Can life have meaning if your dreams are unattainable?

Then you have to search out low cost or no cost treatment. It is available. Try the outpatient mental health clinic of any municipal hospital.

Are you eligible for Medicaid?

That's the term you used to describe what you did with your therapists--I am quoting you when I refer to "philosophical arguments"--and you're doing the same thing in this thread. You sabotaged your therapy with these intellectualized philosophical arguments which are defenses you use to avoid dealing with your emotional problems. You are externalizing blame for problems, you are rationalizing your emotions rather than dealing with them.

No you're not. Stop kidding yourself about that. You have to stop all the obsessive intellectualized bullshit. Your problems are within you--they have nothing to do with gender issues, the meaning of life, whether people have souls, etc.--and you had these problems before you ever became involved with women.

Look, it's your life. You can spend it hiding under your hat, feeling sorry for yourself, angry and jealous of others, and blaming everything under the sun for your problems, or you can start doing something to make real changes in the way you feel, and think, and behave, so you actually can feel good about yourself and have a life you are satisfied with.

The choice is yours.

Ok I hate math more than I hate women or anything else for that matter, but I see what your doing with that.

But that girlfriend who "So as many guys as she's had as a boyfriend...that many guys have had her as a girlfriend. "

Let's say she's had 100 boyfriends and each of those boyfriends has only had 9 girlfriends each.

The female gender as a whole may only be able to date as many people as the male gender as a whole can BUT the INDIVIDUAL females who date more people than their ex boyfriends have, have in MOST cases dated FAR more people overall. Mary Poppins had been with more than 4 times more people then I'd been with. And she was quite a bit younger than I. In fact she'd been with more people than a guy I know who is also my age and has been with quite a few more people then me.


So what I'm saying is that the INDIVIDUAL women who do have more boyfriends have MUCH larger numbers than the men with even the largest numbers. That's why you have to either be cool with knowing that your woman has already done and seen everything under the sun or you have to just avoid any talk about her past at all. Basically just never ask and if she ever talks about it you just have to be Mr. cool and not be bothered.

I really think this is screwed up. I mean if you think about it, on a desert island that has 100 women and one man, at the end of nine months you could potentially have 100 babies BUT on a desert island with 100 men and one woman, at the end of nine months you could potentially only have one baby (unless it was twins or something).

That's probably why women who do sleep with a lot of men getting called derogatory terms makes sense. That's probably why men who are good with women are revered as "cool". Because it's hard to do!

The playing field is FAR from equal. Do you see what I'm saying?

Out of those 100 guys on that island, only one of them is going to have a kid. Those 100 women on that other island, they could ALL potentially have a kid.

And that guy on the island with those 100 women is probably filthy rich p.s.!

(**** I hope firefly reads that one, it's probably the strongest point I've made in this whole thread!)

I don't see the quote box your referring to.

"It appears that your main complaint is that 'you feel you can't compete with other men' and you blame women for that. Do you see how absurd that is? To blame women for your lack of competitiveness with other males?"

I have things that hold me back that are either due to problems I was born with or to circumstances beyond my control. I know there are things I CAN work on but look at what I'm seeing when I look back: The times in life that I've REALLY tried; times when I was younger and in better shape in every sense of the word 'shape'; I still failed.

I don't have advantages that other men do that ENABLES them to be competitive. For instance the money thing. That affects my overall health because I worry about it so much. And it limits everything I can do.

I didn't have a place to live for free during college. I had to borrow money to help me get through those years. Plus all the expenses throughout my whole life have held me back. When my vehicle breaks down I can't call dad for a loan, or even for a ride! I've had zero financial help my whole life including starting out my financial road by having money put away for my college fund used to help pay for funeral costs. My parents didn't have life insurance.

I've never had a chance to breath. It's hard to get your footing once you've had a rocky start.

"There are enough women out there who find it hard to find a man (though not as many as men who find it hard to find a woman). "

You seem to agree with me at least a little.

I don't know how to find out if I'm eligible for medicaid. I tried the the low cost treatment, remember? You said finding a competent therapist is hard.

The hat... New dress code policy at work coincidentally enough starting next week, no hats. So now I get to feel uncomfortable and ugly at work. Great, that will do wonders for my concentration on doing my job! And it totally won't make me any shyer.

I imagine you as probably a fairly attractive slightly older woman. May or may not be accurate but that's what I see for some reason. I'm ugly firefly. I used to not be and I couldn't get things together even then. I need that hat, it makes me more vocal and actually helps me come out of my shell.

If you don't watch it, you'll lose your job too!
Aside from blue color jobs, I don't know anyone who would be allowed to wear a hat at work.

I have come to the conclusion that you thrive on misery - so be it!

You may think life's too hard, but you've got it easy compared to this guy.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Vujicic

I have to agree with Jane, you're wallowing in self pity, and it's self indulgent.

There are many other informal work environments, and non-traditional office situations, generally where people don't interact with the public, where wearing a hat might be acceptable. I think MichaelJ said he works in some type of media related job.

But, I think that someone who always wears a baseball cap, pulled down over his eyes, would appear a little strange in any work environment, because he would look like he's trying to hide his face--which is exactly what he's trying to do--and that would make him seem a little weird.

If you guys don't like my posts, don't read 'em.

I've never said my problems are worse than anyone else s, let alone worse than someone without limbs. I've merely talked about my own problems.

Indeed, and I don't see any reason why I can't wear a hat when I'm sitting in a dark room editing video by myself...

Weird or shy? Why does shy equal weird???

And whenever good advice has been given, you've just made excuses for why you can't take it. The guy with no limbs is inspirational, he's not sitting at home moping about how life is a bitch, he's getting on with it. If he can, why can't you?

Psst - my brother is quadraplegic, not limbless (although it almost amounts to the same thing). He has partial use of his arms (his triceps don't work), and use of his wrist, but not his fingers. he has no feeling from the nipples down.

Your neck spinal cords control differing levels of movement in your upper body. His injury was 2/3 the way down (don't remember the vertebrae number.. between n5 & N6 if I remember right). The higher the injury the more upper body movement you lose.

On the good side, they can rig up electronics so he can use a computer, and operate remotes. And with touch phones he has accurate enough movements to be able to call people on quickdial

On the down side, because he was 2.01 metres tall (6'7" I think that equals), and because he needs a motorised wheelchair, he also needs specialised transport - he doesn't fit in the normal wheelchair taxi's. That vehicle is worth $100,000 dollars. It will eventually have to be replaced too. The wheelchair is worth $12,000.

On the good side, he was lucky enough to own a block of land and an apartment (that he owed money on) before his accident. And his workmates raised somewhere in the vicinity of $150,000 for him, and his superannuation paid out $400,000 (has an insurance part built into it)

On the bad side - to build a purpose built house in Australia for him - the house costs $800,000 (has to have vastly bigger garage, wider hallways, purpose built bathroom & bedroom, needs room for his kids etc)

He also has to have carers come twice a day to take him out of bed, wash him, medicate him him (in order to allow him to defecate, because your sphincter closes up when you have his type of injuries), and put him to bed at night. It requires two people (because you have to adjust the spine correctly in both the bed and in the chair, and because of his size). His wife can do some things, but their children are too young to help with this sort of thing.

Any time he gets a cold, he must return to hospital, because he lost his abdominal muscles, and his chest muscles had to strengthen for him to be able to breath...it's not a perfect system. Any bowel problems also require him to return to hospital.

That said - he realises he's alive, and makes the best of it. I would have slapped him silly if he didn't - because the only other choice is to live in misery with no quality of life (which is very much in your attitude)

If one woman A sleeps with more men than man A...then somewhere Man B sleeps with more women than woman B sleeps with men. Overall it MUST equal out.

There are general rules of the game (eg men approach women, women entice men) that means you compete with other males. You appear to find these unfair. At the end of the day – that is the way it is, and you can otherwise rail against it (which is pointless) and generate anger, hate, and misery within yourself...or you can accept that it’s unchangeable and start to work within the rules...and give yourself the chance at happiness. It’s up to you.

That you are having little to no success, means that some other male (or conglomerate of males) is having much more success.

I know one guy who has slept with an average of 1-2 different girls each week for at least 20 years (he’s mid 40’s). He hasn’t had long term girlfriends, but he also had a habit of keeping each of his ex girlfriends (used loosely because he rarely had long term relationships) hanging around (while seeing the other exes, and while finding new girls to sleep with).

No – but in this extremely unlikely scenario for the extremely lucky guy...if say only the 25 prettiest women on there were the only one’s lucky enough to have had just one relationship each with a guy while on the island...then the guy would have had 25 relationships with girls on the island. Then again, socially...I reckon that situation would turn bad real quick, and he’d no longer be ‘lucky’.

Naturally skilled people are admired just as much, if not more by some people (for the fact that they make it look so easy), while people who work hard for excellence are admired by some people (because it holds the promise that if you work hard, you can make it). So your theory doesn’t hold water. There’s genetic theories out there on this, that seem likely.

You sabotaged your own previous therapy with your obsessive "philosophical arguments"--of the sort you've offered here--your views about women, metaphysical issues concerning the meaning of life and notions of the soul, whether life has meaning if "dreams" are unattainable, etc., etc. You use these sorts of intellectualized arguments as defenses and rationalizations to justify your attitudes and emotions--consequently, you avoid looking at your self-defeating attitudes, your more infantile emotional needs, and your maladaptive emotional reactions.

I told you how to find a competent therapist for low cost at an analytic training institute. You can also find one at any university with a doctoral program in Psychology--they are generally tied in to an on-campus treatment clinic that offers low cost services to the community. And low cost, no cost, treatment is generally offered through the outpatient mental health clinic of any municipal hospital.

I don't care if you're as ugly as sin--it's how you feel about yourself, and how you present yourself to others, that's really going to determine how others react to you. If you accept yourself, and feel self confident and good about yourself, others will find you an appealing person to be involved with.
You don't need the hat any more than you need your "philosophical arguments". You need to deal more directly with your self-esteem issues and your fears of exposing and looking at your emotional vulnerabilities as well as your irrational thoughts--without trying to mask or hide them, both from yourself as well as others, particularly therapists.

You have these idiotic fantasies--that other people walk happily into the sunset with lifetime partners, as though no relationships have conflicts, compromises, infidelities, deceptions, or are impacted with trauma, financial stress, severe illness of a partner, or end with rejection, or death--in your very unrealistic view, everyone else magically lives happily after after except you. Similarly, you see all other people as having parents who willingly foot bills for college tuition, or for car repairs, or anything else their adult children require--some parents can afford to save for their child's college, but many can't, and some prefer to spend their money on themselves rather than their child's college bills, and not too many parents want to be an ATM machine for their child's car repair bills, or other expenses, when that adult child is already in his 30's.

You really haven't fully dealt with the issue of your parents' deaths in terms of how that trauma and emotional abandonment affected you, and how it was related to your relationships with them before their deaths, and how your life changed after their deaths, and how it continues to affect your self perception and emotional needs and anger. That's why you have particular difficulty dealing with rejection and the termination of relationships. When you go back into therapy, those are issues you should confront.

We can discuss these things forever in this thread and it won't change a thing. You know you have problems and you've got to start working on them. Your problems are within you, and that's where the solutions are too.

Relationships are interactions of two personalities, and what might attract others to you, and cause them to want to remain in a relationship with you, has more to do with your character and personality traits than anything else. If you're a self-pitying, socially awkward, anxious, needy, angry, withdrawn man, with low self esteem, you tell me why anyone would want to be involved with you? You feel too inadequate to even be friends with men, or date women, around your own age.

You're an adult, MichaelJ, it's time to start acting like one. Stop throwing infantile tantrums, stop looking for answers in intellectualized arguments, stop trying to justify your irrational and self-defeating attitudes, and start doing the things that are necessary to help you gain more emotional maturity and social poise, more self esteem and self confidence, and a healthier and more positive outlook on your own life. There is no fairy godmother who can wave a magic wand and give you these things--you've got to develop them for yourself, just like everybody else, and you've got to work at it. And you are more than capable of learning, and changing, and growing, and turning yourself into the kind of person you can like and admire. If you don't have a positive relationship with yourself, you can't have a positive relationship with anyone else.

Stop making excuses, start doing.

hi I have a story to tell you too.

it's about one of my best friends, lets call her Reer, When she was about 16 , her father heartlessly left her mom and went away with another woman, from that time on, Reer lived with her mom and her little brother in a rented house until the end of college ,her mom tragically died in an accident at work trying to pay back the college fees .

she is devastated, told me she misses her mom everyday. she had plans of finishing college and finding a good job, and a happy future . but after all of this including breaking up with her BF, she finds meanless in doing everything.

But , she still has hopes, hopes that her little brother will graduate from univercity, hopes that she will find someone special in life. She has many friends also and they often go out a lot.
Now, she is fine , working hard and planning a better future.

what i am trying to say is U are not alone, if someone can do it, you can do it.it's all about your attitude towards bad things that happens.

hit the bottom and bounce back!

BTW I came across this website when i was searching "do people met online trust each other "kind of phrase, and I think i have pretty positive answer now!

Your brother seems quite an inspiring man as well. I wish him all the best.

thank you

Vikorr I went rough on you yesterday mainly because I am certain you could do better...nonetheless your brother has my sympathy n respect ! Appreciate the example you brought on.

Think nothing of it, it's refreshing to hear about someone who's keeping his chin up despite everything.

Hi Fil,

I'm actually not sure where you 'went rough on me yesterday' - but even if you did, that's okay - because we are all entitled to our perspective on the best way to handle things

And hello again Fil / Izzy,

Thank you for your thoughts regarding my brother.

I'm not sure exactly where the attitude came from, only that most of my sibblings (5 siblings) carry it - make the best of what you've got (1 doesn't - she struggles with life a bit)

I think it may have helped that he coached Wheelchair Basketball for 2 years a before he transferred to work on the island. He used to play in our State Basketball League. He also at various stages played competitive Rugby League, Rugby Union, and Volleyball, as well as card hobbies - so he was very well known, and has plenty of visitors - which I'm sure also helps.