I am a 28 year old male who has never had a “love” relationship.  How do I feel? Awful. I’m lonely as hell. Every day is a total bore. My thoughts often fill with disgust for a youth completely wasted. I don’t understand relationships that I see on TV or the movies. I can empathise and romanticise with the characters I see, but I don’t (can’t) really identify with them. It seems to me that I often miss the point or the real emotion in romantic situations in movies.

I have trouble fantasising about sex, as I’m a virgin. I can think about how it must feel, what it is like to touch someone that way.  And yet I have no foundation for the experience. This makes me feel very isolated, and alone. By now, I have so many hang-ups concerning relationships, sex and society that I am not sure if I will ever feel comfortable having a relationship.  It’s like I have none of the training that “normal” adults have had, none of the skills that they have picked up through their teens, and early adulthood.  If I was to date (it would be the first time) it would be like I was thirteen, as I would make the same mistakes, and be childlike in my approach to the relationship. I’m certain I would be childish, with little control over the flood of emotions I would have.

I am strongly attracted to the opposite sex, and tend to form very strong bonds very quickly.  Even to the point of feeling certain I am in love.  And this feeling, after just having the woman treat me like a human being, or being nice to me.  I have had opposite-sex relationships, “friends” in other words, who to my surprise (and frustration!) have usually told me what a nice guy I am. 

My whole life I have tended to keep only a few good friends (of both sexes). For some (largely unknown) reason or another, these friendships never turned into romantic interest.  When I was seventeen, I fell deeply in love with a classmate.  She “loved” me as a good and trusted friend, but didn’t think of me in a romantic way, and to my eternal frustration had a boyfriend.  We spent a lot of time together, usually in class, where we passed notes to each other, and scribbled on each others hands. I never did get to hold hands, or kiss, or touch her, or go on a date with her.  The only time I ever saw her outside of school was before exams when I tutored her at her house under her mothers close supervision. That is the closest I have ever been to having a romantic or sexual relationship with a woman. 

I have since been to lunch or had a drink with co-workers or married lady friends. But each and every time, there is no possibility of romantic interest.  Largely, those friends were superficial, and were mostly using me as a friend or went out with me for some other reason.  I have given time, knowledge and money to these women, in return for which I was actually grateful to have received the little attention that I did.

Who do I blame for this? I know it’s not right to blame others or even oneself for this, but there are some people who had negative influences on me.  But, largely its no one’s fault, it’s just the way it is  the same reason the sun rises in the east.

I consider myself to be ugly.  I am 6’1” with light brown hair and grey-blue eyes.  Those stats sound ok, but I assure you that I am quite ugly.  I am hugely overweight, with a pronounced nose, and terrible set of teeth.  I have been fat for my whole life. That, along with the fact that we didn’t have the money for braces I should have had early in life, set me up to be who I am. Kids made fun of me my whole life.  If a day didn’t go by without curses, teasing, bullying, and cruelty in general, I thought I was in heaven.  I was never social in any way. 

In my youth, I lived with my parents, my grandmother, an older bother and sister.  I never knew any other family.  There were no cousins, aunts, uncles, or friends of my parents whatsoever.  We never went out, not even to church. I grew up in a rigid, closed, dysfunctional family, with no external influences, and since my brother and sister were seven and four years older than me, I was always too young to play with, or socialise with.  I remember going to my first party.  A classmate invited the whole class, so I went.  Unfortunately I never realised that I was in fact the entertainment for the party.  Who needs clowns at parties, when you could have me?

I also remember always being attracted to girls. Unlike other boys in their early life, I never disliked girls.  In fact, teachers always mixed girls and boys together as punishment in pre-school, and I was the only one who enjoyed it.  It is strange then to note that as I grew up, I never went further than playing around in class, or being friends.  I liked all the girls at high school.  Even the ugly ones. I was the strong silent type of person, and although it is portrayed as sexy in the movies, no girl has ever approached me.  What they also don’t show you in the movies, is that in being the strong silent type, you never make friends or girl-friends. Generally, as a rule of thumb, you have to say something to a girl before you get to go steady, which is difficult if you’re strong and “silent”.

I had a real monster for a physical education teacher. He abused the fat and non-physical kids.  He was the only boys physical education teacher in the school, so I had him for five years of living hell.  Every period (once a week) he singled out the fat kids, and put us in a group and made us do stupid things.  He also openly called us names, and gave us quite a shot of low-esteem every week, for five years.  I am fairly sure that that didn’t help any. 

My parents are the sickest pair of misfits you’re ever likely to meet. I say this with sadness. For all their good parenting, there was a lot lacking.  My dad has never caught on the concept that there is such a thing as enough food. I was fed as much of anything as I wanted and then some. They always treated me like I should know when to stop. I was only a kid, and I didn’t know when to stop, so I grew up grossly overfed, and fat.  If I wanted to diet my dad would look at me with a puzzled look, and ask why.  The fact that I was fatter than him before my 10th birthday, did not seem to be of concern in any way. I hate my mother. This is where most psychology 101 students can jump up and shout “aHHaa”. She is the most selfish, stupid, spiteful, chain smoking, hateful, hypocritical and superficial person I know.  My father has devoted his entire life to making her every wish his command, providing everything she could ever ask for, and she treats him worse than a dog.  As a child growing up, my siblings and I had to put up with a mother that never defended us, that complained endlessly to father about us.  We were three of the most delightful, well behaved, polite, respectful, good children anyone could hope for. And yet, my mother would often be heard crying and screaming at my dad after bedtime, telling him what awful children we are, how bad we are and what terrible things we do.  That didn’t help.

As a result of the above reasons, I grew up with no self esteem.  In fact I thought I was bad.  I could never do well enough, or do anything good. I tried to kill myself before my 14th birthday.  I tried three more times before I was 24.  I mutilated myself with knives and such, cutting my arm to relieve the pain.  That’s how I grew up.

How do I overcome it? I don’t know. I have tried to work on myself, thinking if I looked better, things would pick up in the relationship area. I did manage to loose most of the excess weight for about a year, and then put it all back on. During that time I did feel better about my body, and could walk around with more confidence. But it didn’t have any effect on the opposite sex. I made only as many female friends as before, and once again none were interested in anything else other than friendship. One or two of them jerked me around a lot, and really hurt me.  The problem with that, is that because I’m so lonely and desperate, I cant avoid those situations.  I get so glad to have someone near that I cant turn away even if I sense they’re bad news.

Today I feel left out. I can converse with other adults about all aspects of life, except one. As I got older I lost best friends, because they were dating girls, and only ever wanted to talk about girls. I had nothing to say, and felt very isolated when everyone had things to say except me.  Like a black sheep that stands out, there are times when I struggle to hide my innocence, as I feel ashamed that I am still a virgin. Even worse is the fact that I’ve never dated, or kissed, or held hands. I’m depressed as hell. And so lonely I’d die if it wasn’t for the company of my little dog.  Sound pathetic? It is.  I don’t function in society, and there is little I can do, other than write my story.