The following story was written during a moment of severe depression and despair and was originally posted to the alt.support.shyness newsgroup. Since writing it, I've made a lot of progress. While I am still invcel, I've come to terms with many of the issues in my life. I've completed the degree that I had been working on at the time. I've started dancing and I now try to go out at least one evening per week. I'm slowly but surely getting my life back after letting it slip for the last 20 years. Most importantly, it seems like I've finally made peace with myself.

My Story

Nine twenty PM on a Friday night. Somewhere in a city of about a million people, a young man unlocks the front door, and steps into his home. Shedding his wet clothes, he thinks about the movie he has just seen. Alone... Once again... " 'Primary Colors' did seem to convey the idea that we can make a difference, that all great people are just ... people?", he thinks to himself. "Maybe there is hope. Just maybe there are people who care."

He feels tired. It has been a long week. Finally, the weekend that he has been looking forward to has arrived and he is free to do... To do what? He pauses as a chill runs down his spine... "To Do What?" A few moments ago, this room was a warm haven, a refuge from the cold, driving rain outside. Suddenly the room seems so small. Although various items litter this bachelor’s room, it feels so empty -- so lonely. He takes a few tentative steps and almost desperately, he eyes the neatly made bed in the middle of the room. "Shit!" he mumbles angrily as he glances at the dead telephone. "Why can’t the Telco just fix the bloody thing?"

As he is pacing the room, a wave of despair sweeps over him. "NO!" he whispers to himself. "Oh God, no! I’ll go crazy if I have to spend the evening in this room. I’ve got to get out of here", he thinks as he buries his head in his hands. Regaining his composure for a moment, he steps into the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror. "Yep, that’s undeniably me", he thinks sarcastically, yet the face who stares back at him seems like that of a stranger.

His eyes linger on the features in front of him. Roundish face, a thin moustache and a goatee beard. Gold-framed spectacles framing blue eyes. The expression on that face seems so sad ... almost dead, with no discernable emotion. Light brown hair, pressed flat onto his scalp, extends past two slightly large ears and converges to some point at the back of his head, where it’s tied up in a short tail.

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" he curses softly, as he looks his reflection in the mirror. "What the hell is wrong with me?" Impulsively, our hero stuffs some personal things into a backpack and gathers up the clothes that he got out of just a few minutes ago. As he steps out into the night, dressed in his wet-weather gear, he barely notices the rain that has since calmed down to a drizzle.

After checking his pack one last time, he dons his helmet, pushes the motorcycle into the rain and locks the garage. With a push of the button, the bike roars to life. Aggressively, he flips down the visor, kicks up the stand and rides off into the night...

* * *

Just before ten I arrive at the office. This is pathetic! Why the hell would somebody risk his life riding in the rain and spend a Friday night at the office to tell his story to a bunch of strangers? I don’t know. I just have to talk to somebody and get this off my mind. It doesn’t make sense, but then, I often don’t.

Now that you know how I got be sitting at the office on a Friday night, I can tell you my story. This will be long and I expect most people not to read it, but I hope some people will. If anybody does, at least I can try to convince myself that it was not entirely pointless.

Since I can remember, I’ve been shy. At least that’s the least painful explanation I could come up with. I have a slight speech problem. Nothing major. I’ve just never been able to pronounce some sounds properly. Yet every time somebody says "Sorry?" or "Say again?", my metaphorical shell slams shut. I don’t like to be reminded that I’m imperfect. I’m holding myself to ridiculously perfect standards and I can’t seem to handle being unable to do properly what most people take for granted. It immediately keys in all the pain that I’ve ever experienced because of this. People who know me can understand what I’m saying, so it can’t be that bad, yet in my mind, it has been blown out of proportion. I’ve always been different. I’ve always had trouble making myself understandable. That is not the real problem. Many people actually have a similar problem. The real problem is that it has bred acute shyness and a piss-poor self-image.

Whatever the cause, shyness can destroy one’s life. One day in primary school, I had to stand in front of the class and say something. I just couldn’t do it. I literally burst out in tears. I cannot remember the teacher. I cannot remember the topic. I cannot remember any of the other kids. What I can remember is the humiliation and anger. This set the stage for the rest of my life. Screw up. Feel humiliated. Hate myself for it.

Even in primary school, I couldn’t get interpersonal relationships right. Before I went to school, the only kids in the neighborhood who were my age were girls. When I went to school, I played exclusively with the girls. I did notice that this was a major exception, so eventually, as I fervently tried to fit in, I stopped playing with girls and joined the guys like all the other boys did. Eventually, I really got into the boys vs. girls thing. Girls were evil - the enemy.

I didn’t talk a lot, but somehow I still made some friends. In class, I was not a very fast worker, so I got reprimanded for being behind everybody else quite often. This was most embarrassing and made me even shyer. When I was twelve, we moved from a small town to the "big city". I ended primary school with a single close friend. Once, I did find a girl that I liked. My very clumsy attempts at courting her only managed to let her boyfriend (whom I was blissfully unaware of) and a few buddies threaten to beat me up, so I just dropped the whole thing.

When I went to high school, there were never any girls in my class. By now, I’ve developed avoidance of social contact to a fine art. As long as I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t get mocked about it. By doing nothing, I avoided screwing up. I never went to school dances. I never participated in anything where girls were involved. I avoided sports and got into books and computers. I started to excel academically. I dodged all life skills sessions, because people had to talk there and anyway, I wasn’t one of the "screwed-up" people who did drugs and sex and were the "real" targets of these sessions. Hah! The bitter irony!

Eventually, I left high school without ever having had any romantic relationship. In fact, during the whole time I attended high school, I’ve talked to girls one-on-one a grand total of maybe ten times. I did graduate top of my class, by a huge margin. I took some extra subjects and I got straight A’s, except for one B. IQ tests revealed that I’m almost Mensa material. At school, I didn’t play any sports. On my own, out of sight of anybody I knew from school, I practised martial arts.

After school, I went to study engineering. Once again, I was totally unsociable. I never joined anything social. I had a few male friends, most of whom, at the time, seemed as dysfunctional as myself (An illusion, BTW. Most of them are married by now). I never had any female friends. By now, I was able to recognize that I had serious problems, but I had no idea what to do about it. Every time I didn’t know what to do next, I would go into the computer lab and read the newsgroups. I figured I needed more courage, so I started rock-climbing and skydiving in an attempt to learn how to face my fears. I did enjoy it a lot and it definitely did a lot to help me stay cool under pressure, but I found that facing physical danger and overcoming fear of real threats were infinitely easier than facing emotional danger and overcoming emotional fears.

After I graduated as an electronic engineer, I started the programming job that I’m still doing. Somewhere along the line, I started to read up about other fields, like history, biology, physics, biochemistry, philosophy, psychology, theology, etc. After being a Christian for close to 25 years, I am now an atheist - not really a serious babe magnet in a predominantly Christian country like mine.

Along with religion, I examined the rest of my life as well and I realized that I’m pretty screwed up. I was also able to admit to myself that I’m not really an asexual introvert. In fact, I’m desperately in need of contact with other humans. In particularly, I really, really want a "mate" in the widest sense of the word: Soul mate, conversation partner, somebody to go to concerts or movies with me, a sexual partner, confidant, somebody who is willing to share my life, someone who can laugh and cry with me.

At 26, I’m still a virgin. I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’ve never so much as kissed or held a woman. I don’t have any female friends. All my colleagues are male. I never get introduced to women socially. I can’t dance. I go to movies alone. I go to restaurants alone. Whenever I’m with my friends, I can’t shake the feeling that they’re tolerating me rather than wanting me there.

Strangely enough, I do not have a problem with people at work. If I have a meeting with somebody I’ve never even heard of, I’ll walk into the meeting, introduce myself and start discussing issues. I have no problem talking to top brass, even to the extent of disagreeing with them and debating them. I have no problem with job interviews. As a worker, I’m a professional. I trust my abilities and I know my own worth. As a student, ditto. I’m on my way to finishing a post-graduate degree in management.  So far, I've managed to get distinctions in all my subjects.

But ... as a person, I have no confidence whatsoever in my abilities. As a romantic partner/SO, I have even less confidence in myself. Rationally, I know that it’s ridiculous, but deep down, I’m simply unable to get myself to believe otherwise.

As part of my action plan, I decided to start with the basics: Look confident, make eye contact, smile. Simple enough. Until I try it... I would spend hours visualizing my performance. Stand up straight. Chin up! Walk tall. Make eye contact. Smile. See the woman return the smile. Basic stuff. At work, I do it all the time.

Except, in social situations, it doesn’t work. I would go somewhere where I’m sure to see women. Arrive there. Smile. Stand tall and look confident. Look around. See somebody who seems to be unattached (I really don’t want to start out by competing with some boyfriend). Look at her. Make eye contact. Eyes look at shoes. "Fuck!" Hate self. Try again. Same result. Try again. Same result. Try again. Same result. Try again. Same result. The result is always the same, whether I do it during lunch at work, in the street, in a bar, wherever.

Eventually I give up and go home. Feel like crying. Try to cry. Fail. Hate self. Not only can’t I manage the most basic step of socializing, but also I can’t even manage to cry when I desperately want to! It’s like a part of me has died. I can’t allow myself to express emotion any more.

So now I’m sitting here at the office at 2AM on a Saturday writing this because I simply didn’t have the courage to go out for yet another evening of failure. I’m feeling little other than despair. I couldn’t get a date when I was at school and there were girls around during every recess. I couldn’t get a date when I was at university and I walked pass thousands of single girls every day and many of them were there primarily for the guys. I couldn’t get a date when everybody else had their first relationships. Do I really have a better chance now that I have a rapidly receding hairline, I almost never meet new women, most women my age are married and many of the rest don’t go out anymore? I don’t know the rules of the game, but everybody assumes I do and it seems like everybody else does. I’m starting to move into the age group where women reportedly favor experience over youth. I don't have an over-abundance of either. Like sand in an hourglass, I can see my life flowing from my grasping hands. I can definitely feel the clock ticking and it’s generating blind panic.

Apart from the confidence issue, I sabotage myself in my job as well. I procrastinate until the deadline is impossible to meet and then I work myself into burnout to try and meet impossible deadlines. Why do I always have to set myself up for failure? Why? I do what I know full well is bad for me, so why do I do it? Why? Why can’t I get myself to do what I really want to? Why? I’m too afraid to kill myself, because I believe this is the only life I’ll ever have and I don’t want to blow it, yet I’m too afraid to live it, so what’s the point? How can one be so lonely in a world with billions of people? I'm getting tired of people telling me "It will just happen when you least expect it." It's so much bullshit!

Sometimes, I feel that I’m doing those people who are older than myself a great disservice by whining so much at my age and then I hate myself for that as well. I’m poisoning myself. I am my own worst enemy...

Toxic Waste