Love help: I was a very happy and ambitious guy 7 years back. - Help.com

You are right when you say that you have to start by loving yourself before you can actually love somebody else. We are our worst enemies. We spend time loving other people and taking care of them that we neglect ourselves because making other people happy and comfortable makes us happy. In the meantime we go deeper and deeper into despair and other people could care less about us.

Stay far far far away from workplace relationships. They are convenient and they blow up really badly when things go wrong. You must be able to separate work from personal life. You will often need to concentrate on one because the other is challenging. You can’t do that when they are glued together.

As for how you feel… well, we all have our baggage. You never know when you are ready for something until you try it and watch your own reactions. Maybe you’ll find a decent girl and you can learn to be comfortable with being yourself around her. Remember, every girl has her own baggage too. You both need to navigate those waters and it’s by doing that that you learn more about yourself and you grow.

Even if relationships don’t work, you will learn more about the mistakes you make in them and what you want to change to have a better relationship. Sit down and start journalling about your relationships, past present and future. Look for patterns. What worked, what didn’t, what do you need to be compatible?

Focus on COMPATIBILITY. It’s not about you personally… you are not rejected personally… you are not worth any less because of someone else. It’s only about whether you and someone else are compatible AT THE TIME YOU ARE TOGETHER.

Get out there and rebuild your life. Run, swim, bike, exercise. Join social groups. Be yourself. Laugh, don’t take yourself seriously. Talk to other people and get to know them for who they are. Don’t hunt for girls.

You’ll find confidence and contentment again and you’ll also find girls noticing you and being attracted. Then you know you’re ready.

Maybe you should stop thinking about realationships at all right now and just focus on yourself. Think of one or two things about yourself that would be possible to improve and take steps toward that. One thing that almost always makes me feel better is to have some sort of forward progress in any area of myself, however small. More importantly, look at yourself from an outsider’s point of view. I’m sure you already have alot of things going for you, but you overlook them because you’re with yourself all the time. Just from your post I would guess that you are a sensitive and intelligent human being. That’s two up on alot of people!

Well, you’ll need to establish distance with the girl at work.

Ratchet back the interactions to professional ones only. If she pursues you, emphasize you don’t do workplace relationships. I had one girl really pursue me aggressively at work. Always showing up at my desk, etc. Don’t give in to this. Don’t be tempted to “just be friends” because you won’t be able to do it unless you’re in a committed relationship with some other girl. When you’re needy, you’ll always be thinking of romance.

Get into lots of social groups and go and keep going. Smile at the girls. Talk to them. Don’t pursue romance. Focus on getting to know them as people and developing yourself. This will give you outside female attention to distract you from the work girl. I did this… enjoyed plenty of interaction with women without chasing them. Let me rebuild myself. And I found myself ready when one of those girls finally decided to make her interest very clear.

Go here: http://www.12stepforums.net/healingro…

When I joined help years ago it used the first few characters of my email. I used a throwaway email address. Used to use Linux but not so much anymore. I am too old and lazy to actually give myself an avatar or nickname.

This is a very interesting post. I was in the same situation. After my ex-gf conveniently broke my heart, when I meet a new girl, the first thing that goes through my mind is “what’s the point of another heartbreak” and the second thing is, after my break up, I filled my life with various activities, like working out, reading, trying to go back to school, starting a biz, etc.. and I don’t want to give these things up for another relationship.. my point is, to get out of your current mode, to be as ambitious as you were before, the first step is to make yourself accept that the heartbreaks, were the best thing that have happened to you, because, 1) as a result you are a wiser person now, 2) now you have the opportunity to find something better for yourself. The other thing is, instead of trying to find ‘happiness’ in company of others or another girl, learn to enjoy being on your own, imagine as if you had to stay single your whole life. If you get these right, you should have a mind free of burdensome past memories and only at that point you are able to truly move on with your life.. not becoming as ambitious as you were before is not an easy task. What I did was I started to set goals for myself, short-term and long term, things ranging from “I plan to gain 15 lbs of muscle” to “now I am ready to change careers at the age of 25, after my BS and MBA, to try for med school.” Even though I may not be to excited about reaching your goals, once you set them, over time you start working towards them and they become your goals, your ambitions.. goals, happiness, satisfaction, etc are all only relative terms.. anyways I hope my personal experiences can help you go through your problem, here’s a quote I don’t know from where you may find insightful: “Every step you take matters, so don’t get too hung up on reaching the end goal. To broaden your perspective, keep in mind that life isn’t about the height of the mountain you’re climbing — it’s all about the journey you choose to take to get there. Cutting corners or taking shortcuts certainly isn’t against the rules, but getting to the top too fast could keep you from having some amazing experiences.”