When I was young, I was a horribly shy kid. So shy, in fact, that my own teachers didn’t remember having me in their class the previous year. I never spoke up in class, didn’t speak much to other students, didn’t have many friends. People saw me as a quiet, awkward loner, and pretty much left me alone. When I did get attention, I usually got bullied. I was also short, small and pretty frail, so I had a lot of cards stacked against me.

You can imagine what kind of impact my personality had on my social life, and more specifically, with girls. Basically, I didn’t date at all through all of high school, then all of college. Not even a date, a dance, a handhold, or a hug, much less a kiss. Girls were completely foreign to me. I looked upon them from afar with worship. If I had gotten a smile from even a fairly cute girl, I probably would have died and gone to heaven on the spot.

After graduating from high school, then college (which was just as barren and desolate in regards to social life and girls), I started working in the tech field, which I had purposefully chosen because I wouldn’t have to talk to coworkers much. I sometimes went an entire 8 to 10 hour workday without saying a single word to anyone. It was a relief because I didn’t know how to carry a conversation… my face would turn beet red and I would stutter, desperately trying to come up with mundane everyday stuff to talk about, but completely blanking out. Talking to people was frightening, so at the time it felt “easier” to avoid people and keep to myself. But I was also really, really lonely during this time. (Later I would be diagnosed with social phobia, a condition that had affected me pretty much my entire conscious life, from the age of 11 or 12 onward.)

Right around this time when I started working, I finally got my first girlfriend at last at the age of 22, a girl who pursued me aggressively. She was my first everything — first handhold, first kiss, first intimate experience. I finally lost my virginity to her at age 23. Things might have been looking up, except this girl had serious emotional issues. She became clingy and dependent. She was choking my life, and keeping me from growing. I wanted to branch out and try to improve my social life, meet more people, etc. But she hated it even if I went out to meet a male buddy. She wanted to be alone with me, just us two, all the time, 24 hours a day. She moved in with me, and things eventually became claustrophobic.

Finally, after 3 years of this, I finally broke it off with her. She was devastated, but I know I made the right choice. I had to do it, or I would never have a chance to break out of my shyness shell.

It’s been quite awhile now after that dramatic breakup, and I haven’t had another girlfriend in the many years since. I’ve had enough. I think it’s time for my life to undergo some major changes. I’m quitting my job, leaving the tech field, and I’m moving back across the country to the East Coast back to my hometown.

Hopefully I’ll be able to change my life and my fortunes for the better there, especially with girls! I want to start over fresh. I want to get better with my social skills overall, but I really want to make up for lost time in terms of girls and dating.