it does, you just have to work on it like everything else in life.
i was on medicine for a while but i just stopped taking it because it made me tired (tried a couple, and while the first one worked great, i just was soooo tired all the time).
so instead of having medicine, i just worked on self-improvement, and a lot of telling myself things are ok when times were hard (obv not talking about girls at this point, just anxiety/depression in general).

i havent had a panic attack in a while, actually i cant remember the last time, probably a few months ago. i try to care less about small things, and focus on living a good life. also, acquiring a little faith has helped me.

do i still have anxiety? hell yea. it blows. but it kinda keeps my life interesting in a way, and it actually allows me to open up and talk to my friends more because i need people constantly balancing me out. The negatives are i constantly need approval from others, which i rarely get, and i constantly need reassurance that people care about me. i really constantly need reassuring that my friends are actually my friends.

/thread jack

im gunna make short replies to each post one by one then end with a big summary

heh

no. some girls are just flirty/friendly. it's one of many factors you need to consider but not dispositive of anything. however, more on that later.

this is a valid concern no one has touched on, but, again, more on that later.

this is all meaningless debate. there's no reason to go through this process.

1. yes, but he's hardly at that point.
2. Sure, but not in a formal way.
3. Yes he's right. You need to show you have a social life outside of gunning for her. Friday-> Monday is nothing in time.
4. Right. It's possible she's interested and (almost certainly if so) not obsessing, of course.

Get a hobby. Go see a movie. Pursue other women. Hang out with your friends. Read a book.

Running through all the scenarios and constantly over-analyzing things is probably a product of free or idle time than anything else. One potential downside of this thread is we rip apart and thoroughly investigate sometimes incredibly simple and straightforward scenarios. You can't get to the 8th level if it stops at the 3rd level.

Then you carry that behavior forward into your mind IRL and everything gets all ****ed.

Here are my summary thoughts:

You are over-analyzing, as I laid out above. That 4 points post is an example of it. Let me ask you this: if you determine for SURE that she is interested in you, will it change your approach at all? Will you do ANYTHING differently than you SHOULD do if you are unsure if she is interested? No, you won't. So the entire "is she into me" analysis AT THIS STAGE OF THE GAME (it's proper in certain contexts) is akin to mental masturbation.

It's similar to what I do with my transfer applications to law school. I shot my application off, completed it and did my best. What purpose does sitting here crunch numbers deciding what my odds of getting in are serve? None. It will change nothing about my approach. It may serve to make me feel more comfortable, but it's much more important to learn to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation, rather than try to make every uncomfortable situation feel comfortable. Does that make sense? This is a skill which will serve you in every facet of life, not just girls.

Your struggles are normal and human. Men do not process emotions as well as women, so when we feel them we tend to panic. What is the response of men to emotional confusion or distress? We try to logically reason it all away. That's what men do: we use logic and make calculations and try to solve our problems that way. This is generally a very useful tool, but in this context you can overuse it and end up hurting yourself. Can emotions be treated with logical deduction? Sure, in some situations. Can overuse of logic or confusion of emotion with logic cause damage? Yes. And that's what is happening right now.

So to sum it up in the most ironic way I can conceive of right now: you need to look at the overall EV of your analysis and thought, well, logically. Assuming the end result of your analysis will give you an answer you can be confident in (and it won't), will your deductions or solutions or conclusions change anything about your pattern of behavior? At this point, yes. Should they? Absolutely not.

You need to learn to shape your behavior to an optimal level in the face of uncertainty, rather than futilely try to solve the uncertainty itself. This is much easier said than done, but in a situation like this it can be accomplished with a few different steps:

-Distract and exercise your mind with other activities
-Open up other scenarios to concentrate on and be concerned with
-Focus on building your own self-esteem and confidence by achieving success related to you and not outside factors
-Determine a plan of action, form it (with our help if you'd like), then forget about it until it is time to execute
-DO NOT DWELL

Analysis is important, but over-analysis will kill you, and that's an issue I am very concerned about with a few people in the thread. I fell into this trap myself the last couple weeks, and it cost me. Why do I over-analyze? Because the only other thing I do with my life during the week is read law books, attend law classes and sit at a computer studying law all day. My mind gets bored and needs something different, so I turn to this thread or analyzing the other unknowns in my life (which are most often women).

To conquer this I've taken up reading non-law materials more often, watching a few new TV shows, attending every concert I can find on campus and in the city and exploring new areas of the city with groups of friends I don't usually hang out with.

I have no idea where this massive post came from. I guess this has all been swirling in my head. I'm not going to proofread it, so I hope it makes sense.

tl dr

It's ironic that you made this post at the same time as mine. Yes the timestamps are off a bit, but I started writing mine before I even saw this one.

My suggestions are this:

-See the on campus therapy that is most certainly offered to you. It is free, confidential and you have nothing to lose. I've suggested this before, and I will suggest it again. It does not mean you have anything "wrong" with you. It just means you need the aid of a professional to help you through some cognitive issues. We hire accountants to help us through our taxes, lawyers to help us through legal issues... why not someone to help us through the most important issues of all? As someone who has struggled with anxiety his whole life, I assure you cognitive therapy will provide you a non-medicinal (although taking medicine is just fine in some cases as concluded by a doctor) treatment and perhaps solution to your problems.
-You shouldn't constantly need reassurance. Again, a therapist can help you with this and provide positive reinforcement in a structured environment on a regular basis.
-Self-improvement is good. Make an active plan and follow it. I got soulcrushed by a rough break up this past summer and it plunged me back into a depressive state. I climbed out through a combination of self-improvement (weight training, reading, learning new things), my faith and time. I have the luxury, however, of having gone through this before, so I knew exactly what to do and recovered quite quickly.
-Personal success is very important to seeing recovery. I once had a doctor say to me, "You will start feeling great once you have some personal success. You have set concrete goals and you will achieve them. Just wait." Getting my grades in law school is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I finally succeeded on a big stage and felt like I had worked hard at and accomplished something.
However, success does not have to be something major. Over the summer I set small goals like read a list of novels by a certain date, lift a certain amount of weight, learn how to play piano to a certain level, etc. I always set two goals: the reach, way-out-there goal and the conservative, very attainable and substantial goal. I always made sure to meet my conservative goals, and felt quite good each time I did, but I also pinged a few of the reach goals and felt incredible about that.

An example of something you could do: this week I want to learn everything I can about gender theory. I'm going to check x y and z books about gender theory out of the library. I will read about gender roles, finish the books by a certain date and go post my thoughts on 2p2. I guarantee you will feel like you accomplished something awesome and will have added a new, interesting and useful field of expertise to your mind.

'Sup bro.

You honestly have to be kidding. I spent the last 30 minutes (in which I was planning on being asleep) writing posts directly targeted at you. They were geared to giving you advice and to your situation.

lol i posted it as a joke immediately when i saw you wrote a long post.

Considering prior and current context and the appropriate time to say something or not to say something is also a skill which will serve you well when dealing with women and in other facets of life. See: "but you're not cool enough to hang out with me"

Tact is way overlooked on these forums and in real life by men our age. I am certainly guilty of this too.

I'm new to SL but just based on reading posts the last few days a lot of guys here give good advice but especially Karak. I would definitely read his stuff; especially if it's geared towards you.

o come on it was perfect timing.

I may have overreacted admittedly, but given the tension that existed between us I do not think I was completely off-base interpreting that one way or another.

Either way, let us let it go now. No reason to drag this out into another ridiculous semantical argument. Read my posts and let me know what you think.

I did actually LOL seeing the tl dr after that big post. You could see it coming from a mile away.

Seriously though, the stuff about setting concrete goals and achieving them is absolutely correct. This past school year, I've failed massively with girls and with getting into the law schools I wanted.

However, I've succeeded beyond my wildest dream in my weight loss goals. Additionally, I had my best semester yet grades wise.

Having successes to balance those inevitable failures is crucial to keeping it together. At least it has been for me.

"wat" >>>>> "tl dr"

but wp

Karak PMSing on this page...sick life

karak seriosu bizz

i read the posts and i dont want to dissect it piece by piece but i work every day at bettering myself. some days more than others, and some days suck more than others. i have spent the last year or so really focusing hard on poker, and started seeing good results about 8 or so months ago, and the last 2 weeks ive made more money by going far in 2 tournaments than ive ever made in my life (needless to say, ive dropped a good amount tonight, but i earned the right to, and im not even worried about it. i froze my account and am cashing everything out tomorrow so i can begin focusing all my attention on something else.)

i admit i dont do enough extra curricular activities. i go to class and play poker, and learn about poker. i hang out with my friends as well, go to games, concerts, whatever. but i dont really try new things, and havent really made new friends in a long time. sure, making new friends senior year of college isnt exactly normal, but itd be nice to hang with new people occasionally.

these last 2 weeks have been really ridiculous for me. first one night stand, first tournament win, and another deep run in a tournament. after putting so much time into poker, i feel like ive finally done what ive wanted in the game. now, i am ready to find something new to focus on. not sure what it will be, but hopefully less stressful than poker. o and i need to start doing more school work. poker doesnt allow time to do much work, or to get in a good sleep schedule.

if we are gonna get real honest here, i may as well admit im completely addicted to poker. it went from something i did for fun, to something i did constantly. i chased losses. and when i won, i played higher. i still love poker, its my favorite thing in the world, but due to my addictive personality and my drive to learn the game, it really took over a lot of my life. im on 1 table right now, but already set a temp-ban for myself which will start once this game is over. tomorrow is like a new beginning for me in a way. finding a gf to chill with would be cool, finding a new hobby would be cool, and continuing to evolve and grow as a person would be cool.

Great advice Karak. It is something I will re-read often. I to struggle with over analyzing thing, from girls, school, poker, what friends think of me.

learn to play an instrument
play an intramural sport
work out
get a pet

etc

TUTS, I just wanted to say that I kind of do appreciate your playing devil's advocate. Even if none of your arguments/concerns really hold much weight, it's nice to see someone voice all the crazy/******ed/nervous/etc. thoughts we all have from time to time (taken to a super-massive extreme).

If nothing else, it's at least helped me because when I read it, I'm finding that my first reaction is now, "what's the big frakkin' deal? chill out dude..." And then it hits me that I'm not all that different sometimes, so I could probably stand to relax a lot more about this stuff too.

Having lunch on Wed. with the same girl I posted about earlier; nothing special to report thus far, but generally feeling a lot better about myself. Starting to develop a more natural rapport with this girl, and not freaking out so much over how a text message is worded, or what awkward hand gestures I'm making when I wave hi/bye (seriously, guys, I must have some kind of waving disability... lately I've taken to this half-assed semi-salute thing).

lollllll omg i didnt think it was possible after discovering what TUTs considered a sick text line but im pretty sure im worse than him at all this texting cuckoldry

was the topic covered in any extensive manner earlier itt or in the edf one!?

Karak vs TUTS in Keys to the VIP challenge anyone??

That would be sick, I love that show haha

Opening lines:

Money line on overall winner

Karak: 1:5
TUTS: 5:1

Chick Spread

Karak: +4.5 +110
TUTS: -4.5 -110

karak getting upset at the most obvious tl;dr ever is lollers.

what is this?