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.
Reading through the post and responses, I’m still not sure what you are asking, but have some thoughts.
You don’t enjoy being physically embodied, have eating disorder, are going to be squicked out by physical relations. So a physical embodied romantic partner seems an odd desire.
I know it sounds trite, I was also an anorexic teen but didn’t really hate my body, just thought it was fat - like in theory I could like it just saw fat no matter my size and had anxiety about food. I do now love being physically embodied, love being able to touch things and think, hear, and see (sort of), taste foods, read and dance and exercise, walk and sex too, all of those physical things I enjoy, and enjoy being part of the physical world.
Turkey has beautiful public parks, does it not? Can you go walk in nature (sort of)? Are you not in a city?
Your secret “project” sounds ominous as fuck.
If by “solutions” you mean things you can work on, people are offering those. Wash up, cut your hair, work on enjoying your body, approach it in a different way, you could not be typing or reading any of this without a body. Can you not love being a physical being? It’s so cool really, gross or not, we are part of this physical world.
My friend with OCD would always work to push his limits, he was an odd guy and not always comfortable to be around but we would visit him and he was interesting, well read and thoughtful. I’m sure as soon as we left he was bleaching his house or whatever but he wanted human interaction and fought his own discomfort to get it.
I don’t think you are likely as dull as you think you are, historical female fashion is interesting for sure.
Yes, I do have the problems you lined up.
Thank you for sharing your own personal struggles and advices, I’ll listen and take care of them for the future. I don’t hate my physical body because of being underweight. I don’t like it because my brain is overwhelmingly thinking about it. Even when typing on the keyboard right now, I try not to add much pressure on them because I start thinking of the veins underneath the skin. I’m experienced in gore, so I know how disgusting inside of a body can look. My brain starts thinking of it and the sticky, disgusting skin that’s stretching across my fingers every time I touch to something. It’s not special to my body only, especially not to my underweight. I find it disgusting on everybody, even the most beautiful looking females. We all do have that disgusting skin after all. I hope I can look at the world like you started doing, but it seems a lot harder for my situation. I tried loving my eyes, but it’s not just the problem of disliking them. I really do find them disgusting in a way that I did multiple self-harm on them. I’m not sure if I can get rid of them without professional support. I can’t see how can I make the eyes less disturbing to me. I can’t change how they look, how they feel, where they are or what I do think of them. Actually I can change some of these, but it can only be done through self harm. Still, limping and having a humpback are the main problems why I don’t look attractive physically I can’t solve them as well since they are medical problems. It’s not just cutting my hair, washing my face or taking care of my hygiene.
Turkey have some great parks but not in the place poor people live. Search “Sakarya gecekondu” online and you’ll see some slums that exists similiar to the ones in my neighborhood. My house is a little bit better, but you can see the situation in the area. There is one, huge park in here but it’s all just empty dirt area with a few trees planted by. There is a coffee that used to be owned by the government but staying closed for more than 2 years. There is literally nothing else. No grass, no park areas or any other places to sit down. There isn’t even a single bump to look interesting. There are some empty, grass areas around the neighborhood but no people exist there since they are random grassland areas. The area looks like grassland map from Gmod, I told you. There aren’t even vegetation. It’s just ugly looking flatland. I tried to look for other communication areas, and there is only Sakarya city center - Adapazarı. It’s even a joke between my family that there are nowhere else to see. I’m shocked how good it looks in google image search, normally it’s a lot more dirty. It’s at least not slums and not dangerous to walk around but only places to visit are too expensive and only have coffee shops. Tried visitng the ones I can afford but I still don’t know how to start a conversation with a random person.
I can’t seem to love being a physical being. I tried, I really did. I don’t know how you approach to this situation and what kind of a perspective you have. In my point of view, we are machines made out of meat, flesh, bones and skin. We got the body, the brain and the organs that are working together. If we enjoy something physically (like sex, eating food, dancing or walking around) that’s because the signals that are sent to our brain are understood that way. You like eating chocolate because it contains tryptophan, a building block for serotonin. It gives you dopamine. I don’t like eating one because despite producing dopamine, I can’t stop imagining the disgusting visual that happens in my mouth, my throat and my stomach. I say it in a real obsessed behavior. I can’t even sleep with the thought of it and can’t be relaxed without vomiting or somehow distracting myself for hours. I even get nausea just by looking at food these days. I even spent a few days sometimes by tricking my family (They don’t know I have this.) I can’t eat, no way. Every time I rotate my eyes, the feeling of them is there. I can’t just love existing because the wind feels good or eating a chocolate. After all, I know it’s just digesting a food. The thoughts of it’s look is overhelming the minor enjoyement. I don’t understand why should I be happy by eating one as well? Producing dopamine? So what? It’s just tasty food. Having sex? Why? It’s just a piece of evolution and human pshcyology. I’d rather prefer it in art or metaphoric writings. Going outside? I’d rather spending that my time on something more important like my project rather than wasting it outside.
After me “yapping” for 3 paragraph long, I must thank you for your kind words, I really appreciate them and despite sounding like I refused all of them, I’ll really try to take care of every sentence and I will consider applying them to my life.
I do wish you the best, it seems that you need medical care that might not be available. But if it is - please talk to a doctor about the intrusive thoughts about bodies, I would bet money it’s just your brain creating some nightmare to fit the anxiety, OCD, and the schizophrenia makes it so much more difficult to figure out what is real.
And anorexia is fatal if not stopped, the end point is starvation. If you wish to live you will probably need treatment of some sort. Choose any angle of approach since it’s all connected but professional help seems warranted.
Thank you for your comment and kind words. Seems like anorexia is about a person seeing themselvs fat while being actually underweight. This is not my problem since I know I am underweight but I get what you mean. Thankfully I live with my family and I can’t tell them this problem so I eat either this way or that way. I sure will not die off this in short time at least, haha.
I talked to a therapist about this before and she said I’m fine. She gave me a paper. There were text and gaps like;
“I think of … of my father”
…and I had to fill them. My next session was 6 months later but then the therapist went on the annual leave. They said I can contact again when she returned but we never got any other news. Never tried to apply for another therapist. 10 minutes once every 6 months doesn’t really help. What can you expect from a third-world country after all?