Right; changed my mind.

From now on I'm going to make a sincere effort to change things, not for any happiness, but just, if nothing else, to see where it takes me.

First things first; I do need to get a job that affords me moving out. £17kp/a isn't enough to live on in London no matter how much many of the posters on here would desperately like it to be, so that has to be the first aim. Everything really is contingent upon that.

Now as I've said, my holiday at the beginning of March may well prevent me completing the required application processes within the timeframe (usually several months or so for any serious jobs in London) so it may well be that my search begins in earnest after that, but anyway, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I will have to stay in London, as that's where all the jobs are and where everyone moves to. Our country revolves around it. I've not got a choice. Much as I hate it I'll just have to suck it up.

During this time I'm going to try and dedicate my time to learning a language and gymming more often. The former is a great skill that would open up a few doors professionally and the latter not only makes me feel good, but also serves the instrumental purpose of making me hopefully look more attractive. In addition to those, I'm going to do all I can to force myself to get to bed by 11pm. Lack of sleep is a huge handicap to my functionality. Oh and I'll try my best to abandon stupid stuff like drinking, procrastination, pointless arguments on Facebook and suchlike. They might afford me some kind of perverse degree of satisfaction but they're not contributing to my long-term well-being one iota.

I'll get my testosterone levels checked too. I may even book an appointment this weekend.

Now as I say, I don't plan to ever own a house and I'm honestly not particularly fussed about even owning a car (although on this one I'm willing to buy one purely for status, playing by society's rules as Henry said) so hopefully that'll give me the flexibility and saved money needed to at least use whatever holidays from work that I do have to sate my desire for adventure and escape.

As for what jobs to apply to? This is where things start to get tricky. I'm very serious about having a limited earning potential and I honestly can't see what jobs I'm remotely qualified for ahead of the likely pool of candidates that I'll be competing with. I have 3 average A-levels and a 2:1 in Philosophy, which at least makes me eligible for a fair few graduate schemes. I've applied to a few in the past and made it through to second interviews and assessment days (after online form, online psychometric tests, phone interview etc.) so I suppose that's where I'll be aiming.

I'll use this thread a log of my applications to hopefully inspire some motivation.

As for women, the message I'm getting loud and clear from more-or-less every poster on the thread is that money, security, status and the ability to be a provider are indeed, necessary factors when looking for a mate. Most people don't like to admit it; everyone naturally tries to draw attention to the fact that they might share a good sense of humour with their spouse or that she takes an interest in their oil painting hobby, or that there are one or two anomalies, such as within art or music, where status isn't achieved by money. Ultimately however, I think its just a hard truth that for 80% of the pool of women in the West, it is indeed the case that all of the above matter profoundly, and any connection or love really is contingent upon them (which, as I've said, isn't something to blame women for, as its just pure biology. Its the same for men with their desire for physically attractive women).

But, as has been said. These are the rules; you're never going to change them so you better learn to succeed within them.

Now, my fear with all of this is that I prove myself right, find myself to be desperately unhappy despite doing all the 'right' things and really face a choice about whether or not to even go on with life or hop on a plane to Dignitas and call it a day. I'm not kidding when I say that I hate work and really don't value material possessions or care for things like status, class or legacy. Money will likely be little reward, or certainly less reward than it would be for others. For me Henry, 'stuff' doesn't make life better. I don't envy the wealthy, yet glum-faced lawyers or bankers that I share my tube carriage with each morning, as I honestly feel like I'm suffering less in my life than they are in theirs, I've been in work for an hour now and I haven't lifted a finger, except to cross them I'm proved utterly wrong after all.

However, if it really does all go tits up and I collapse into a wreck at age thirty realising that happiness is just an impossibility for me within the current social paradigm in which we live, then at least I'll be safe in the knowledge that I really did try my best

So, I'll give it a go.

Step 1) Have the courage to get my testosterone checked at the doctor's despite the extreme discomfort it would entail.

I'd obviously rather not have to do this, but if I'm to make any progress, I need to know what I'm working with here. It could well be that my indifference towards women, money and attaining status is really just the natural effect of lacking the male hormone that's kicked us into gear for 99% of our evolutionary history to strive for things rather than a fault with me personally and if it is the latter after all, well at least I'll be able to be sure of it.

I live in London and whoever is saying that is wrong obviously. You could survive on approx £1000 p/m but you'd have a pretty miserable existence in London on that and would have pretty much no chance of saving.

What I don't get is your negative outlook re your earning potential. I'm sure I've read somewhere you have a 2:1 degree. Screw the fact that it's in Philosophy; most places don't care about that because they will train up graduates. You just have to show you have a brain (which you clearly have), and from what I've read ITT you have no problems articulating yourself. One of my ex colleagues did a degree in Music and now he works as a PMO contracting for £500 per day!

Where I am you'd blow £1000 a month just renting a one-bedroom flat. Well, it's a nice area, but it's not exactly ritzy. There's a lot of Aston Martins, but they're just parked on the street by the Aston service workshop under the railway arches, to free up space in the yard. Nobody actually owns one.

Just wait till you have to have a prostate exam with a fibroptic camera.

It's possible that in your social circumstances your testosterone levels are a bit depressed anyway.

Came for the aids, contracted Ebola.

I haven't done anything yet. I am getting pretty tired of all the words, though.

Social failures with violent dreams are people, too. Currently I am just passively accepting all of the illogicality, cruelty and emotional abuse that will always pop up when large groups of humans get together. But not forever.

Every large society will have people that exist below the surface, those that might be considered sub-human, as they do not get to enjoy some of the basic needs and pleasures of normal humans. These people have great destructive potential.

Yo. EV, answer my questions dude.

I have to go endure of all of the annoying **** involved with work for the next x hours, I will when I get back.

Oops, I guess my post (a few posts up) is what happens when you don't bother to read the entire post your responding to, my bad.

Yes graduate schemes are definitely the way to go for you if you want to earn more imo. And it does not always follow that earning a solid wage = stressful/unhappy life.

No idea what you're on about, but, day before yesterday, I had to go for some tests at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, where the only person in the United Kingdom with Ebola is being treated. Bit curious, being that close to it, but... well, they know what they're doing.

He means this thread is worse than terrible.

Get your nuts chopped off, problem solved.

Oops already been posted

It might help you live longer.

Would lay 50 pounds even odds that rastas testosterone is fine.

He could have a prolactinoma

Incredible.



Good luck Rasta. You are already making progress just from having made the decision to make an effort to try to make some changes. Just make sure to make a genuine effort and to give it enough time.

Good luck and I'm looking forward to future progress reports.

Sounds like you are making some awesome decisions RM, gl with everything. You will probably look back on all this in 5 years time and laugh. Forget the haters.

The main thing that's held me back so far is that I've fallen into a vicious circle of failing, making excuses and rationalisations for my failures, and then using those failures to justify my negative attitude and excuses which lead to further failure.

Went out last night and only got up at like 2.30pm, so having had breakfast I'll punch in my first progress report whilst watching the football!

Anyway:

Progress Report

Last night I went to this girl's birthday party that I knew from uni (we actually hooked up a few times back then, not a huge issue but probably worth mentioning) and it went fairly well. Her friends were all attractive, successful, trainee lawyers and a good crowd for me to have around.

For all the talk about from other posters about this guy and that guy who are live-at-home-losers and still get laid, I can tell you now, we aren't the same type of guy and we aren't going for the same type of girl.

One thing I should admit to myself is that as one of the main things I want in a partner is intelligence; status and money will matter. Why? Well because intelligent people, in general, have a high status, make money and want intelligent partners. Money is a sign of intelligence and success, and as I said to EV earlier, its not like he or I are running round giving the garbage men and construction workers a second look thinking that beneath their gruff exterior lies a troubled intellectual. We generalise because we have to. People generalise, categorise and form assumptions because they have to.

So anyway, night began with me, another guy and four girls heading to the pub for pre-drinks at 5.30-6pm ish (after work) before we meet the rest of the people coming along to the main party at a bar/club.

The girls were smart, attractive and really quite bitchy (but in a funny and quite creative way) discussing their colleagues (as you'd expect from a bunch of 23-25 year old trainee lawyers). In general I did pretty well considering I only knew the birthday girl; I was gregarious and outgoing (I'm not ugly but I'm not the strong/silent type; I've gotta make 'em laugh), and started to really get something going with pretty much the hottest girl out of the lot (but also got chatting to the others well enough about travels/work etc.)

Anyway, hot girl did quite a good job of making her interest known (leaning forward a lot, lots of eye contact, laughing just ever-so-slightly too much at my jokes etc.) and it really seemed like there was something there.

However, (btw, this was across a table of six but y'know, convo mainly between me and her) once the convo began to turn towards me and my work (I told her that I was a journalist and she was basically way too enthusiastic about it, telling me that it sounded absolutely amazing (perhaps I oversold it)) I kind of instinctively told her that it wasn't all that special and that I was planning to save and then head off and travel etc.etc....and before I knew it I was slipping into the defensive mindset and talking about how 'oh...well...yeah I guess after I'm done with my travels I'll jump into *insert high-profile London firm a particular friend is working for* or wherever soon.

She kind of did the polite thing; bashfully saying that "oh yeah, once uni was done I was never brave enough to do all that! I just wanted a clear path straight away so had to get myself into the shackles of a 'proper career' *insert friendly, self-depricating giggle*"

But anyway, I could tell that I was giving off a more, not nervous, but certainly defensive and uneasy vibe which was still a bit of a nosedive after we were both enthusiastically talking to one another and clearly attracted to each other. It was certainly clear that I had absolutely no direction in life whatsoever.

The main lesson to take from all this was that whilst still living at home may well be an issue for some, or even most girls, but its an even bigger issue for me. I do worry that my living at home will be 'exposed' and as such, I find myself feeling silly and inhibited, almost like I've got to 'justify' myself. I'm sure she picked up on my unease and that I gave off a change in demeanour.

But yeah, taking the positives out of it: it really did look like 1) there was something on for me with lawyer girl 2) I did well enough at the initial stage of conversing, making her laugh, coming across as confident and funny (like I say, even back at Uni. I tended to go for it all guns blazing when it came to girls) and that finally 3) I'd have made an even better fist of it if I had moved out and become independent.

Lawyer girl definitely expressed a bit of regret when I informed her that I would be leaving in the next 30 minutes, sort of "oh? are you really going to be leaving?" giving me a smile/stare just-a-bit-too-long, saying "oh that's a shame..." with the words drawn out ever-so-slightly too much (it just generally felt like she was implying she was interested) but I can't for the life of me tell whether or not that was just wishful thinking from myself. By this time she was mingling with her friends a little bit more so perhaps its somewhere between the two.

In the end I left the club at about 11 or so, as I got a text from a friend of mine that she and a bunch of her mates were at a bar/club near where I live; so I headed off to there, got even more wasted, (had some philosophical chats - these were mates of mine) rolled back to hers with the rest of the crew and came home at about 4am. Good, fun night all in all.

Oh! I also met this (English) girl who lived in Brazil for a couple of years; as I'm travelling to Brazil learning a bit of Portuguese would of course do me the world of good. We had a good conversation at the party, she ended up giving me my number and inviting me to her birthday party next week, so I'm on that for sure!

She wasn't that attractive, but leaving aside the instrumental value of another girls' party/female friend (we've texted and stuff this morning), it genuinely wouldn't be bad at all to have a languages buddy - especially as that's another area of self-improvement that I'm working on.

Who are you and what have you done with Rastamouse?

Ha! Still me.

I don't know, I'm not out of the woods yet. It could well be that a couple of months from now I'll have received a shed load of rejections from job offers and fall back into a spiral of depression and apathy once more, but at least having this thread and a bit of an audience is giving me a bit of encouragement.

I mean, getting positive reactions from women that I'm around who clearly expect more from a presentable and generally sociable guy, whilst posters on this thread have praised my intelligence/sent me PMs telling me to start a blog/become a professional writer/said that I'm capable of earning decent money have certainly convinced me that at the very least, I'm being perceived as an underachiever by other people, rather than just, if you will, a natural loser (y'know, the stereotype that in a perverse kind of way, I've almost wanted to convince myself that I am).

But yeah; complaining about the rules that you don't like is the stupidest thing in the world.

Appealing that you were never offside is perfectly reasonable, protesting to the referee that the offside rule shouldn't exist in football will result in a justifiable mix of bemusement, ridicule and contempt. All of which have come my way in this thread.

Yes, I did get that, and I also got the distant reference to the old Kent cigarette slogan, 'Come for the filter and you'll stay for the taste.' I was just being awkward. Plus I really was in the Royal Free that day and I've been closer to Ebola than the rest of you.

What's your game plan for when you find yourself naked with a woman and your penis doesn't work yet again?

Changing this one thing will, directly and indirectly, have a massively positive impact on all aspects of your life.

Take happiness and encouragement from the fact that whilst I'll be a virgin and inexperienced until I have sex, you'll be Asian forever.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/333932

http://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith...rld#.ld2KR9B9r

http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictu...reactions.html