Do you believe there are consequences for missing developmental milestones?

[Anonymous]

I am 28, and I missed out on a lot of social-developmental milestones during my youth that I feel haunts me till this day.

I just awoke a few minutes ago from a dream where I was in my old middle school and I was all grown up. Everything had changed, like my old band director was gone and her classroom was abandoned. I woke up feeling very sad. It was a dream about growing up and everything changing over time.

All my former friends today are married with kids. I am the last one to be unmarried and childless. Even worse, I still never had a real girlfriend.

My biggest regret in life is not experiencing love and romantic acceptance/validation from the opposite sex in my youth. I missed out on young romance for the most part. During high school, I hardly had any friends. The ones I did have I didn't hang out too much outside school. It was a shock the one time I went out with my friend's group of friends, because I never had an actual group of friends I hung out with until that one time.

Yes

No

See poll

[MrOracle]

Of course there are consequences - you've already discussed most of them. That doesn't mean it's too late to make changes, though.

You may have WANTED a relationship, but it's pretty clear to me that you never made finding a relationship a real PRIORITY in your life. The things that WERE priorities for you, you worked hard to achieve, investing time and energy and sometimes sacrifice in order to get them done. A relationship requires AT LEAST all of those things (for most people, anyway).

Think of getting a relationship being much the same as getting a career. Getting a career is often far more than just getting some education - it often means learning something of a new language (many professions have a large set of unique terms and contexts), buying a new wardrobe of clothes, and changing your attitude. Even then, you also need to apply for many jobs before you're likely to get an offer, and not all offers are going to be worth taking.

All of those things apply to getting a relationship. You may need to learn to talk about things you don't have a lot of experience talking (or thinking) about. You may need to change your appearance - getting a haircut, some new clothes, etc. And you will probably need to adopt a new attitude. You might instinctually resist these changes at first, and want to run back to your comfort zone long before the changes bring you any benefit, but if you stick it out, you will usually be better off.

No one said it was easy, and it's less easy today than it's ever been, but it can still be done. My advice is to stay completely away from dating apps and to focus on meeting women in person, and when you get dates, make the dates simple and cheap and focused mostly on talking to each other (i. e., a picnic in the park, or something), and use the first several dates with any new person to vet them, focusing primarily on their morals, values, and life-goals. Some of them won't work out, but that's just a normal part of the process. Keep working at it until one does.

[Unit1]

I'm right there with you.

Also had 0 opportunities to live out teenage and young adulthood properly. My focus was on getting a job, getting promotions and moving out of toxic and abusive environments and finally escaping the tyrannical shithole and imposed poverty, that my parents brought me into.

So here I am, 28, barely any girls and relocated almost 1 year ago. Starting from zero and mostly clueless about finding and getting girls.

The consequence? I recently had a huge mental breakdown. I'll never get my youth back. I'll never experience the excitement of being young and fully charged with hormones and bringing a nice girl home and have fun and/or sex. Not in this life. There is no turning back and there is nothing I could do about it other than accelerating regaining my autonomy and basic human rights.

[moviedude714]

Sadly it won't surprise me

[thisiswho_i_am]

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