Long story short I don’t feel like I deserve romance in my life yet. I feel like I got nothing to offer. I have felt this way for most of my life. Even though I have developed plenty of hobbies (I dance, skateboard, climb, go to the gym, etc.) and social circles. On one hand I am happy with myself and on another I feel like I can’t offer the other party anything, romance wise.
Normally others would say ‘You’ll find someone dont’cha worry ‘bout notin’ ya’hear?’ But I am at a point now where I hope a woman will not develop feelings for me because I am afraid of disappointing her. And through the years this only been getting worse. I know this is not a good way of thinking but I just can’t shake it.
I want to (mentally) change but I just don’t know how. So if anyone has got some tips for me (really anything goes) that might help I would very much appreciate it.
Note: I don’t care if the process of learning self love is slow, I just want to know what the process involves.
Edit: I am reading some great suggestions. So thank you all for that. Just as a reminder, I am not expecting people on the internet to fix my problems. Just some general, rule of thumb, tips (and or tricks).
Self awareness (NOT cynicism).
Learning to understand emotions creates room for emotional regulation, regulation is basis for self confidence.
Awareness not cynicism, yes. Very important for self growth.
The head in the clouds of over optimism and the head in the mud of cynicism are two extremes that’ll both extra super duper fuck you over.
Reality has both good and bad things.
Most people hear that you have to learn to pull your head out of the clouds, but honestly the cynics need to be beat up more about their cynicism because that attitude ALSO lays the foundation for shitty times.
If you go into things having decided they’ll suck beforehand, you contributed to that outcome by not creating, seeing, or seeking better things.
And it takes time and work to kill off the parasite of cynicism if it’s already wrapped around your soul. But it’s hard work that must be done.
This cynicism-optimism spectrum is important too, but I wasn’t talking about that.
Emotions are way more complex than good and bad and to understand ourselves we need all of them. Suppressing emotions for long periods of time (I’m not talking about letting it all out creating road rage) for example is not useful for self-awareness.