Hey, my name is Tom, I am 21, and I need help. I have never had a girlfriend.

I have come to realize that I am just not good at socializing, I am not someone who is the “life of the party”, and I want to be. I recall times when people asked me to tell a story and I said I have no stories. Then somebody said, “He’s probably the kinda guy who has stories, but just can’t tell stories very well.” I have come to realize that it is not the story you tell, it’s how you tell it. I have always had 1 or 2 really close friends, but never a lot of friends.

Part of my lack of social skills is my lack of confidence. I have been working on this over the past few months, and I am trying to learn how to be confident, without being an asshole at the same time. I know a big part of my problem is fear of failure, I am a cautious person and I am very hard on myself when I fail. In the social arena, failure is, in my mind rejection or non-acceptance. I am a typical “nice guy”.

I am terrible when it comes to socializing with females that I do not know. I feel like there is nothing to say, I don’t know how to open, how to keep conversation going or anything. I have trouble saying hi. I am also clueless to signals, and just the games that females play. I watched season 1 of the pick-up artist and learned a lot about body language and IOI’s and just tons of stuff that I remember seeing in the clubs and not recognizing at the time. Another thing I have trouble with is opening up to people. There’s only one person in the world that I feel like I can tell anything, and that’s my sister.

For the next 6-12 months I am going to commit to learning the knowledge it takes to have more friends and ultimately a better life. I say learning the knowledge because I am in Iraq right now so unfortunately I won’t be able to get any practice in the clubs or anywhere. R and R can be my sort of test to see what I have learned.

Something I know I have to learn is that rejection and success go hand in hand, try and fail, try and fail, try and fail… to eventually succeed. I know that I am an interesting person; I just don’t know how to convey that interest in words to other people. Sorry if that was long, this is something I am committed to; I mean it’s my life.