed off at a crucial moment (probably my avoidance kicking in) and as I tried kissing her a week later she backed off and told me she started seeing someone else because I was too slow to act. I never asked her out, stupid mistake on my par but again, I have no clue what I'm doing.

I took it better than the first one and moved on with my life, we still talk often and I appreciate she didn't cut me off from her life like the first one did.

Fast forward 1 1/2 month later. It's Christmas at my grandmother's place, she's remarried to some other dude and we celebrate with that guy's family and my own. There's this rather attractive girl in the other family who I'm somewhat familiar with. At this point I've been on NoFap for 4 weeks or so, my self confidence is pretty high up there so I got sit with her, try to talk to her, she's not giving me much to work with but due to certain circumstances I ask her out by text a week later (I'm really a pussy when it comes to asking girls out directly, Avoidance being a problem again...) The date is terrible, she walks in, takes 5 mins to take her coat off, doesn't look at me, stares at the ground, doesn't contribute to the conversation at all, doesn't want anything when I offer her a drink. I found out 3 weeks later she was a lesbian... Why she accepted to go out with me I have no clue. We spoke again a month ago though text and I think she was feeling bad for wasting my time the way she did. It was very disappointing, I have a hard time with my self esteem due to my lack of experience and now this girl comes and makes me doubt I was even born the right gender to get girls...

4 months later (present time) I have this girl in sight at work. I've been staring her down for the past 3 weeks, I have managed to speak with her a couple times but I haven't asked her out yet. Can't even tell if she has a boyfriend or not but she has given me some signs of interest (at least this is how I interpreted it) I really wish I had a dating coach or something like that behind me to push me when I'm about to back away from doing it. The worst thing about it is that I'm certain she'll accept to go out with me, I'm a good looking guy, I just have no clue what I'm doing and I'm afraid to shoot myself in the foot down the line.

All those failures are starting to weight on my consciousnesses and the more I fail the less I wanna try... Dating when you don't know what you're doing at 33 is really really hard... I've been giving NoFap a go for a while but If I see no change to my life I think I'm just gonna go back to my old ways again if I can't lose my virginity by the end of this year. I seriously hate starving myself of sexual pleasure.

 

This is mostly what I've been doing. While I did go on a couple dates in the last year I feel like I'm not quite there yet with my approach anxiety which is mostly related to my avoidant personality disorder. I've been practicing mostly with cashiers when I got buy something in a store but I have yet to ask one out. Some of them probably think I'm kinda weird starting a conversation, being flirty and asking for their name and then just walk away but I'm just taking it one step at the time. Meeting people has been challenging too. I can't just go out in the street to meet people as I live in the countrysides and there's absolutely no one to talk to, no clubs to join, no classes to take, no nothing. The closest thing to a social activity around here is bingo...

I'm just saying but avoidance is a lot worst than shyness, I don't even need to think about why I don't want to approach a girl, I just don't approach the girl just like I wouldn't throw myself of a cliff, there's just an alarm in my head that says "No, not gonna happen"

I can probably manage the dating part of the game but sex is gonna be a challenge... Honestly at this point I consider sex to be the equivalent of Sci-Fi, I've seen it on TV, it looks fun but I have no actual clue if it's real or not as I've never experienced it. Getting there is pretty much the achievement of a life time for me and I'm not just gonna hire an escort or a prostitute to make it happen, it would be no better than a glorified masturbation. What I'm looking for is the feeling of validation that someone else wants to do it with me, otherwise I will not be getting any kind of boost in my self esteem.