I hear you. I absolutely hated most of my twenties and teen years due to loneliness. But, it's important to remember that online dating platforms are pure garbage. They are run by business people with business goals, not to actually help people connect and find lasting relationships - that loses them customers. Not to mention the vapid, shallow culture that has been cultivate, by those running them. The number of bots and plain awful people that you are lucky to avoid is ridiculously high because many are little more than scams to extract money from lonely guys.

I know rejection is part of the game.

That's part of the beauty of being a human that these companies desperately try to hide. We have the choice to not play the bullshit games. It makes life much nicer.

However, it does hit hard—it affects my self-esteem. That is my problem and I need to work on that.

I know this experily. You are a worthwhile human being, and deserve love and happiness. Sure, I'm just some random dude on the internet and you have no reason to believe anything that I type or the sincerity on my words but, it's true.

So much of what is pushed in modern culture is done so just for the sake of making people miserable so that they buy more bullshit. Rom-coms are the fucking worst (though I do still enjoy them occassionally). Everything in them surrounding masculinity and courtship is pure dysfunctional, toxic drek.

Want a functional, loving relationship that will last? Find someone who is compatible and has shared interests. If you are not driven by competition and conquest, don't "chase" someone who doesn't show interest - it's a waste of your time and will probably make them uncomfortable. If you are, get your peacocking and fashion game on-point.There is no one way of finding a good partner except for being your best you and ignoring 99% of pop culture romance.

Hone yourself into the version of you that you most want to be and the people who appreciate that find your traits, interests, and personality attractive will likely come into your life as a natural consequence of your actions.

All the best for a very happy New Year. Keep rocking and being your badass self.

[–] Roderik@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for the lovely words. Really appreciate it! Sympathehic people like you are the true heroes without capes.

Everything you said resonated with me. This world is messed up, though we ought to be careful to let it define us. After all, we dictate our lives. I'll continue my quest of finding a lasting, functional, loving relationship.

Wish you a splendid New Year!

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 months ago

I'm glad that I could be of help. One recommendation that I would have is to reframe that from a quest into something more of a journey. Yes, it is what you desire but, from personal experience, treating it as a central goal in life can make it easy to miss the forest for the trees, risk staying in poor matches, and may make it more of a challenge to find a compatible partner.

For the first to, you may overlook or be overlooked by potential matches due to focusing on the idealized goal. This also means potentially getting caught in a poor or potentially abusive relationship for lack of seeing that things could be better. Additionally, successful relationships take interpersonal skills and self-knowledge that are hard to develop without experience - think of the proverb of two potters, one spending a year, making the best pot that they can, the other spending a month on each pot. The second potter will likely end up more skilled and making a better pot due to the learnings of multiple failures over the year. It's similar with any skill in reality; trying and failing with relationships is a good thing because it gives you more data to work with.

Finally, try to think about what things may be like from the perspective of a potential partner. Would you want to be with someone whose life goals were "be in a relationship" or someone who wants to invent something, or see places seldom seen by others, or contribute to the understanding of the natural universe, or play music and make friends in the local community, or help neglected animals, or have a blast painting tiny monster figurines. Trying to be the you that you want to be and is in line with your interests and ideals will make you more interesting to others, including potential relationship partners.

It's easy for nerdy guys to get caught up in things and fall into traps of despair and loneliness - I know from experience, which is why I try to lend support and advice to others. But, being nerdy is also a bit of an advantage, despite pop culture overtures to the contrary. Being interested in unusual thing can make you interesting.