Looking back at my teens years where I was addicted to porn, I would trade every video & cum for 1 real connection.
Desire for sex is a horribly hollow foundation for a relationship.
To onboard the tremendous time, attention, work, and emotional stability that a good relationship demands, or that a bad relationship totally incinerates to nobody's benefit, while coming from a place of "I wanna get my dick wet" or "my sadness would be fixed if only I conjoined my life with another human being" sounds disastrous.
We all hunger for deep connections yet we shy away from making the first step. Everyone is tired of shallow, everyone wants depth, nobody wants to start.
You may be surprised how well people respond, if you just start. Be the person who takes it deep. If you initiate, most people will be happy to follow and soon you’ll be surrounded by deep connections.
Same as when you’re alone at a party. If you initiate, most people will be happy to chat and soon you’ll be surrounded by friends.
PS: while this is simple, it is not easy … but really, reach out to some people and take them out for a <beverage>. You may be surprised how many will jump at the chance
edit: it is important to note that raw time spent together is the fastest way to a deep connection. You can’t hack this. You need actual real time. Even if you never talk about anything particularly deep, the connection becomes deep by sheer virtue of spending regular time together.
edit2: relationship building takes years, not minutes. You cannot hack this process. But it does help to take the risk first.
> You may be surprised how well people respond, if you just start. Be the person who takes it deep. If you initiate, most people will be happy to follow and soon you’ll be surrounded by deep connections.
My experience is different. They either only want shallow and brief connection (which I can't really blame them for given the above), or the only kind of trust relationship they want is the one where you trust them and they can take advantage of you, or sell you something, or push some ideology on you. Actual connection with people who just want to be human is exceptionally rare from what I can tell.
I’m talking about things you can develop over years, not minutes.
But if it works 10% of the time and you try 10 times, you’ll have 1 new friend. That’s great! How many do you really need?
But these women live away from the coasts and like dudes who are into fishing or hunting (not Final Fantasy Online) and can secure a trailer hitch blindfolded, and most of them probably voted for Trump, so, I guess that's the disconnect? But then, the voting thing, they may have in common with the incels.
It's like two totally different worlds.
[EDIT] Oh, a lot of them probably attend some protestant church or another pretty regularly, which I'm guessing most having trouble making connections do not. Maybe that contributes? Guaranteed socializing about once a week.
That's what people like Jordan Peterson and even Scott Galloway get wrong: You can go to the gym and buy new bedlinens, but women can smell Ben Shapiro in your podcast list from across town.
I will say though, plenty of young men and women like you describe where when push comes to shove they fold. Nothing new, abstaining and self denial are hard. I don’t fault them, at least they gave it a try. Theory is easy, practice is hard.
Anyways, don’t worry lots of us out here and all around making lots of babies and doing just fine, content, fulfilled, satisfied. We just don’t tend to make such a big vitriolic stink cause we have better things to do than cast shade. Plus, we are busy. Wife is busy cleaning, cooking and childcare . I’m busy working and teaching my children. Also busy getting busy.
It’s our choice, it’s how we both want to live and if I could do it all over again I would in heart beat.