DON'T DO ONLINE DATING. Online dating has wrecked mating except for the most attractive 5%. Online dating is mostly a looks competition as first step. And you are saying you don't have the looks to win that game, so you need to play a different type of mating game.
Go to meetups instead via meetup.com and also look for local group activities happening on EventBrite - don't make finding a partner the focus or even the objective - go to a ton of meetups doing the things you love doing.
People form relationships doing common interests and having shared experiences. Have shared experiences with people and take finding a partner off the agenda - just enjoy the company of others. You never know what might happen but don't go looking for it.
I can tell you this for sure - many women are looking for a partner of character - someone kind who actually wishes to engage in relationship - a genuine person - and if time is taken to form relationship well in advance of the "will you be my girlfriend" pressure, then how you look is very often just not an issue. Have you noticed how when you get to know someone you see their character as much as their outward appearance? You might need to let people learn who you are gently and over time.
As for being charismatic or funny, as Oscar Wilde said: Be yourself - everyone else is taken.
The best thing you do is to just grow your network until you find someone you like.
Whenever I go out, I always collect phone numbers and contacts if I can.
Before you know it, you have 100s of people on your phone. Befriending women is also excellent, they can introduce you to other women if they feel like you are worthy!
Successful, long term, loving and happy relationships. Not top 5% most attractive people. Mostly nerds, some overweight, some not.
If you don't know what to do, try to get involved with helping others in some way. It can be rewarding and give you a broader perspective on life.
I can confirm that this is how I am generally happy in life as a single. Underrated advice.
Just want to pile on here and say that this is absolutely crucial, both for your chances of eventually finding someone and if not that, for your own sanity.
1. if you go into activities with the ulterior motive of meeting someone, you're not going to be satisfied by the activity itself which will cause resentment.
2. people can sense when your heart isn't really into what you're doing, and this will defeat your purpose entirely causing #1
You really have to accept that you may never find someone to properly get into this mindset though, and that's really hard. But it's a choice and I'm convinced that it's the correct one.
I think this is only because the bulk of the advice in this area is to tell men to become more attractive (cf. "looksmaxxing"), change hobbies, attitudes, etc. That, or resenting women. Most would rather live on hope than fundamentally change their outlook.
I am a westerner and recently traveled to some science conference and casually met this Indian girl (living in India, she travelled to the conference as well), about 24 years old and we clicked immediately. We ended up talking a lot and we had vastly more aligned life goals (having kids, starting a family etc) than i have with my average western female co-workers or women i meet outside work.
Unironically I’m starting to believe i might have to move east if i want to start a family.
I don't see how that is any different from the west except you get better bang for your bucks.
The most terrifying realization is that I've already spent pretty much half of my life yearning for love and not getting it. Even if I magically get married soon, it'll feel like a consolation prize.
I struggled with weight gain for many years due to crippling IBS but I found some relief while bulking from a certain probiotic. (Got lucky - dozens of things I tried including fodmap, etc. never worked. That said, the probiotic only helps - not solves... and doesn't solve my absorption issues)
Surgery, steroids, and a serious bulk are in order if you're serious.
I can make the pounds go up or down in a few weeks by eating more or less, but it goes mostly to the gut (Skinny fat = probably the worst look), and just enough to pad the arm muscles so it looks like I've never been to the gym in my life! Lately have just been embracing it and staying lean (Looks like 12% maybe?) while working out as much as I can stand.
I was about to do the steroids... (low dose test) I suspect that would genuinely fix it. But when I got the blood test back, test was smack in the middle of the normal range! So would have to shop around a bit, and trying not to lose my hair. But may still do it. A bulk counter-intuitively is not the move because it would just put me back in skinny-fat land.
This is so weird to me if you're always working out as you said. What are you doing at the gym? Compound barbell movements with heavy weights will absolutely prevent this and get you jacked in the right places.
Gaining muscle becomes really complicated for some people since not everyone has the same hormones, androgen receptor density, myostatin levels, etc. Some people grow like freaks and others never do. I can sympathize but I am skeptical of 99% of people since most I've seen also don't do every thing right and it's clear that's usually the issue.
- Dumbell and smith machine squats
- 10-30 degree incline bench
- Dumbell lunges
- Overhead press with dumbells
- Planks
- Situps: Straight, bent, and normal legs
- Dead hangs
- Pullups with 3 grips
- Leg lifts while hanging
- Lat raises, forward and bent over
- Behind-the-back cable extensions
- Tricip cable pulldowns
- SKull crushers
- Dumbell curls, one hand at a time
Absolutely not. This is what you tell sedentary people to get them to move a bit. For your purpose of looking good, you're wasting your time. You need to add weight every workout.
> I've been training with appearance (especially to women) in mind
That is the wrong mindset, but then again what I told you earlier will give you the appearance you seek. Seriously just go to a proper gym with a barbell.
I sympathize with being 3 sigma on the distribution... I'm four sigma out myself. My total T is around 1200ng/dl with most everything in my bloodwork related to hormones being a genetic freak. And, yes, I'm natural. Even with my extremely high T - probably twice yours - I struggle to gain any muscle at all and look like I've never lifted a weight in my life.
I'm still doing steroids next year because I'm tired of not seeing results for my insane effort.
If you're just growing in the stomach then you're doing something wrong. Check macros - should be overly high protein. Eat only 500 calories surplus per day. Your stomach will get larger just from food volume. Your stomach will always be large if you're on a bulk - it's supposed to be full all the time.
After you gain 20lb over about 20 weeks - reasses. As it is - it sounds like you haven't done really serious tracking. When I'm bulking/cutting - I don't eat anything unless every ingredient goes on a scale and I track everything down to the gram. One way to make less lifestyle less painful is to do meal prep and label all your meal tins with the macros. (Or just be obnoxious and measure everything out where each tin is the exact same - harder to do)
Get a dexascan a couple weeks into your bulk then a couple months in. You'll be able to tell if you're only gaining fat or if you're gaining lean body mass. Same process with cutting. Your eyes might not be well trained.
Doctors don't take stuff like this seriously (Varies wildly, but I have a number of family/friends who are doctors, and was in a military field under flight doc supervision/physicals for most of my career). I imagine it's not on their list of medically significant conditions as it's a superficial one. They deal with things that cause immediate or future health problems (or med disqualification for the job), or effect quality-of-life directly. Being extremely skinny (High or normal test for us respectively!) doesn't register as it's superficial/aesthetic. I wonder if your hormone-related identification would be more actionable as you have that number? While 6'2 / 130lbs (Not sure your example) is extremely rare, without any direct consequences on health, it doesn't register. Nothing to fail me on a physical for, no treatment plans that fit, and doesn't pattern match with people checking into hospital.
I think re growing the stomach - I meant more that responds very quickly to changes in diet in either direction; I can go from pudgy/belly to flat abs in a few weeks. I'm hoping the ab work will help a bit with overall look in well-fitting clothes or shirtless, and help with rib flare, but it's probably skippable compared to the bigger lifts.
For the macros, you're right: I have not being doing any tracking. I have been (For the past 6 months when I did a big shift) eating slowly, and paying attention to hunger/satiation signals. No longer finishing a meal just because it tastes good, if I'm no longer hungry. I have cut out all carbs-sans-fiber. No sugary foods (other than fruit, dark chocolate etc), no refined grains unless eating out. Lots of veggies, meat, eggs, and fruit + whey shakes. So, high protein, high fiber, normalish carbs and fat. As you say, probably need to load on the protein more. (More meat/whey/eggs/peanut butter?) How has the tracking worked out for you; any insights? I'm curious about the effort involved, and accuracy of any numbers put in.
I should do the dex! I'm curious; just looked up; $130 near me; will do it! The 12% estimate was based on visual cues like bicep vein, muscle definition, appearance of facial bones/masceters etc. If I eat lazily, it goes up to probably 18-20%; then I look like I have never seen a gym. Would love to see the actual number.
What is stopping you from doing the steroids now? Test or a mix? Worried about the hairline / body hair or negative face shape changes? I am giving this one final push, then will probably hop in in 1-2 years if this still isn't working. My lifts have stayed the same or gone slightly up while I've been getting lean. The lean thing for is a realization that I am accepting the build, and don't want to hide the muscles I have. I love the way I look without a shirt or in tight-fitting clothes now, but still have an extreme BMI.
Btw, that last point seems to be also one of those counter-intuitive things: For the ultra-skinny (Or maybe more acurrately for anyone who's lean, but has some muscles), looking good without a shirt or in form-fitting clothes is a completely different beast from not. Can go from "Looks fit" to "Doesn't know what a gym" is from a change of clothes alone!
I didn't even think that these things had "different strains" - I thought they were just random junk mail spam they'd throw in your gut but I guess some are concentrated with different bacteria that can help me. Honestly I should get back on it because I've been suffering greatly lately.
Lol you went from 0 to 100% really quickly there.
That's OK, most of the single woman I know don't care if you like pets or not. As for how you look that's not a huge problem - again most of those same women have expectations in the looks department that are best described as average. And you're gainfully employed! This is better and better.
The only thing I can suggest is to put yourself in a position to meet more women because the more actual real life women you meet the better the chance of finding one that feels that spark.
So far as I know (and maybe you can come up with more) there are two solid ways of meeting women. One is to hang out where they are. This is tricky because the closer this gets to a cattle call (think going out to a bar ) the more artificial and tricky this gets. Dating apps are like that but in spades.
Option two is those woman who didn't "feel the spark". Here me out.
Here's what you say. "This clearly isn't working out for you. But rather then this being a total loss, want to get to get together with some friends of mine and just hang out as friends?" or even, "Hey, you have friends - maybe there's no spark here but how about if I hang out with your friends?".
See, if you have female friends it's like another person helping you find someone to be not single with. Woman are a gregarious lot and they tend to both know a lot of people and to know a lot of women. I trust that it's not hard to see how this can work.
Eh, that's how it worked for me but your millage may vary.That's fine. Women are more likely to be into cats anyways.