My Friend's Godmode

EDIT: Hearing how strongly many of you relate to this story has given me strength these last months. The sequel for this post is up! A lot has happened for both of us. The spoiler is that I feel more confident, happy and fulfilled than I have for years. And Alex? Well, he's reaching ever-higher levels of awesome.
Stay strong my brothers. Focus on improvement not perfection. A better life is possible for everyone.

***

I'm new here and this is a long post but I promise it's worth reading (there's a tl;dr at the bottom).

My friend (let's call him Alex) and I discovered Nofap together in early 2015, totally by accident as we simultaneously discovered Game (getting good with women). Both of us were 18 at the time and used porn semi-regularly. I'd like to share a comparison between the two of us, because the fact is that he stuck with Nofap and I didn't. And I have seen him become a god. I hope this will inspire you on your own journey.

Both of us are introverts, very introspective individuals. I was known at school as the genius-guy- I've always been good with words and that ability of expression alone made me seem smart. People seemed to think I was quite charismatic and talkative, and I've only discovered recently that a lot more girls were attracted to me than I realised at the time. But the thing is, I had zero confidence. I've got a lot of good stuff going for me but I've struggled with serious depression for years.

Alex on the other hand was always quieter. He's a musician and a surfer, and very attractive in that unique mixed-race way. He used to spend nearly ALL of his time (except when surfing) playing computer games and watching movies. People were intrigued by his mystery but he didn't have a lot going for him. He was a virgin while I had lost mine to a girlfriend the previous year.

So we discovered Nofap, and dove right in. Why not right? We were always looking for that one life-changing revelation. But none of my streaks reached a month long. He just powered on ahead.

The change I saw in him is the most radical shift I have ever seen in anyone. Of course, I can't correlate everything to Nofap, because after he pussied-out of asking a beautiful girl to the Formal (prom) only to discover she decided not to go because she didn't have a date, he was determined never to avoid something again. "I refuse to have regrets!" was his basic catchphrase. So he set about getting good with girls and not avoiding risk at the same time as doing Nofap. But Nofap was 100% the big trigger and definitely the biggest driver of the change I saw.

He got a friends with benefits and discovered that his brain was so wired for porn that he couldn't orgasm during sexual acts with a girl and would sometimes experience ED. But he powered on, rewiring his brain, gaining sexual prowess. Simultaneously he was becoming more social, much more confident and self-assured. He stopped playing computer games completely, much to the judgement of many of his friends. "Life's a game" he said to me once, "and I'm winning. Why waste my time on getting better at League of Legends when I could be getting better at piano or girls?"

And get better he did. It was like watching a flower bud and blossom in fast-motion, a volcanic eruption of progress (for such significant life changes. We're talking half a year or so here). He shifted his faulty wiring so he was always hard during sex and could orgasm with a girl, how nature intended. He moved out, away from our coastal town to the heart of Sydney. He went overseas. He made lots of new friends. He had a lot of sex. To date, I have never met someone as good with girls as he is. It's like watching a master at work. He's totally happy and fulfilled with his life. He has a vocation, regular sex, hobbies and friends. I've really seen him become a man.

I say this because I want you all to know what's possible. I think a lot of us hold the belief "well maybe him, but he was already skilled/attractive/charismatic and just didn't know it". But that's a lie, a lie to keep us comfortable in our shitty lives. The truth is that all of us have this latent power within us. Meeting Alex a year or two ago, you would never have been able to guess the shift that was coming. He was just a normal guy.

Me? I forgot about Nofap. I sort of eddied around in the churning wake of his success, taking some of his advice on girls, reading a lot of self-help but doing nothing much, still watching porn, having late nights, procrastinating, wasting my time on the internet, feeling shit about myself. I've been the ultimate avoidance machine.

But it could never stay that way. I couldn't get out of these awful patterns of thought that had plagued me most of my life, and I knew I had to change. It just felt impossible. But the catalyst was two events.

First, I had gotten myself a friends with benefits. We had met up a couple of times but hadn't done anything that sexual yet (rookie, I know). Alex had helped me along the way with tips and suggestions. But when we finally got naked, the nightmare happened. I was reasonably hard, and rolled off to get a condom. By the time I had got it on I was soft and couldn't get hard again. She wasn't that bothered by it but I couldn't get hard again. It was like it was totally disconnected from my body, no feeling whatsoever. It's an awful feeling.

Still I did nothing, until this New Year's Eve. I had a Finnish girl with me and we were staying downstairs at Alex's in Sydney after watching the fireworks. I had been in a bad mood all night: we didn't meet up with the Finnish girl (who I previously knew) until we were heading home, so the whole night I was third-wheeling with Alex and the girl he was with. I was feeling terrible about myself, like a child. He was trying to pump me up to meet women or sleep with the Finn once we got back. I was experiencing a contradiction: knowing that I could be good with women, could be happy and fulfilled in my life, but feeling powerless and child-like, especially compared to him. And I had the lurking fear... ED. What if it happened again?

I was sleeping with the girl in the same bed when we got back. We ended up kissing and touching and she said she wanted more. Lo and behold, I reached for the condom, unwrapped it and went to put it on... soft as butter. I felt 100% unaroused. She seemed sympathetic and went to sleep. I sat awake.

I realised that I got furiously hard watching porn, reading erotic fiction or in my room alone, imagining sexual encounters, but when it came to physical sexual experiences, my penis wasn't that interested. Even with my old girlfriend, I honestly wasn't ever that excited for sex. My brain just wasn't wired for it. I had messed it up.

I sat there in the dark, the girl breathing quietly beside me. This changes everything, I thought. This is the physical embodiment of everything that's killing me inside, my lack of confidence, my depression, my avoidance. All made manifest in a soft penis. I knew I had to change. Otherwise I could never enjoy sex, I'd just avoid it out of shame. Otherwise I'd never be able to get good with girls because I'd be thinking about the inevitable sexual failure to follow. Otherwise I'd continue jacking off and lying on my bed afterwards, feeling drained of all vitality.

I'm only on Day 11 now, and I think I might be flatlining already. No wild changes so far. But of I could recommend some things to complement your Nofap:

Exercise- my god it helps. Whether cardio or working on your muscles, you'll look better, feel better and sleep better.

Less sugar- you'd be surprised what a role this plays in neurochemistry and the gut.

Meditation- I got sick of hearing about meditation and started. Many times, especially in the beginning, you'll be annoyed that your brain's so easily distracted, so petty. You have to recognise that as a distraction in itself. No expectations! Just be present.

Go to bed earlier- one of my ongoing demons. Dial your bedtime back by increments, and get up earlier. Nighttime can be likely, a time of endings. Mornings are a time of possibility.

Socialise- even if you don't have energy for it. Guys, girls, doesn't matter. Get out there.

Date- even though I'm dealing with my brain and my penis, I knew I couldn't allow that to be an excuse to stop talking to girls. So get on tinder! Read up on Game, the good social-dynamics and evolutionary-psychology stuff, not the women-hating stuff. It's fantastic to get women off the pedestal without regarding them to pornographic objects.

I can't pretend to be a guru on this. I've just started really. Changing habits is like swimming against the tide. It's hard, until your ripples slowly shift the flow of water in the direction you're going.

I was out canoeing with Alex the other day and I told him all this. He smiled wistfully and said that it made sense: he'd been pushing me to give improvement with girls my best efforts but had noticed that I seemed to be holding back on life.

"Nofap changed everything for me," he said. "It was the catalyst for everything else, my reason to keep going." He told me that I was better than him in a lot of ways: he had just worked harder while I had stayed in a slump.

I'm going to beat my depression. I have so many good attributes to build on, and so do you. And I'm going to beat this ED. I don't care if it's a quick fix or a longer journey. I don't care how many girls I have to mess up with. And then? I'm going to improve my sexual prowess, and I'm going to live life well. It's all starting right here, right now. Little changes. Snowballing over time. When that happens, you'd better believe my victory post is going to be a lion's roar. 2016 is the year I become me. Because I'm not like Alex. We have different personalities, different demons to face. But in the end, I'm going to look him in the eye as equals. Screw porn. Screw procrastination. Let's live instead.

And that's the truth, my dear fapstronauts. We all have so much potential, sitting dormant within us. Alex unleashed that potential. I'm starting my journey to doing so now. We can all build the life we want. It all starts with closing the laptop and opening the door to improvement.

Thanks for reading and you can do it!

tl;dr: my friend and I were lazy, shy porn watchers. He quit and became charismatic, happy, a risk-taker, great with women and fulfilled in life. I'm doing the same now. We all have this potential within us. Go live life!