I'd like to intorduce myself to the Pick-up community and give you a guys a little info on my background...

My names John, I'm 20 and lead a completely ordinary life. I am an AFC. I've spent alot of time in the last 2 years being frustrated with my life but doing nothing about it. I was in town last week with a friend when I came across 'The Game' by Neil Strauss, a book which I'm sure we're all fimilar with, and its inspired me to make a change, not just to my game, but to my life.

The last 2 years I have been sedated, I've spent my (valuable) time drifting from job to job, having no ambitions or any idea who I am. I spent alot of time indoors which consequently made me develop a sense of fear. A fear of meeting new people, a fear of being open with people, a general fear of anything besides being on my own. I'm slowly getting over it but the fear of meeting women remains.

I find myself playing a continuous game of comparison with anyone in my life, and I'm constantly valuing my negatives against their positives. I find myself desiring everything I don't have, with no idea how to attain it. I want all the attention. I want all the girls. I want the good lifestyle. The money, the friends, the car and the house. I want to be the Alpha Male.

Maybe I will never have any of these things and I will find myself perpetually desiring a different life, but there is no way I'm going to look back on it all and say I didn't try. So I've started to make some changes.

I'm joining the gym as of Monday. I had a great body when I was younger and I felt good. I'm quitting smoking because I don't enjoy it anymore and hate the fact that an inanimate object has control over me. I haven't knocked one out since Saturday to try and teach myself some self-control. And I've decided to start a business after New Years because I've always wanted to be self-sufficent and independant.

I don't expect you guys to take any interest in my life. But I would love to hear from any of you who have been down the same road or indeed, are down the same road as I am. Perhaps together we would find that making them big changes in your life can be that bit easier with the support of like-minded people and hopefully begin to take our lives where we want them to be and not just where we ended up.


Trashedteen.

Thanks man, some really useful links there, I'll make sure I get through them by the end of tonight. It's odd by I never realized just how many people were experiencing the same problems I am, makes me feel a lot better about the the challenges I'm going to face.

I was at work today thinking about the community, what I want out of life, how I'm going to acheive etc.. and it suddenly dawned on me just how much work its going to take to be back in control of my own life. I found it really intimidating and my old mindset started to kick in. Maybe I should stay where I am, maybe I'll be disapointed when I open that door and start realizing that my potential is not as great as I'd thought? I know it's not me anymore, at least not who I want to be, and I fought it, but it still brought me down a little.

Upon contempletation today I came to another conclusion: I'm a better person when I'm surrounded with people I feel comfortable with. I'm more social, I smile more, I'm more spontantious, I almost like myself. But as soon as a stranger enters that social circle, or I am on my own in a public place I am a completely different person. I can't maintain eye-contact, I'm nervous and very uncomfortable and I just want to get away from it as fast I can. I don't want to be that way. I want to feel as comfortable in others company as I do in my own. I'm hoping my plans to join the gym and work out on my own are going to remedy this but the apprehension for my initial visit/first week(?) are uncomfortable and probably somewhat illogical. Does anyone else experience this and if so, how do you deal with it?


Trashedteen.