I hope you do love reading. I'm a 19 years old male who lives in Türkiye which you might now as Turkey. For my entire life, I went through one platonic love and one failed relationship in high school. Outside of that, I never had anything serious. I spent most of my time working on my ideal project in isolation. It's been some serious time since I communicated anybody outside of my family. Really, outside of three or four family members, I don't remember having any friends for a few years. There is one year of high school where things changed a bit, but it didn't stayed so long. Shortly, I've been in isolation for total of 6 to 7 years if you contain two pieces, but last one kept going on fore more than 3 years. I have no literal experience in human communication or relationships. All I know by the experiences and learning my own thoughts, I'm very loyal and deeply connected to the people around me. This might be happening because of low count of people, but this has been a thing since childhood. I can say I'd be very loyal and love filled towards my partner, trying to support them through things. The problem is, I have many negative traits.
I know this might sound stupid or selfish to ask for a relationship now because I'm not in a good situation. I'm poor, I live in a third world country, I'm not healthy but it's just that I'm 19 years old now and maybe because of hormones -I'm not sure- I seem to want a relationship. Maybe that's because how relationship of my sister is right in front of my eyes or maybe because just the hormones. Maybe it's just wrong to look for love right now because I'm not suitable and have lots of problems but thinking this way doesn't help. For coming to the "ugly" personality title, I'm honest. I don't have emotional words or anything, I'll be logical. I personally think I can provide things that many people consider attractive for relationship. Actually that's why I lost in my last one. Because of experiences I had in my life, I can only provide minimal physical contact, I find bodies disgusting and I can't eat. Like, literally I'm underweight who finds eating very disgusting to a level where I vomit in average level. I'm not asexual too, I'm just a straight male but I can't provide physical contact at all because my brain is overthinking this situation. The human body has a skeleton and blood vessels surrounding it. Some of these vessels are very thin and delicate. In case of any contact, these capillaries put pressure on each other and cause an uncomfortable feeling. I can't physically feel them but I feel disgusting. Then there is the skin on our fingers or body. They are porous, hairy, sensitive, sticky and prepared to expel disgusting fluids such as sweat. That's disturbing. How can people enjoy physical contact? Nearly every female I found in dating apps seem to like physical contact as their love language. I do wash my hands when I touch to somebody else. Don't misunderstand me, I can find body and face beautiful even sexually but can't contact them.
Then there are eyes. Both of my eyes are problematic and even one of them see blurry -I don't have and don't want glasses- because of some self harm history. I can't even cry because when I do, they burn. And I don't like eyes. Sorry, but they are disgusting. They are two soft, round, wet and veined balls, rotating inside my skull, contacting with my skin. That's disturbing me. This started after the break-up with the last relationship of me. She had beautiful eyes so it became a problem for me.
This is hard to say so I'll just go and count down some of my problems as a list, so you can see why it's hard for me to find a date in look. Some of these are personal but this is an empty account I have here, so no one knows me. My right leg is limping because of the spine problem I have from birth. I always have humpback because of that. I have constant eye pain on both -especially on right one- , have constant headaches because of schizophrenia -yep, I do have that as well. What a surprise, eh? God-damit.- and did I said I do look like 45? I'm not a person who literally took care of my physical traits for years. I can objectively say I don't have a ugly in face. If I just wash it and take care of it a little bit, I'm sure I can be average or maybe even a bit above it, but I have forehead wrinkles because of stress. Somebody in my mom's job made fun of "us" -her and me- being too old. When I told her I'm 19 she was shocked. That feels bad that an another person in the bus stop thought I was 45. Dude, I know I'm not looking healthy but please... The problem is, not all my physical problems can go away with care like the spine problem. That's with me for life.
Even outside of physical problems, I can't say I'm a very interesting person. I spent most of my early teenage years up to this age working on my project -still not finished- Never really had a chance to have interests and I'm a kind of stubborn INTJ who dislikes everything. I just do love some Operas, Vintage Music -1800s to 1930s- and Music Boxes -Don't bully me please-, Antique female fashion -1800s to 1930s again-, reading books -solo only- and my project. Other than that I hate going outside, eating anything, sleeping and playing online games. I seem to like classical dancing, but I'm not sure, never had a partner who'd dance with me.
I tried multiple dating apps. OkCupid, Hinge, Boo and even Bumble but outside of Boo, all seemed to be based on the looks. People consider some of them personality based but I disagree. Many of them don't even allow you to filter people at all or just add a proper description. Maybe I do look for descriptions so much. Sadly my like rate was around %0.30 when I deleted Boo last night. It wasn't being very motivational. At least African scammers were there to give me some notifications. Trust me, I tried adjusting my profile to look honest, self-confident or professional. I tried messaging souls with different ways and even tried specially to choose women that are from "my level" which I saw many people talked about online. But seems like I'm not really attractive and the researches about men getting pairs in dating apps are real. I couldn't get a great chance in any of them and it doesn't seem like the person I look for is in neither of these apps. All want short term relationships, extrovert thinking, sex or just happy moments. I can't provide most of these and I look for an intelligent person who can share their love with me and understand me. Maybe even a person who enjoys my interests or support me through this project. Outside of that, I do find deep, thoughtful, intellegent and feminine women attractive. I don't have a proper "beauty" standart but I do like asymetry and special facial traits that are uncommon :)
I left most of my psychological problems behind except for these leftovers, schizophrenia and many small OCD issues. I can understand an emotional person, would like to have deep conversations and meaningful connection. Ah and I might have some -traumatic- problems with breaking up so, just know that. Sometimes feels like I wish I'd live in 1800s. Life was sucking then but relationships were more simpler. I'd like to be Phantom but the problem is it's not just half of my face like his, I don't look charismatic much as him and I don't have a Catherine. Not that I want to have the same ending with him actually.
Please don't tell me "Go outside" in this third world country where a video game is half of my wage and a coffee is the fun of the rich. There are no events, concerts or even areas to really communicate with people. I live in Sakarya, this place is straight up grassland from Garry's Mod. Even if I could communicate somebody, everybody seems to look for short term relationships where they want to share their lovers on TikTok. Look, I don't want to hate on preferences of the people. You can love any song and if you do, that's beautiful. I do respect it. I'm just trying to say I do look for a person who loves Phantom of the Opera while I'm in a country where LvbelC5's "10 Numara" song -about blonde sexy ladies- is the most listened song. Seriously, look it up, that one got 5 times views more than Phantom of the Opera on YouTube.
I don't know what to do actually. Please do not come with these, I do appreciate them but I definitely need another help;
- Emotional support: Thank you but I do need solutions.
- "Go seek out a therapist" I did. More like, I tried. Trust me that's not a solution and I'm serious.
- "Go outside" I explained this situation as well so please do not repeat.
Please remember this is my first time in years communicating with people right now -even in social media- Yeah, I'm dead serious. I seem to be locked on my project for so long, when my high school friends called me I noticed it's been years and I can't talk to anybody anymore. So please don't go hard on me.
Firstly, thank you for your comment. I really appreciate how long and careful you wrote it. These are some good advices but I got some stuff to answer for. I think I couldn't explain myself well enough.
You might be right about me not wanting to change. That's a good point. I'm on this project for a long time and I don't really want to change. But isn't it wrong if I try to change myself just for a relationship? Wouldn't I be not me? Beyond that, transforming to being extrovert or anything more attractive after 3 years of isolation will surely need some serious time, work and psychological experience - which I can't provide. And even if I could get access to professional help, there are some serious marks that cannot be repaired entirely which I don't want to talk here.
My problem isn't with bar of soap, being clean or looking handsome . I do have medical problems like limping, spine problems and many more physical problems that cannot be fixed without professional medical support. I don't find my face unattractive, I do find my disabilities disturbing. It's like I live in a 50+ years old man's body and brain while being just 19. I can put myself to market in a clean way but not in a healthy way. It just doesn't look good when I use a walking stick like a 75 years old. I know this doesn't mean I can't find love but it surely reduces the possibility.
Thank you for the emotional part about "not opening yourself to them" but this is all I am. I don't have that shore side where I can chit-chat or hang out. I spent my years sacrificing stuff I have to get everybody I love out of this situation since childhood. I don't want to cry like a baby in here but I can shortly say I had to be mature in early age and had to sacrifice relationships, connections or even school to achieve this. Time and choices transformed me into this. I can't provide physical touch, I have OCD on everything, I get nausea in artificial light, my eyes burn when I cry, I hate watching movies, going outside, having activities, sleeping, eating and many other stuff. I surely tried to change myself and raise my price but I'm not in a situation where I can get professional therapy or support. Trust me, I've been trying for years and there is no real help that I can reach to. The things they call as self-help and similar resources provide nothing but "Get up and say hi to the sun to feel better! They don't understand not every person can live in such luxury to see the sun every morning. Especially the ones that live in the slums.
In result, I try to maybe find somebody who accepts me like this or just can understand these struggles. The thing I search in the market is not a beautiful, rich or a genius woman. I do look for somebody who can love me, and I can love back. That's all. I don't care how she looks, what she loves or what kind of a personality she have. This is the product I look out for but because of many reasons I shared, it's so hard. That's why I asked for new ideas and advices in this post.
Sorry for complaining your answers and thank you again for trying to help me in such beautiful answer.
I was very lucky not to have such physical health problems as you. If you have absolutely no way to get healthcare, then of course you can't change this part. I have not said you can become the most attractive person ever, I also can't do that. Some things you won't be able or it will be too much work for too little gain to change.
However, you can basically change every mental thing. We humans are truly that adaptable. And honestly, when it comes to relationships at least, of any kind, your mentality is, depending on the person, 70%-100% of the important part. Even in "just for sex" maximally physical relationships, the initial selection might be all physical/health attractiveness, but it requires good mentality to keep that attraction after the initial selection.
The problematic words here are "nothing but". There are good resources, but they require you to take the chance and time and look for them, and yeah, you'll come across lots of stuff that doesn't help you. And regardless of that, don't look for "self-help" marketed things, just look for psychology books and studies. If you learn about cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), sure, an (actual) professional would be much much better and sometimes we do need an outside perspective to identify things, but you already identified lots of things and don't need "a professional doing CBT" on you to be able to learn CBT and apply the techniques to yourself. It's much less effective/efficient, but it works.
Well, does it have to be? Do you never want to be anything else? You surely have things you wanna do (ok, maybe not, but then finding something would be important), go do them regardless of having romantic relationships or not. This is something you do "for you" to be mentally engaged/have fun, but it also helps you to find a relationship, someone who does fun things is more interesting than someone with none/little.
And all these things you said you "can't" do, yes, you can't do them now. But it is theoretically possible to manage/get rid of OCD behavior, be not disgusted with human bodily functions, and so on and so on. You're still a normal human, you just went through terrible experiences that caused all these things, and result in who you are today. But in the same way, you can make new experiences that override the old ones or at least push them aside, and thus get to a more natural way of living, where maybe you will be less disgusted with the human body, like certain movies, etc etc.
I pondered this myself extensively. My resolution was as follows: do you really want to be disgusted with the human body? Like if you were not disgusted right now, would you want to become disgusted with it? What if you could just wave a magic wand and be completely fine with everything touchy etc? For me, the answers would be "No, I don't want to be disgusted; I would not want to start being disgusted if I currently wasn't; if I could just be rid of it right now, I would do it". So in my opinion, in other words that means you are already a person that isn't disgusted with the human body. The "real" you isn't that. You just temporarily have this because of reasons, but you don't really want it. So trying to change that does not make you "not you", it actually brings you closer to your real you.
And lastly, isn't this desire for a relationship not also "you"? If you want it so much and are willing to change things to get it, that is as much you as anything else.
I'm sorry for writing 4 days later. It's not right for me to answer this late, especially after the long text you shared but I had to regain some motivation. It's hard for me to talk with people, even online. And every comment I read seems like they are not helping. I do really take care of what everybody write and I'll consider implementing them in my life but I think my brain just hopes for more of a straightforward solution that's not possible. Wish someone could come here and say "Hey, there is this alternate path which is exactly perfect for people like you." but life doesn't work that way. And it feels like topic transformed into "psychological help" which I talked a billion times in other platforms reddit. Every comment seems like the ones I answered hundreds of times. I know we can't bypass psychology entirely because it's an important problem for me not finding dates but I already heard all of these. I stopped looking for psychological help months ago because of this. Every organization I mailed, every post I made, every professional I tried to contact and every person I talked- These already happened a billion times and now I know what you guys write. I can even guess them before coming. Repetitive, same thing. I hoped this topic wouldn't lean to psychological way but just to- I don't know. It was wrong for me to expect for anything else actually. I guess no escape, then? I can't do a single thing except my project without getting rid of these problems, not even have a chance for complaining.
There are minor psychological book translations to Turkish, and every one of them I read were awful like I said. Sadly I can't afford bringing any books from outside of my country and the ones written in here are all government propaganda saying our health as country is somehow fine (?) I tried non-professional CBT treatment much as I could on myself but schizophrenia and other problems really overwhelm me. I think it would be helpful if I could get a real professional rather than what I do all myself.
No, I can't "do" all of the things you explained because like mentioned above, most of my problems need medical solutions. I can't just say "I walk." and stop limping. Wish it was simple like that but I can't get rid of OCD that simple. These kind of topics need professional hands and all the self-help I tried by learning psychology ended up with self-harm because of schizophrenia.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience but I don't think I have 15 years to change myself and find a date. I'm a busy person and I have stuff I need to do, which will take time. Beyond that, I don't even have access to professional support. You might think of this as being negative but I just try to look at the situation with reality glasses and objectively. I'm happy it worked for you but in real life, there are thousands committing suicide because of mental problems. I'm not suicidal -at least for a year- but I know how it feels and I know you can't entirely recover from everything. Professional support, self-help, CBT treatment or therapists are not using magic. Every brain have limitations and I don't think I will be able to fully recover. Instead I look for a person who can accept me like this. Maybe I'm asking for too much but I can't provide anything more. Some thoughts and visuals never go away from a person's eyes no matter how hard you try.
https://annas-archive.org/ for all books.
"I have things I need to do" - what things?
Yeap you'll need 15 years or so. I needed that long.
And also, I can't lie to you, this shit will all be very difficult, if you decide to go down the path of change. It will be slow, and you will wonder if you're even making any progress, and all kinds of other difficulties.
But I know this path. It is possible, at least in some way. I personally had almost no social connections from age 13 until like 20-22, was completely inept, physically weak, and all other unattractive things, and like I said, this is not bragging at all, I'm in a main poly relationship with someone and have 2 other people I love a lot and that at least like me enough to be intimate with me. But this took me 15 years of personal development to come to this point. I also won't deny that I had a much much better start than you, I never had as many perceived problems as you did/do. Maybe to get what you want, it'll take you longer, but maybe it'll also be faster. Maybe you find out on the way that you want something completely different. But I'm almost sure you can get to a point that you will like.
For me, I started this whole path out as a path of "improvement", but really, it was just a path to "becoming the real me"... all these things I wanted to do, wanted to be, all these fears I didn't want to have, all these problems I didn't want to have, they were really just inhibiting the real me. Of course, I'm still limited by my current situation, of having little money and so on, there's lots of things for me as well that aren't really changeable, and I also have a bunch of things still that I would theoretically want to change, but I am now at a point where I can honestly say "good enough", with the situation I was given.