24M and I have a great life, career, in shape, the whole 9. But every time I go out to a bar or see other ppl my age in public I immediately get insecure.
I go lots of places alone which I love, but sometimes I get to looking around and I will see happy couples, groups of friends. And I sit there and think “why am I not doing the same? Is there something wrong with me?”
It’s not like I don’t have friends, or don’t go on dates, so I try to remind myself that I am normal and I do those things as well, but it really gets to me sometimes, especially when I have negative social interactions.
I have issues from my past that make it hard for me to feel comfortable around others, or display any sort of affection. The longer time goes on the more I realize how tough my outer shell is. I’ve been to therapy, but it hasn’t really helped.
Anyone have advice on this? I just wanna be happy with myself
7 comments
Stop basing your identity on your social and dating life.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is not to compare myself to others. No good comes from that. You write your own story. Take a step back and figure out what you want in life and persue that. You will have to prioritize and you have to accept that you cannot have everything. And don’t let regrets take up much room in your life.
> I’ve been to therapy, but it hasn’t really helped.
Try, self-therapy. eg.
-journalling
-daily meditation (not ‘rumination’)
It sounds like you don’t have internal goals about what you want your dating/social life to look like. That leaves you very vulnerable to these external images.
You might feel happy before you get to the bar, but then you see someone else having fun and think “I should be doing that.”
Try to develop your own vision for what you want your personal life to look like and work towards achieving that goal. That way you’ll see other people having fun but won’t feel threatened by it because you already know that you’re doing everything that you need to be fulfilled.
I’m going to offer an alternative view:
**You’re 24.**
I don’t mean to sound ageist, but I know precious few people who were actually secure at 24. I knew lots of people who were insanely successful, highly desirable, financially secure, and even very popular, who were in actuality highly in-secure.
While humans are fairly diverse in their rate of development, it seems like neuroscience and behavioral psychology suggest that human beings aren’t fully cognitively mature and developed until the late 20s and even into the 30s. This tracks with most of the people I know my age. Heck, I look back at myself any time before about 32-34 and it’s hard not to cringe. But this guy I’ve been becoming for the last ~8ish years? He’s pretty secure because he’s been through enough to know who he is.
That’s the answer I’d give 24-year old me if I could go back in time. I don’t know if that’s the answer he’d be looking for, or an answer he’d like, but it’s the answer 40-year-old me believes.
Edit: Further expanding on this idea, when my wife and I try to revisit our younger selves and appreciate where we are in life now, we often start affirmations with statements like “25 year old me would never believe…” or “17 year old me would be so proud that…”
When you’re different, you wish you were the same. When you’re just like everyone else, you wish you were different.
I think if you’re not in a relationship or getting laid/ getting affection from a woman you like, you’re gonna feel a little unsatisfied with social/dating life. Seems to be how it works for me. I’m overall happy and live a good life, but I’m definitely not as “secure” in social environments when I’m single. In my last relationship I didn’t give a fuck what anybody thought of me in public. Single, I seem to care more.