Reddit mentions of How to Be an Adult: A Handbook for Psychological and Spiritual Integration

This wasn't supposed to turn into a wall of text. ^Ooops.

You and I both seem to be working VERY hard at attracting a girl: "I exercise. I dress well. I practice good hygiene, posture, and eye contact. I put myself out there and do approaches." And you've been frustrated for a long time. Yeah, me too.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you may be experiencing something similar to what i've been working on myself: I'm going to call it Self Induced Success Anxiety. I have forever been working VERY hard and learning and trying and practicing so that I can find my life partner. Hell, I've been working on it since I was 16! And I have experienced many years of frustration and many failed relationships trying.

But therein lies the problem. I have been trying too hard, and more importantly, putting too much pressure on myself to succeed.

At my therapist's suggestion, I took some time off while I work on some of my own stuff. I set an approximate date at which I would resume the pursuit (9 months, if I feel ready by then), but in the meanwhile I completely stopped. I genuinely committed to it, and I have stuck to it, not just given it lip service. It has been amazing what a RELIEF I have felt enjoying these last 8 months without worrying about the fact that I don't have a girlfriend! Do not misunderstand me: I still exercise (because it's FUN and good for me) and I still try to smell good and dress well (because I feel better when I think I look good), work to make eye contact and talk to women I find attractive. I still do all the things I would normally have done to go out and try to find a mate, without TRYING to find a mate. BUT I also have stopped worrying about and learned learned to enjoy spending more time alone - even at 8pm on a Friday night. I have also been genuinely enjoying hanging out with friends (I have a few). I even have started having people over to my house for a party once a month or so and haven't cared if one person or 15 people show up - I'm going to have a good time, even if it's just three dudes drinking beer and complaining about women. :)

But when I do go out, or when I do meet a woman I am attracted to, I am NOT anxious about talking to her. Because, hey - I'm not worried about any particular RESULT, I'm just enjoying talking to her and drinking from her long tall glass of beautiful. I know I will go home without a phone number. Because that is MY plan! I don't want one. So there's no pressure. I measure success by how good a time i had talking to her, not by whether or not I got a phone number or a kiss.

I do not hide this time off from any of my friends or anyone I meet, either. It's just fact. "I'm taking time off of dating until at least September or so, while I work on me." SO many people (including attractive females) have said "That's really smart. What a good idea." And it has had an unexpected side effect: Several people have said "And by the way, when you're ready, I have someone I want you to meet!"

And here's the important part of what I am trying to say: It seems to have given me POWER! I am not afraid of any woman. I talk to them ALL with no fear of rejection, because all I want is conversation and laughs and smiles. I am myself because I'm not worried about what they think. No pressure and SUCCESS every time. And I'm getting quite comfortable with it. Yes, I go home alone. Yes, I go home without phone numbers. That is my plan! And you know what else? A few women have later flirted with me that "September is almost here..." Maybe they were disappointed I didn't ask for their numbers...

So take some REAL time off. Give yourself a break from the expectation you have built for yourself. And while you're taking that time off, spend time learning more about YOU and learning the lesson that you CAN be yourself AND attract women. And spend that time talking to women, because hey - you're just hanging out and being yourself and all you want is to meet interesting people and have a good time. And watch what happens: You might just get used to being yourself. You'll get used to talking to attractive women. You'll enjoy spending time alone. You'll do things you like to do because you like to do them.

And when your September comes, you'll just keep on doing all of those things. But this time, when the right girl smiles and laughs and plays with her hair, you won't feel any pressure. You'll say "This was fun. We should do it again some time." And she might just say "Yeah, that sounds great..."

If you want to read an amazing book, and you can take the spirituality talk with a grain of salt (not to mention the title of the book), I highly recommend How to Be an Adult by David Richo. It's only 120 pages and it's $10. But don't just blow through it. Read and think. Then read again.

tl;dr - Give yourself a break from Self Induced Success Anxiety (if I may coin a phrase). You're so worried about success that you're affecting the outcome. See what happened when I did. Also, read this book by David Richo.

How to be an adult and How to be an adult in relationships

How to be an Adult

Also, don't feel ashamed. That's big. Your life happened. You're dealing with the consequences. So long as you recognize this and you're trying to fix what's broken, there's no reason to feel bad about it.

Hey Ladies!

So there's a couple of books I'd like to share. For me personally, continuing to look at deep issues in my life is helping me as I search for my Ms. Right. I, too, am still looking. I like these books because they help me clarify what I'm looking for.

And, cause I'm safety girl, the last recommendation (the de Becker book) is a great one about trusting our intuition, about assessing human behavior and predicting what someone might do. I wish that one was required reading, heh, cause I feel we all could benefit from reading it.

Richo, How to Be an Adult An amazing book on setting boundaries, caring for one's self. I totally bristled at the title at first, but this stuff is really great. Richo takes a Buddhist/Jungian/integration perspective that I feel I have been searching for my entire life, fwiw. Which brings me to my next recommendation:

Richo, How to Be an Adult in Relationships Enough said, it's a great book.

de Becker, The Gift of Fear de Becker is an expert in security--another list of ways we can learn to trust our intuitions, our "gut" to keep ourselves safe.

How I carry myself, my inner life, really affects what happens in my environment, I feel. For example, I totally flirted with a hot girl on a bicycle the other day--she stopped and came back to talk to me! I felt like a million bucks. However, I got skeered and didn't ask for her number (doh!). My "excuse" is that she looked about 22 (and I'm 34, perhaps a bit too much of an age gap for me). But damn, it felt good.

As an introvert, it can be difficult to "turn it on" and be outward-directed and friendly to people, but it's getting easier with practice. And I have a beautiful lambda necklace I like to wear sometimes, to hopefully signal my sapphic nature to the ladies. ;)

There's a pretty good book called How To Be an Adult that he might benefit from. Check out the description and reviews and see if you think it would be helpful for his situation.

I would recommend you pick up the book "How to be an Adult" by David Richo.

It outlines ways to deal with yourself, your expectations, emotions, feelings, and reactions to life. It speaks a lot about the explicit difference between an immature and a mature way of approaching life and all the emotions that come with it (it goes into great detail regarding "fear" and "anger" specifically) so in your case where you're feeling like maybe you missed some of that development, this could be a great way to "make up lost ground" so to speak. And honestly, after reading it, I feel like it actually puts you ahead of most people in terms of understanding yourself.

It's written by a psychotherapist who has seen a lot of the different ways people function and rationalize and handle their own feelings/anxieties first hand.

Here's an amazon link

I find it makes a great reference book -- it's small but very dense and I often return to it and meditate on certain passages and how they relate to my own life.

As a fellow ex-pot-head who started smoking in his teens, eventually stopped and hasn't in years, good luck dude!

therapy is great. Barring that, mindfulness is exactly targeted to becoming more present and less caught up in worries. Headspace is a great app with some guided meditations and videos for beginners. The first ten episodes are free, and actually you can just use them over and over and it's great.

Barring that, assuming you want to learn to be more productive with your inner monologues, learn more about how to use them productively. "How to be an Adult" by David Richo is an amazing book for personal growth. Great for understanding what is going on inside of you. Another one that is more of a workbook but is really tied in to what you're describing is called "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life". It has some great descriptions about what goes on in the mind, with a series of increasing and varied activities for you to practice dealing with them.

Doing other activities can help in the short term, like a distraction, but ultimately your growth in this arena will come from seeking to understand and work with your thoughts better, not just avoid encountering them.

Good luck!

I have found David Richo's books to be very well-written and actually helpful and useful ( a lot of self-help can be trite or fluff)
https://www.amazon.com/How-Adult-Psychological-Spiritual-Integration/dp/0809132230