support

Another important category: "Not with me because I have not expressed how much pain I am in"

Some of our closest may not be the safest people to open up to about our issues. Could even cause more pain. My therapist was the first person I was able to open up to honestly and it made a world of diffrence talking to someone who did not try to fix or judge as my closest people would have.

I've never had anyone who wasn't love-shy/incel themselves understand it. I've tried to explain it to people, they just don't buy it. It's always "be patient....the right one will come around." Either that, or I get crap PUA advice.

Family of origin - hurt. The best thing to do is get as far away as possible from them as soon as possibile.

Friends - generally useless/hurt.

Distant family - help. Cousins, aunts, uncles can be a big help, provided they truly are distant and not like extended family. This is because they trust you like a friend would, but have no interest at all in perpetuating your condition the way a friend would (so as not to lose your friendship), or maintaining the family dynamic of you being the black sheep, loner, loser etc..

Family have no idea about my LS, my mum just makes remarks like "a good looking boy like you should have a girlfriend", thoroughly well meaning and intended to improve my confidence, but still grossly misunderstanding my situation.

Friends I met at uni have no idea that I even have trouble with women, and probably think I've had plenty of sex in my time, so I can't expect them to give support as they don't know the facts. Friends I've known for longer know I've never had a girlfriend but don't seem to give a shit. Last year when I was seeing that girl that fucked me around, I got such a hard time from some of my longer term friends for giving her too much attention at their expense on a night out. I was absolutely fuming - where is these people's empathy?

In short, this forum is my only support.

Been there, done that. All this really pisses off, doesn't it?

support

I don't know if it's a love-shy/incel thing, but it seems in this society in general it's verboten for a guy to care deeply about relationship issues. It automatically makes him a pvssy emo-wimp, drama queen, etc who needs to "man up" and basically deny his needs and feelings as a human being. At best he is "encouraged" to be a player (and then is subsequently chastised for it, ie "all men are pigs"). It's certainly not something that can be talked about with male friends, and obviously female friends (if you have them) won't "get it" and probably get pissed at you for being an evul misogynist who thinks women should bow to your whim and date you just cause you happen to be a half decent guy. At least guy friends can do a good job taking your mind off things, even if they can't legitimately help with anything.

another reason (aside from the usual stuff discussed here) I think there are fewer incel/ls females is that they are "allowed" to care about relationship issues without losing status/respect in the eyes of others. They have plenty of support to work through it compared with guys.

Empty inside wrote:
"for the most part, we are the source of any improvement or motivation."

I agree empty we are the source but the way you are phrasing it makes it seem we are alone. There are people that can help along the way, not do it for you, but help. It is only once we move out of isolation that we can even begin to see any growth in ourselves. For the same skills it takes to open up to someone, anyone safe, is the same skills it will take to open up to a woman and form a relationship. It takes practice being comfortable enough with yourself to begin to do this and that practice does not come behind a computer screen. It takes interacting with another human being to find out that not all of them are out to get you, you can actually trust some of them, and also see the ones you cannot trust. But it takes the act of interacting face to face. That could be one on one or in a group but it has to be done as the first step in my opinion.

alone

I get what your saying for sure. It's like when people say they are going to "try" and do someting. You can't really try anything. You either do it or you don't. As an example go try to drop a piece of paper. You are either holding it or you let go if it, neither one of those has anything to do with trying. Life is that simple all the time, either you are in action or not. When you find yourself not in action around a certain part of your life that is causing you pain that is when it maybe time to get help to determine why you are not in action. Having this conversation with your self will not help because the reason you are not in action is your thinking is not correct (otherwise you would be in action) or faulty in some way. Your own mind always agress with it's self, why wouldn't it, it likes the reasons it comes up with. Saying those reasons out loud to another person exposes the weakness of the ideas and you can begin to move in another direction.

I never had any support because I never told anyone. I didn't really know I had something that needed treatment or that could be treated. I ended up having to do everything myself.

Did that work for you Noob?

Yes, I've been having girlfriends and side offers for a few years now.

Family - they are not interested in helping
Friends- they are pretty useless