At what point should a man say, "I give up"?

Crion87 I highly recommend not seeing a prostitute. I don't think it will help you. I understand and certainly do not condemn anyone who sees a prostitute, but I don't think it's going to do you any good.

Why not? It's not as if I could just get a friend-with-benefits, believe me, I would do so if I could but there's no-one I know locally who would be up for that with anyone, let alone myself. I interact far better in Real Life than on forums, but I cannot evidence that to anyone here since this is a forum. I talk better with my friends on Facebook than any other Internet thing. Why? Because it's easier to attack nameless, faceless designations than it is people. Perhaps I'm just not suitable for anonymous interactions as this at all. Still, since I find it near-impossible to correctly tell when another may be interested so I simply have to assume they are not interested, as a safety precaution. I don't engage in anything because I have no way of knowing for sure - except, of course, if it is a female initiator that I am dealing with. Maybe I would have been happier if I had been born homosexual. Alas, that is not the case.

I believe that I am prohibited for anything beyond mere survival, and at a low level at that. As far as I can tell, it is my destiny. In case you all are unaware I usually tend toward determinism in my beliefs of what will happen, at least in my case. To me, my decisions are irrelevant in the face of the big picture, and I tend to swing to the far extreme of thus believing that my fate is written in stone, so to speak. Internally, I hope for nuclear war or a similar catastrophe, that I could emerge afterwards as a totalitarian leader, or at least be killed cleanly and painlessly by being vaporised. If I could, I would undergo some sort of treatment that would erase my entire memory or at least make it impossible to remember anything nonessential.

Without any kind of surefire system to tell whether someone would be interested, unless they initiate it, it is impossible for me to tell. And I cannot move on in my mind unless I have clear territory to move on to. Metaphorically speaking, I cannot and do not wish to run full bolt in the fog, as many people can do, lest I fall off a cliff.

Not to excuse myself, but I wish to tell my side of the story.

I used to be a quiet, happy optimistic little boy, everything was good. And then my mother had a sudden nervous breakdown, work-related stress, unresolved psychological issues from her past (before I was born, mostly sexual abuse related), and likely other factors, caused her to suddenly tailspin into a very deep depression, for which she was hospitalised for a time (about 1996). I can remember seeing my mother literally bedridden by her mental illness, and I always thought it was my fault, that I wasn't doing well enough at school, or whatever reason a kid blames themselves for their mother enduring such, when the cause was far before even my birth. Furthermore I was extensively bullied at all levels of the school system, from Prep to Year 12 (K-12 in the American system), even prior to my mother's breakdown, such that I became a high-school dropout just before I could finish. Not all the students bullied me, but it seemed that way, due to the old "silent majority" effect. I can count the amount of school friends I recall ever having with any sincerity in my view virtually on one hand. The insults dispensed upon me were almost always homophobic in theme, despite the fact that I was, and am, indeed heterosexual - since I could not disprove it to the crowd I assume lack of disproof was assumed to be evidence.

I have since spent four years in a half-way house run by an ineffectual group of staff who could not and would not treat me in the sense of therapists and such as they were untrained in managing autism and Asperger Syndrome patients (even given that the latter was an official diagnosis as of a visit to a specialist in Box Hill, a suburb of Melbourne), and the selfsame halfway house was the place in which the relationships I spoke of as myself having took place. I have only just gotten out of that system in mid-December 2009, and though I have relatively good accommodation for a first residence in my district and my parents are helping as they can, I cannot find employment in employers of last resort, as McDonald's and other such in Australia prefer younger staff (as in 16-18) and most other such jobs even in regional Australian towns such as mine are all occupied by what might be called "fresh-off-the-boat" migrants and such (I'm not intending to be racist, I'm only telling the truth as I have seen it). My field of expertise as far as my Asperger Syndrome goes is foreign languages - I am extremely adept at pronunciation and learning foreign language grammar and such - but all such jobs are all out of reach, being either in Melbourne or overseas. I can get my passport, I'm just hopeless with forms and such and need help with that. I know all of this is no excuse for my behaviour here and I acknowledge that but I think from this one could seen how I have become so hateful and bitter in general. Today, as in the date of writing (9th February, 2011) I am relatively calm and centred, enough at least to explain myself better, but that could slip any time.

Now that I've told my story, and hopefully that you have read it, I might be more inclined to listen to some constructive suggestions. Then again, I can imagine I may well also be pilloried by the entirety of the forumgoers here for this, through some sort of demeaning comment like "Big deal" or "That's no excuse, man up" or any of that. Even if that banhammer will hit me I at least hope I have shown the circumstances from which I have arrived at this point.

I now submit to whatever comment, suggestion, criticism or even put-down you have for me. I only ask one thing - if you wish to try to disparage me, don't hold yourself back, whatever foul names or what anyone could say to me, I've heard it or an equivalent before.

I can relate to alot of those things. I wrote the book on pessimism.... well..... used to anyways. I've managed to catch a few overdue breaks in my life but it gets harder when you want more. I think it's ok to settle for less as long as you find it satisfactory enough. Others expect more from me but hey it shouldn't be my problem.

Crion87 I recommend not seeing a prostitute because I don't think it will help you. But I understand and don't condemn you if you do.

Many people here are understanding and compassionate. I find that writing out some of my feelings and issues I've dealt with to be helpful.

While I do believe environmental and societal factors have a large influence, and can make things such as relationships more difficult than they should be, I'm definitely not a determinist.

I don't have the answer for you, to a great extent because I believe each person has to go his own way. But I do recommend questioning your mindset. Thinking positive thoughts may not be enough on its own, but it goes a long way.