I think more than anything the thing that draws me to Dr. K's videos is that he seems to get where people are coming from and meets them where they are at. I feel understood so often watching his videos and he's not even talking about my specific circumstance.
Yes! He humanizes us and validates us for our failures. That's big coming from a doctor, no arrogance I'm better then you,I know more then you attitude. Just legitimate trying to understand and offer input therapy for free!
I recommend you watch his guide to conversation, if you haven't watched it yet. It helped me a lot with my social skills and in becoming someone who can make people feel understood, it's great.
This is a man who truly cares about the betterment of our society rather than it being a job. He’s providing effective therapy completely absolutely free right now, it may not be direct, but you are right. He makes you feel understood and that’s why it helps.
@@kaczok1985 social events that you reject,office parties,birthday parties,clubs,bars,gender reveal (you got the point) that's the basic,if you want advanced then: talking to people you never talk to at your job,at the gym etc
I have a lot of people around me who were always in relationships, even after a breakup, they would find a new SO within a month or two. They will never understand the struggle of people like me, who are desperate to at least get a hug from someone, who are starved for human interaction and human touch (even nonsexual). Right now I am not even mad if a stranger bumps into me on a bus, because at least I experience touch from another human being. I build my career, I work out (actually I am a marathon runner), I try to develop myself, eat healthy, all that, but at the end of the day, I would just like to cook someone a dinner, tell them how I missed them and hug them. The loneliness and emptiness that comes from being single for years and years, being crushed after rejection when you thought it was going someone over and over again - it takes toll. I simply cannot even express my pain anymore, because I know that people would always assume that I'm just pathetic loser and incel crying about not having a gf or sex. But it's not like that. I began to work as a petsitter - once, for my love for animals, but also just to be able to at least hug a dog after a long day (can't afford my own dog right now). It's just something that most people will not even grasp, because they have friends, family, kids, wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends, so they just can't imagine how it feels when literally for years no one sincerely hugged or kissed you. I feel like a disgusting freak that doesn't belong anywhere in this world. I gave up all hope for true love, marriage, kids and all this stuff, I know I'm never getting those. At this point, I would just like a hug to not feel lonely for 10 F-ing seconds.
I feel this so much. Like, I made a post on Facebook a few months ago complaining about my touch-starved forever alone status and how people shouldn’t have to be romantically coupled to have physical and emotional support (I’m aroace, for context), and my roomie (who’s been my best friend for 20+ years and is also now coupled) talks to me about it later that day and says how she gets it and that she didn’t know she was a cuddler til a few years ago… then proceeds to gush on about how great it feels when her boyfriend touches her (nonsexually) and cuddles her. Like gee, way to come so close to the point AND THEN JUST COMPLETELY CHICAGO BEARS DOUBLE DOINK IT. And make me feel worse in the process. Like, I feel I’ll never be worth anything to people because I’m not a romantic prospect, or because I don’t have a romance for people to be all “oooh” excited about. It makes me sometimes not even want to socialize because I know I’ll just be the umpteenth wheel that gets shoved to the fringes of every social group. Even now, the hugs I do get from friends and family are short and feel more like pity hugs because of that Facebook post I made. I don’t think I’ll ever be worth the kind of hug I really want (internalized amatonormativity and all that, that I’m trying to unpack but it’s so hard).
I feel you, man. I love that one girl for 6 years now. She rejected me 5 times in a row and I gave up trying. Started relationship with another woman, with which I spent 5 years of my life. 5 wasted years of no romance, uninspired, cold sex, she even refused to hug me. We broke up without any pain attached to whatever how little we had in common in those 5 wasted years, but then I made 6th attempt to date the girl I had unrequited crush on all these years. It's a catastrophe. It seems like I don't belong in this world. Nothing in it wants me or needs what I give and can give.
try to have a look at which parts of your beliefs are fluctuations and which are realities, imagine if it was a friend saying this, what would you say to them?
While there are the feelings of loneliness and not finding someone to be intimate with. I also find it a struggle to interact with others on a daily basis. This can be going to a job, going out for groceries/necessities. Overall just having to interact with other humans on the road, public, whatever it may be. A very big distaste for the general public. Id go as far as to say developing misanthropic qualities just from bad experiences or expecting the worst in people. To combat loneliness would be to try and reach out with others, but what if you're just so used to being ignored, mistreated, and so forth, that it impacts you on how you interact with the world and its inhabitants. It's the stuff that makes you not want to go out at all because it just feels better to avoid it altogether.
I agree 100% with you, i'm experiencing the exact same thing. Also i don't agree with everything that dr. K said, i don't think that recognizing that feeling unlovable is not a true statement in the mind makes the possibility of ACTUALLY be unlovable go away. Probably i say this because i encountered people who died completely alone and told me that they've been alone for their entire life. And sure, i didn't know their situation, there could be plenty of things that lead to that that i'm not aware of, but this is enough to show me one thing: the possibility of actually, really be unlovable is there. And it's there for everybody, including me. I'm not having much results with people, and results in my opinion are all that matters in this case, cause i don't really care if there could be some people out there that could love me, if i don't actually meet them before i die it's not really useful. Therefore i think that be unlovable could be a reality for some people. If you're reading this, please don't misunderstand: i'm not saying that there's no hope. I don't want anybody to give away their hope, actully i'd love to see people succeed in their goals and start to spread some positivity. I was just venting a little bit. But don't worry i'm not giving up on my goals either
every time i start to wonder if i've grown too jaded i get a gigantic reminder that the system i was born into isnt built for people like me and rewards people to actually harm me. also punishes me for wanting to dare to exist without harming others.. and i remember its not me thats jaded. its the system that rewards frauds and cheaters above hard work and honesty
I feel you, but do you think these misanthropic tendencies and disappointment in interaction with people might come from something else? Like it's a defense mechanism of your insecurities? In this case you need to kinda rewire your brain, you need to change how you perceive others' reactions or actions. Are they gonna mistreat you in the other life as well? Are they gonna tell other 7 billion people how "bad" you are? No. Does it matter what a stranger that doesn't know you fully thinks about you? Of course not. If they are willing to be biased and alienate you without fully knowing you, then be willing to not want to know them either and just move on to the next person. The next person should not deserve bad treatment, because you had a bad experience with the previous one, right? But it is in your power to open up and introduce yourself to others, so they know your full personality. And you are not obliged to go out there and force yourself to interact with others. Just when an opportunity to interact comes you have to keep in mind that you are not obliged to be liked by everyone. So don't hide yourself from others, be open and sincere, be yourself, introduce yourself to others, and let others introduce themselves to you. And if something doesn't connect, wait for the next opportunity
@@Tracer73866 Yeah it is this, mostly just projection and i know as someone who feels the same. I always feel defensive going out - my body is on high alert ready for an argument or for me to defend myself. We can see people as inherently bad to predict the worst things they can do, which makes us avoid them and despise them. The only time i'm proven wrong is when there IS actually someone who's an arsehole, because it makes you realise the rest of the 99% of people aren't doing what that person just did.
I dont feel satisfied with his answer here, even when I think about it, me having more than my share of an effort in friendships and not getting anything in return is SO FLIPPING REAL. The mental exhaustion and anxiety may just be in my head but the actions which have brought about those feelings are oh so real and there seems to be absolutely nothing change whatever I try to do. How is accepting and understanding my feelings going to help me here, am I just supposed to fix myself and continue "putting myelf out there" making me vulnerable to the same shit all over again?
What i got from the video is that you should stop caring about what you feel when this situations occur, because at the end of thr day you are seeing them as negative. I think this point of view works for some but is extremely dangerous for most, going this way without proper instruction can lead to absurd niilism which can result in numbness and suicide.
Yeah, same. I appreciate dr.K's input. But this time I felt his views didn't match my experience of those feelings. I have been trying to get rid of or at least cope with feeling unloveable, and yes, I always tell myself that it is just a thought, that it's nothing real, but I just find myself falling into the same vicious cycle over and over. I think the root problem is my experiences during my childhood and teenage years, and meditation didn't help me so far. So yeah, those beliefs ARE grounded in real experiences, and I still remember every hurtful word my parents and those around told me, I still remember how I felt when my best friend ditched me, and it happened more than once. I always get left out every time in social situations despite my best efforts to put myself out there. What makes it even worse is that I'm a hyper-sensitive individual, I pick on the slightest details that signal someone's disinterest in me. So yeah, I know it's real. Call it a bias or something, but dr.K's strategy of reasoning with those experiences/feelings didn't work for me thus far. It's just called avoiding your feelings.
@@The1991102 You managed to use words to explain exactly what I've been going through since the past year. Past experiences make me hyper sensitive to any sign of disinterest or exclusion, making me feel unlovable as a whole. Worst part is, it's a cycle which never seems to end, it's painful and never stops
@@yodaisme7605 I don't know if this will help you but it has helped me with the exact feelings you are describing. If you think of yourself as a train passing through life. When you are blaring your horn putting in a ton of effort to get people to get onboard with you so you can have fun together, find love, ect. I think this often ends up pushing people away because a lot of people detect (even subconsciously) neediness or desperation. Instead I started thinking of myself as said train going through life, but instead of desperately asking people to get onboard I am pouring myself into my passions and if someone wants to join this ride that I find interesting they better get on. Still a work in process so I won't claim its a panacea for this issue. But, at minimum I've felt a lot better about myself and have built some level of pride I did not have before. Good luck friend.
I'm not really sure about this one either, but I think what you all are saying basically goes in favor of K's argument here. It's not hard to imagine yourself reacting to things on an entirely different way from how you actually do, the work you'd have to put to get there could go from very simple to insanely mentally damaging depending on the person and the objetive, but you can't deny it is possible. I talked about this with my best friend and he says it's not about controlling your emotions but rather managing them. My point is, I agree with him on it all being essentially unreal, and you saying it's "so flipping real" only goes to show how deep into our minds we really are, nobody said it was easy, in fact, quite the opposite, but never impossible, and that, you can be sure is a real thing. Take care!
He's right. Our actual self is always neutral. Emotions are transitory and can be separated from the self like taking off a wet coat. First you think you're wet. Then you realize the coat you're wearing is wet. Then you separate yourself from the coat. It's still wet, but the yourself is actually quite dry and neutral.
This is the best gosh darn channel on youtube, hands down. I watch these videos almost every morning and it just gets me in the correct headspace. I am slowly starting to think like a psychiatrist and it helps me tremendously.
I've given enough. And time and time again, it was thrown back at my face. I genuinely tried to give love and got nothing but ridicule, rejection and hate. Now I have nothing left to give. Except that which was given to me in return
Right, I’m not UNlovable, it’s just that I haven’t been loved for the last 10 years. Which is so obviously different /s Idk feels like pedantically to me, if we had unlimited time on earth, sure, this would be fine. But at a certain point someone will have spent over half their life feeling destitute and alone and they are just supposed to think “oh no, it’s only a feeling, it’s not real and doesn’t have any impact on my actual life”
I get that, but as a super confident successful friend of mine once said, it doesn't mean it won't happen if it hasn't happened yet. It did happen once for me. Found the wrong person but people can and will love you when you're at your best. Harsh but true.
Maybe the thought could be "it's only a feeling, it's not real and therefore doesn't have to have any impact on my life if I so choose." All of our thoughts and feelings and beliefs shape how we perceive things, but if you're aware of that, you can choose to let them do exactly that or try your best to actively minimize their long-term impacts. This does not exclude the possibility of expressing your thoughts, feelings, or beliefs in everyday situations (in this case, with other people), but they do not have to dictate your every waking moment (thinking about how lonely you are). Making that choice is the hardest part, though, and that choice must be made anytime they creep up until hopefully it becomes effortless and habitual. The idea that they aren't real may not be a convincing reason to discard their influence. After all, if they have affected your life so far, then it will likely continue to do so in the future, whether they're real or not. Some other facet of the nature of self vs thoughts/feelings/beliefs might serve as stronger evidence for you to try detaching from them, but that's as much help as anyone (Dr. K included) can provide. The 'what' and 'how' is the personal choice to take the control away from the fleeting thoughts and feelings and bring it back to "you". Even if said thoughts are persistent, repetitive, and thus seemingly a constant stream of endless berating, they are still fleeting. This is all just my personal understanding, of course. Hopefully it helped.
@@199789638 This. And also, to me, there actually IS a pretty big difference between 'unlovable' and 'not loved for a long time. 'Unlovable' is an attribute I assign myself (well not specifically this one in my case but anyway), which predestines me to never being loved at any future time. It's saying stuff will be equally this bad for as long as I am me. Also a pretty harsh value judgement because what the hell has to be wrong with a person for them to be wholly unlovable? So, something is fundamentally and severely wrong with me and it will stay this way always. That's literally as bad as it can possibly be, the single most damning way to look at it. 'Not loved for a long time' has none of that. It's just a statement of fact, and yeah the experience of not being loved feels bad, but you can do stuff to minimize the pain and eventually maybe change your situation. I've often thought I was a worthless waste of the world's best resources, and realizing that thinking it doesn't make it real, weirdly enough, has given me license to still occasionally think it, but not attack myself further for that, and generally let these thoughts be much less devastating. Having had many failures is real (to an extent) but everything else I attach to it, the guilt and the hopelessness, are just that, things I attach to it. Not what happened, but how I feel about what happened. Having the shape of verbal thoughts doesn't make them descriptions of reality. They're expressions of my feelings, and are valuable as such (especially for someone like me who's not always in touch with their emotions), and definitely DO impact my life. But the whole point is that the impact is lessened exactly by realizing that thoughts and feelings should not be given the weight of inescapable fact.
The most insufferable people are the ones who don't know the difference between platonic love and romantic love. Very often, we get advice like "Oh, you're lonely? Just go find some more friends!" as if they can't realize that the holes left by the absence of eros love and philia love are different and often aren't interchangeable.
I feel like you're right. I'm very afraid of ending up without a partner forever and despite me having friends, the feeling of helplessness and dread is still there. I just hope that there is some way to live a relatively fulfilling life without a romantic partner, because i don't really want to believe that dying is the only way out.
@@prismaticpaul Chill. I got my first gf at 25 and I broke up twice in 3 months. Now an ex. She made life hell and made me lose 1 year of college bc I gave all my energy to her and she still called me selfish while giving me 0 love or respect. You can't be in a worse position than this. To have wasted so much of you on the wrong person is 200x worse than loneliness. I am free and happy now.
@@sirprize5191 Stfu "you can't be in a worse position than this". Your little "fling" is a boon, as far as I'm concerned. If that's your version of "hell", you wouldn't last a day in mine.
What I’ve learned recently about human interaction and keeping up with social relationships and connections is that people are very fixated on whatever is in front of them at that certain moment. For example: if your best friend or someone you know that you think would text/call or whatever is out with another group of friends they’re most likely not going to text you or think about you at that moment and I’d most likely do the same. So I’ve learned not to take these things too personally and if you want to keep these social connections active then you try to make yourself more visible to others with confidence/charm or friendliness (easier said than done)
I was thinking about this, because today I visited one of the very few beautiful examples of modern architecture in my area. And in one room they added several details to sort of give an illusion of a round room in what was actually a perfectly square building and room. And all the other rooms were completely full of squares and straight lines. I am not a visual person at all, but even I picked up on this right away and I spent a good part of the day asking myself what the designer might have been trying to convey with that. I thought maybe it's a metaphor for the gap between our minds and reality. Thanks for always making the perfect video at the perfect time.
This is the video I had most hopes for yet got the least from. Me being disregarded by people IS real. What am I supposed to do about it, just focus on my thoughts? That's like saying "if you focus on the physical pain long enough, you'll realise it's just a brain signal", well yea but that doesn't prevent pain from occurring. That doesn't make the pain go away. That just gives me tunnel vision on my own pain, which is worse.
I think this is a rare occurrence where K cannot help, and I appreciate the honesty. Loneliness is a death spiral, the more lonely you are the more lonely you are likely to become. It is sad to see people becoming exponentially more lonely, it is even more sad when they get all motivated and hoped up, and then it doesn't work, and you can see the incredible despair in their eyes, makes me want to cry even saying this. The solution K provides seems more like an avoiding strategy rather than a solution, and it makes sense. Understand your desperate feelings as a neurologist, detach from them personally, and you will ease the frustration.
feel this as well, but I try to put myself in the shoes of people who have to live with worse you know? LIke I try hard to not be lonely but doesn't work and I just have to live with it until it does. But I put into perspective that alot of people have to live with things they can't control, sometimes for even worse things. Makes me a bit stronger when I do that.
The solution could be shrooms for this issue. An issue that cannot be fixed in the mind can be fixed with shrooms because shrooms can fundamentally change how the mind works
It takes energy is exactly why they can't be bothered. Seems simpler to just go to work on your craft within the environment of similar people until friendships organically grow, instead of trying to force a superficial friendship
I agree with this completely. I realized I have hobbies that are mostly single player: reading, podcasts, music, games, exercise (even games/exercise because I like to do them alone). So I needed to find something that I can be passionate about that puts me in proximity to people. Got a dog and poured effort and love into it. It helped since if they are friendly you end up talking to folks on walks, and going to dog parks often you just end up interacting with folks. Even if it is just a single use friendship for that session. It's really helped me improve small talk, and learn to like just shooting the shit with these folks since at minimum they like dogs. I do also think though that a lot of lonely folks (myself included in the past) would get into these scenarios with their main motivation being to meet people to then not be lonely. I think you have to be somewhere genuinely not just seeking friendships/relationships. If they happen to occur while doing the thing you like its a positive on top of a positive. I think subconsciously people can smell when someone is desperate for friendships/relationships and its off putting to actually getting the thing they want.
I genuinely can't remember the last time I tried making friends. I've told this to others but it's hard for me to give affection that feels genuine and it feels odd to receive it too. I can agree that for me it's a matter of mentality and lack of confidence. But it's really hard to fix those when most of my life I've viewed my mentality and low self-esteem as normal. I've accepted it and am okay with it, and that honestly scares me.
Bruh if you're not over 25 I don't want to hear this bullshit wait until you're out of school and see how amplified those feelings are. I fucking hate people
I'm kinda the same way. Sometimes I feel like I'm faking the affection. But often times I get past this by reframing it in the perspective of "I'm trying this affection on for size." It's not going through the motions, it's not putting on a new identity: it's trying on a new shirt. It's the "Gar is an affectionate person with his daughter/friends/family" shirt. :) That way the question of whether it's genuine becomes moot. Like Vulcans, I sometimes don't know what to do with my feelings. It'd be great to have a human friend to feel them for me. But it's OK to try them on for size, I think.
Bloody hell i'm exactly the same. Remember that you are not alone, it seems that people like us are actually way more numers that excepted, but we're all isolated
This is the illusion though, a lot of people going "its me!" - because they think they're the only one who feels this way and everyone is pure joy incarnate
I think this is also a collective societal issue. We live in a very isolated, individualistic society, and covid only amplified that. I think the key is not personalizing it. The collective currently does not value relationships or any sense of community in terms of friendships, unless you get yourself involved in very specific organizations and still it is difficult. This doesn't say a lot about ourselves as people but rather the world around us. It doesn't mean we're unlovable. People just don't want to love and aren't very open to it often.
oh thank god you are talking about this. I personally took this even further. After years of feeling like that I went into a sort of "well maybe i'll just pretend to be disinterested" mode to try to cope. So much of the problem was described to me as "Just focus on yourself, you're too invested in what others think of you", so I made it my mission to become the least engaged, most "whatever" person I possibly could. As you can imagine, this did not work either, because now I was acting standoffish to people I cared about because I thought by not showing interest in them they would start showing interest towards me. Naturally, they just started interpreting this as me not being interested in them, and I just pushed all my friends away and hurt the friends that I actually did have that I didnt think I had when I had these thoughts. I had a therapist suggest that you just need to encourage and tell people what you need in your relationships, but that always felt kind of odd to me. I think hes onto something though.
So a couple years ago, I started talking to a lady from Sweden completely unromantically. It was easy to remove romanticism from it on my end - we lived across the world from each other, she was a decade younger than I and interested in someone more her age who lived closer, and I had a bad dating history that made me gunshy. We talked four or five days a week casually, shared personal stuff, but it was just friends. Then one day she mentioned that when covid wound down, I should come visit and have dinner. It was a pleasant idea, but I'd never left the country and never owned a passport. My mom's family came from Sweden, though, so I figured if it ever happened, I'd be killing three birds with one stone. Got my passport a few months later, then talked to her about it. Rented a hotel room in downtown for myself, started building a little travel itinerary for myself. Made sure to communicate that I wasn't expecting or demanding that she play tour guide. Two days before the trip, she decided to tell me she wasn't comfortable meeting me. I'd done everything I could to minimize that, but still evidently came off as too much of a creep to meet in person. Talk about a gut punch. I basically ghosted, because after years of seeming too intense or creepy to people, and years worth of work, the same result. Caused a huge depressive episode that I never really got out of. I start therapy Tuesday. Man, it's rough.
Have you ever thought that maybe she was the one that believed her feelings were reality? She gave into the thought of “maybe this guy is a creep” so, I’m sorry this happened to you mate and I don’t believe you did anything wrong. We can’t control if other people overthink or not.
@@KingOfNebbishes That sucks, man, and I’m sorry this happened to you. I have a question for you or anyone else that felt like chiming in. Serious question as I’m trying to bridge the gap between my own mentality and what I’m seeing in comments here and trying to find a way to help. On a deep level, what do you think makes you yearn for female companionship? Procreation? Do you feel incomplete without a woman by your side? Do you feel like a girl and especially an attractive girl by your side would kind of “vouch“ for you to society and to your friends/family and show that you’re “worth a crap” or “successful“ or anything like that? I ask because I have always preferred my solitude and have never felt a yearning to have a girl in my life. I did date with relative ease when I was younger and when I actually made half an effort, so I’m wondering if the fact that I already had those experiences “got it out of my system“ in a way. But also, I’ve always been extremely secure in myself. As in, never felt like I had “another half“ out there. That I am a complete person on my own. I grew up in a Russian orphanage and from a young age went through what most people would call “hell on earth“ that made me very resilient and mentally strong. I’ve also never had any part of me that had a care how society/family/friends viewed me if I was married versus not married or dating or anything else. It just doesn’t even enter my mind. But that level of security and confidence in myself seems to “keep people in their place” to where they do not say a word to me about my personal life as I have been told I “own“ anything that I do unapologetically and I suppose there is a psychological component - when we see someone completely confident in what they’re doing, we’re less likely to question them. I’m basically just trying to understand better because I’m hoping with that understanding I could figure out what makes my mentality so different from others, because if I could help others reach the same mentality all I can say is it’s unbelievably freeing. I yearn for nothing. My contentment relies on nothing outside of me. Things like whether or not a woman was in my life, whether or not I had friends, whether or not I even had a roof over my head. In spite of that contentment, I still have worked hard and have achieved career goals that I’m proud of at this point. But the mentality is that I could have it all taken from me tomorrow, and I’m still good. I still have everything - because I have me. Any comments welcome - nice, rude, random thoughts. Anything.
@@j4513 My personal feeling is that a lifelong companion is nothing but a good thing, and brings positivity into my life. If there's any validation imvolved, it's along the lines of "someone cares enough for me to put up with me" without societal pressures.
@Lonnie Harris yeah, people are fickle and two-faced. they might act nice to you in text, but when u offer to hang out OPP sorry im all of a sudden busy and won't schedule a time with you.. for their own convenience or to avoid hurting your feelings. I recommend you cut all ties with that person (which im sure you did). Life isn't worth worrying about people who are scared of you. or who try to avoid you for no reason. I had a person try this with me, (yeah i see what ur doing) and told them not to contact. It helps if you can see this early on so you can spare the shock/surprise later.
I seriously relate to the author of that post, I can try seemingly hundreds of times to try make friends to try make connections, but no one ever seems interested in being connected to me, why can't someone reach out to me, why must I ALWAYS BE THE MOVER, I know I am strong, but I want to be allowed a moment of vulnerability and have someone comfort me, is that so wrong. The only way I go on these day is the fact that I have learnt to accept this nature, if I continued to chase it, it would destroy me and my life, I am forever alone, no one will love me, this world hates me. I hate it but it is the only thing that keeps me going, I do keep trying to connect to people, but only when my energy overflows from my cup and only with that energy do I pursue it, doing it I do not feel strained, I am evolving to stop caring what people think, I mean the idea of asking someone out was absurd in the past, but these days such a unspeakable thing, is sort of open to consideration, because at this point I have nothing to lose, hell even having people ridicule me for being pathetic would be welcomed, because then, then I would have someone, a RIVAL, someone to give my life more meaning than how it feels to be absolutely isolated and alone. I just want a friend, I just want to be a reciever of love, but my strength makes it hard to open up, that and the world seems to hate me, when people just talk about this stuff, i'm just like they are so lucky to even have those problems, I know I am a good person, I love so much and have so many skills and I find myself highly interesting, inspired by Seymour Skinner, I can say no it I am the one who is wrong, it is the world who is wrong, the question is then, can I fix the world?
Is there anyways I can talk or be friends with you if needed? We can do that through Facebook or Twitter if you like. I know that I might not fully understand your pain but I would like to friends with you if possible because you need it. I'm a stranger but at least I love to help you as much I can with my current limitations.
This is one of few times I resonate with video's topic 100%. All of my relationships are on life support, that's such a good way to describe it. No one writes me first, no one reaches out. I gave up. Getting read of "I'm unloveable" thoughts wouldn't help me to find friends. It seems like it couldn't be helped. All I can do is at least try not to feel so shit about myself. I guess it was helpful.
@@tsubatasan thank you! Don't know about how comfortable it is to have conversations in youtube comments but it always nice to see real people and not just bots all the way
I think you just gotta find the right group of people. Hard to find though. I think most people value me for what I provide, but not who I am. It is what it is. I don't worry about trying to make friends anymore.
I feel it's a lack of love in general. Love as in hugging smiling act of kindness that another person is valued and cared about. Now we are behind screens no physical interactions, so much abuse and upbringings without love and connections that leads to isolation. So much pain inflicted on others for self gratification justification just selfishness. Truly we can never be happy can we
As of the time of writing this comment I have been working on myself for 7,5 years, and I have made insane progress that im very proud of, I used to be so introverted that people though I was mute when they first met me and I had no friends, let alone a girlfriend, I used to get explosive nerves whenever I tried talking to someone and thanks to putting myself out of my comfort zone for years I eventually improved my social skills and made friends, but it took an insane amount of time and effort. I somehow became an integral part of a friemd group that was already formed and didnt need another member and for that I am very proud of myself. However, there is one thing that I can't get right no matter how hard I try. All of my friends are men, I have no friends that are women and I have no women near me that i can approach naturally but I can't help but think how good it would feel to have girl friends. I am the type of person who needs a lot of affection to feel fine but you don't get too much of that with the boys. Still, everytime I try to approach a girl at a party or something I get extremeley nervous like i have made zero progress at all and I get an influx of flashbacks of terrible experiences that I have had with girls, I mean, every time that I have tried to flirt its been comically catastrophic and I don't know if its worth the risk trying again, but I desperately want it too. Not in a sexual way, I don't really care about sex anymore but I am in desperate need of affection. At this rate I don't think I will ever be able to talk to girls and after so many years I am exhausted of so many awkward interactions and going out of my comfort zone. I know all I can do is keep practicing but its very discouraging to feel just as emptionally drained as day 1 after so much effort. Sorry for the essay, i had to get this off my chest.
As for the terrible encounters that I have had with girls that make me want to be alone for the rest of my days, I asked 2 people out during highschool, the first one just straight up laughed to my face and the second one got the whole class tu bully me for a couple months so that I would never consider the possibility of going out with her again. I know im no longer in highschool and most people aren't like this but I can't get it out of my head.
Update on my situation if anyone cares, I had a perfect chance to befriend a group of girls from my uni and I fucked it up, hooray for me. At least it wasnt embarassing this time.
@@Shinngin Girls in groups can have really weird dynamics when someone else tries to enter their group (especially a guy), even if everyone’s intentions are good. I would recommend trying to find one girl who has similar interests. Maybe there’s a club or meet up you could go to? Having a common interest or hobby to talk about is so helpful if you’re not used to talking to the opposite gender.
Measuring the progress of life goals is very much demotivating, much like if you swim with your head underwater from one end of a pool to the other, but you can't open your eyes and see how close you are. It's discouraging. Or holding your breath while looking at a timer.
I was at the moment that the video came out, going through a lot of stress relating to this subject. Watching the video and doing the meditation did help a lot with making me feel better and looking more objectively at the situation I'm currently in. It helped my mind realize that things are not as bad as they seemed, quite the opposite actually (in fact I knew this already but my emotions were going wild at the time). Thank you!
I never was a sociable kid and i finish the school having just two persons who i kept comunicating with, one of them migrated from the country and the other one become a bit distant after school despite speaking time to time with him, im tired of being lonely and yet i struggle to get out of it. Im realistic and i know im as lovable as everyone else can be, most of the times the problem is that it's difficult trying to get close to people and finding people who actually you have things in common with, even when you have people here and there in your life you still felling lonely bc actually you don't have anyone who you can share your thoughts openly or actually talk about something you like. Sadly the hard truth is that to get out it takes time and it requires you to care, personally the best thing you can do it's rather work on your insecurities and personal fears first; it will not get you friends immediatelly but it will make you easier to get closer to people and find those who care about you and you easilly
Hey Dr. K, love the content. I've learned a lot of valuable things about myself and relationships because of your videos. I have to say that I'm not at all convinced by this one. I don't feel like anything that you mentioned here actually addresses the problem at a _fundamental_ level. The division between thoughts and reality is completely arbitrary. Thoughts are as real as any sense object, and the same can be said of feelings. Just because they exist only subjectively does not make them not "real". The _real_ mirage here is the word itself "real". As if there is some kind of "out there" and some kind of "in here", and that only one of them is real makes no sense. Either they are both "real", or neither one of them is "real". So you can see how the meaning of the word real is almost comical. If you are going to maintain that thoughts aren't real, then you have to deny the reality or utility of math. It is a pure abstraction of patterns from "real" things... that does not make it "not real". In the same way, social conventions are also not "not real". They definitely produce "real" effects on our behavior. To say that they aren't real seems to me like a cheap cop out to avoid the problem. The question for me is why is the mind producing those feelings and thoughts? As far as I can tell, there is nothing inherently insensible in the kind of feelings OP mentioned. They are a reaction to the circumstances in which he finds himself (I'm assuming its a guy). You can say that the feeling of being "unlovable" is just an idea produced by the mind, but that doesn't address the reality that what OP is worried about is the possibility of this friendless state _continuing into the future_ . There is nothing delusional about that. If I am starving and there is no food around, my mind is going to produce anxieties and negative emotions that relate to this state of deprivation. Those are not "fruits and flowers and leaves that barely have a trunk". As far as I can tell, unless OP is going to become a monk and withdraw from the world of human relations, it does him no good to try to convince himself that his thoughts aren't grounded in reality. They *_are_* grounded in reality - as an abstraction of previous experiences and reactions from other people. The Buddhist answer here for me is a narcotic. A more sophisticated heroin to cope with shitty circumstances.
I think what he was trying to say is that certain thoughts such as "I'm unlovable" can come from an inappropriate anxious reaction to some negative experiences. You experience rejection for a while and eventually your mind extrapolates that every interaction in the future WILL result in rejection, which is not reflective of reality (because how do you know the outcome of a future interaction?) I think the point here is when you experience a catastrophic anxious thought like this, to check back with reality to determine whether that anxious thought is factually accurate. Most of the time it's not, and thus is not worth all the anxious rumination and despair. It's better for your health in this case to simply dismiss the thought and let it pass.
I am with you on this. The eastern perspective doesnt seem right with half of our experience being delusions considering we cant view world objectively so whats the point I wonder what you think about religion and traditional symbolic view on life
I agree. This buddhist "go monk" attitude is just another form of hiding the head in the sand, that does not address a fundamental issue and K attempts to gaslight a person in dire need of being loved, being respected and needed by others into believing his/her "unlovableness" is just a product of his/her own mind. Nope. Lack of attention and warmth from other people is real and has long-lasting and far-going consequences in our materialistic physical world. Thoughts, while however might be subjective, ARE, indeed, very physical in nature. It's electromagnetic signal being sent from one neuron to another.
This reminds me so much of Kobe Bryant’s speech about how the concept of failure does not exist. I never really understood it fully until watching your video. Thank you
What do you do when consistent life experience serves to further feed this belief? It’s hard to convince yourself you’re lovable when every time you’ve given someone the opportunity to, they have dropped the ball
So when I close my eyes and think about what's true and not just a thought, it's that I'm alone. That's real. I have no close friends irl. That's real. Is that unlovability? Not technically, but it's the biggest symptom of it. It's not a tightness in my throat or anything. It's that if I want to go to an event that would be way more fun with a +1, in my physical presence I have nobody with me, and I don't have anyone to ask to be there, despite everyone who's come through my life. To say that none of that is real and doesn't matter doesn't comfort or help me. This feeling of unloveability is my biggest issue right now, I'm glad you made a video on it, I really value your words, I just wish there was something better to be said about it than that it shouldn't bother me.
Bottom line for me personally is I struggle with the same issue. I understand the problem to be one of society. We are way to individualistic in the West compared to other countries. We tell people to pursue your dreams follow your passion; and loneliness is really the end result. Why is loneliness the end result? Because we are constantly telling people to disengage with others over the simplest of difference leading to lose of friendships and lose of general sense of community for one another. Any thoughts ?
Yeah, i think bunch of pseudo intellectuals didn't foreseen that telling pursue your goals , don't care about others, etc we might end up alone. And we mammals aren't meant to be like that. But then we give up on people on such a little thing. I have observed it moving to Europe. So people who are well off(like loving parents, etc) just get to live, while others unfortunates wonder whether they even deserve to exist. I love myself,. But i also like to be belonged. But don't know how
Right after you complete your class in college most people unfriend you. It’s just life is how I see it. You only really meet genuine friends when you start out in school. After that people are merely tools for your success and nothing more.
For the past 31 years on this earth I see endless hemming and hawing over what to do about loneliness. Self improve, do this, do that, etc. etc. It's all so tiring. Some of us never gave up, never stopped trying, strived for greatness and self love, and it was never enough. Those who tell me to keep trying could never measure to the amount of things I have done. Exercise, weight lifting, meditation, socialization, "touching grass", i've done it all. I've been thousands of miles away chasing down a dream, a dream I knew might be doomed but went forth anyways with my chin held high. It did not work. I have been to extreme lengths, I have been to the nth degree, I have tried, and not tried, I have put forth effort, and i have been calm and "let things come". They never do. I can love myself all day but it does nothing to satiate these natural, human desires I have. Could someone ever love me? If not, could I ever rid myself of these feelings? Could I one day magically stop desiring love, intimacy, sex, etc? Why must I deny myself what comes to so many others effortlessly? Why am I the one that has to do this... Everything is an illusion, he's right. Nothing is real. Things like love and acceptance seem so far away and things that were never possible for someone like me. I truly am alone in this world, and I hate it. And i hate being told to cope with it. The only solace I have is that I will die. Knowing that this nightmare will end is all that comforts me at night. When you are dead you no longer feel empty, or alone. You arent subject to anyones opinions. You wont have desires that taunt and torture you on a daily basis. Only death is real.
@@ChurlzVA he is not being negative stop gaslighting him he is saying his experiences and the pain and struggles he is enduring in life alot of us are going through the same and it's literally torture everyday is a nightmare and it's very hard to deal with this because there is no solution
@@Dimitris_Half Then why is this one in particular such a pain in the ass to learn while giving you zero tutorial and being insanely rewarding to the people who learned to play when they were in the fucking kindergarten? Why does the game of life make it so hard to learn the basics to the point where if you haven't learned it by 20, you won't learn it by 60 due to zero opportunity, and it makes no sense continuing? Why is it that unlike a normal fucking game, this bullshit game makes it so that even if you do everything right, you make no mistake, you can (and let's face it, WILL) still lose and just suffer for the entertainment of your surroundings? No, life is not a "game" (meaning a videogame), life is a fucking lottery.
You can make it a game, but its an exhausting one to play. We have to learn to slowly remove that mask and be ok with not being liked. If you pour all your self worth into what other people think, yeah you'll take constant damage to your ego - and who wants to carry on playing that.
Exactly the more extroverted I became the more people I hated. People might go after extroverted bubbly people first but then they get bored and move on to someone whose unattainable and more perfect. It's almost as if you can't win with any personality so just fk people and stay alone
I think the age play a huge role. People tend to get more and more busy with age. Most of my close friends I get during university and PHD school. Now I'm 33 and despite I meet new wonderful people regularly almost none of them become close friend because we can't find time for a proper friend "date" irl for months.
That’s a huge issue I have noticed as well :( I am immensely lucky to have amazing people at work that I was able to develop friendships with. Would have taken me forever to get to the same level of rapport if I had had to meet them outside work. Other than them, I mostly keep to friends I already have, because the lack of time and energy to form new friendships is real.
So I haven't watched the video yet but the more I think about all the relationship and stuff, the more of a headache it looks. Ig being alone isn't that bad afterall.
I don’t care anymore. I don’t care I have no friends. Humans are too exhausting to have to deal with with their frustrating but boring dramas. I just want my pain (existence) to end
@25:20 I felt I was reaching a point where I was so disaccociated from meditating that I was becoming lethargic, stoic, uncaring about a lot of things that were once very sentimental and valuable to me. I cared less about personal relationships and bonds, feeling more isolated and like an object rather than a person. I reached a point where I was regularly lucid dreaming and was just observing "me" lucid dreaming. Like I had become an outside force controlling and observing my every thought in action, conscious or asleep, I was no longer me. I was a "video game player" simply deciding things for me. I became too caught up and involved with observing what I am physically doing and how it makes me feel, I became like a Sim from Sim City, not even The Sims but Sim City, just on autopilot while observing and analyzing what and who I was on autopilot. Outside of feeling like a gamer playing a customized character in a video game, another comparison is... Imagine an alien species had the technology to travel to and observe other lifeforms on other planets. I was just one of the many humans, being studied and watched from afar like a human child may watch an ant in the grass or on the sidewalk. I then reached a point where, despite how stoic and removed I was from my own auto-piloted life, where I tried to return myself to being "normal". To care about and be caught up by the modern daily trivalities that we as humanity created for ourselves. To care as if I were a teenager gossipping in high school again. To feel... involved and connected. I struggled with isolation and forming proper friendships during my developmental years and didn't make actual, genuine friends until college. I found my meditation anf self-awareness only further isolated me from connecting with others emotionally and physically, two things that we as human life desperately need as much as food, water, and shelter from the elements. My meditation led me to see humanity as a sea of isolated individuals who can only know of each other's existence but never properly meet and connect with anyone else. I want to be more grounded where I am just... friends with another person and live life alongside them, without "The Observer" part of me analyzing everything like a gamer trying to utilize their efficiency in leveling up their character in a video game. But it's difficult returning.
@@Zygmuntt Good point but I don't think that this negates what he did to the jews. What I mean is fixing the country's economy and starting a war is one thing. Treating people like cattle is another.
@@FrogEnjoyer17 you are most definitely infinitely more lovable than those assholes. Just not as “mysterious” and “misunderstood” and excitingly notorious. Don’t worry about it. Those women don’t love those monsters for who they are but because they themselves have unhealthy attachment behavior (wanting to be the “savior”, the woman he changes for, and other crap.) That’s not real love.
I never had any kind of love as a child because my single mom was very abusive and violent towards me. I don't know what love is and idk if I'll ever know. People don't care that I even exist unless they need something from me. I am depressed and VERY lonely. I'm 34 and have a lot of mental issues now. Being unloved, unwanted feels very saddening.
This was really powerful thank you so much. You described exactly the issue and how to concretely combat it. And I’m not struggling with feelings of unlovability directly, but I did the same meditative exercise with what was going on in my head and holy cow
I don't agree with what Dr K said. That being unlovable is not a reality and it's just a state/fluctuation of the mind. The person in the post has clearly said that they have been trying to gain friends and relationships for the past several months or possibly years, but they still find themselves alone. IMO there could be many possible issues here: it's possible that the person has a Hollywood-esque perception of what real friendship looks like, or that they feel as if the other side is not putting in the efforts at all (the other side is, but since the OP is so lonely they seem to take that as a sign of barely any interest) etc. There's a lot of things that can be problematic here and meditation is a solution in most of those situations. BUT, assuming that the OP has looked through all these scenarios (especially with the help of therapy) and it's the honest truth that they are unable to find a friend, then that IS NOT a fluctuation of mind. It means there is some genuine issue which the OP cannot figure out. Saying that this is just a state of the mind is completely counterproductive in this situation.
I think the biggest hope is that SO MANY people feel this lonely, friendless, and unlovable and those people would have low enough standards and also have compassion for the other friendless people out there. This means that as long as they met each other they should be able to find a friend in each other. It's almost certainly possible for that friendship to form. Those two people being incompatible as friends seems wildly unlikely.
Yes, its typically because they feel like everyone else is complete - thats why they have friends. Its usually the opposite, its what makes you different that brings you closer
@@stratosphere2323 I disagree. Have you seen introvert and extroverts being friends together? Sure I have seen many friends like that but irl you can get together and be friends with each other even if you both are introvert just your communication style should be different. What does that mean? For example if someone is more likely to talk the other person should be more likely to listen. If someone is more likely to be passive in certain situations then the other should be more assertive in those situations.
I find the problem isn't that you feel unlovable for no reason. It's that you reinforce the belief of unlovability with evidence. I'm 31 years old and have never been loved by anyone outside of my family, so therefore I must be unlovable as conditional love "should" have happened at least once by now. But it hasn't, why is that? it must be my fault? I must be doing something wrong... Now of course, as the good doctor says, that doesn't make it real. And to some extent I think even we ourselves know this as we have conflicting feelings. We assume its our fault but cant come up with any logical explanation as to why it is our fault. I look in the mirror, im not particularly bad looking, nor good looking, just an average joe. I have a decent personality, a good sense of humour. There's no obvious reason as to why I should be unlovable. But it doesn't stop the feeling does it.
Exciting and confident gets the girls. It just works. Doing nofap now to have more energy and motivation, also because I think 1-3 times a day is too much. Gotta get things in balance and reach confidence. Rest is easier
@@sirprize5191 ... I had laugh a bit there with that last comment. But tbf exciting and confidence can also mean an abusive person, charming and social are a few traits for a user. But it seems your intention maybe well placed
It really fucks with your mental when shitty people have multiple close friends and lovers. I mean, why does my shitty personality give people second thoughts? I think people don't like my brand of shit because it'll remind them of all the negative things they don't want to address within themselves. I don't make a good distraction. And no amount of masking will hide that from their subconscious
@@sirprize5191 I think it's a noble goal to shoot for an exciting and confidence-filled life, but I don't know if getting the girls should be the reason you do that. Many people including girls can see through phoniness. An exciting and confident life is to be applauded. Maybe think about what excites you, what makes you feel confident? Then pursue those things. Then people who are drawn to excitement and confidence will be drawn to you.
@@garmisra7841 Yeah it's best to change things stopping one from being confident. People live unaware of how exercise, even walking can change so much. It's important to find the causes and make yourself genuinely confident. I didn't fake either. And yess queen, being wanted by girls is amazing when it happens, and when they chase you instead, and in the whole process you were just becoming a better person and the best version of you anyway. What's there not to like
Feeling loved is a fake thing. The author reminds me of myself 2-3 years ago but I eventually moved on from that type of mindset when I realized that having a friend means finding a common interest and relating to each other. Always being emotional to someone or being deep hoping to feel validated by other people can be emotionally draining to them. I have a friend that I get to talk almost everyday, and the thing that we only talk about are games. Sometimes, we open up about our personal problems but it only happens maybe around 10% of our conversation, then we forget about it and go back to talking about games. She's a long time friend but I don't feel loved by this person the way I expect the feeling of being loved years ago. It doesn't feel anything at all. It just feels normal to me talking to this person. I don't feel lonely, yes, but it also doesn't feel magical or something. I care about her, and I hope she cares about me as well, we just don't say it to each other cause it feels weird lol. I notice the difference of having someone to talk to, even if it is not directly about our thoughts and feelings. My friend becomes less dramatic on social media and so do I.
I don't have any issues making friends. I'm able to project fake confidence, some level of charm, etc. But I don't feel any connection to people, I don't feel anything for anyone. I can be around people 24/7 and still feel empty and alone. I guess to me people feel more like objects in the world as opposed to people with feelings, thoughts, depth, etc. I don't even know where to begin to start to address this problem. At least if your problem is lacking friends, there's concrete, meaningful steps you can make to tackle that problem, such as putting yourself out there in social situations more. But if no matter how much you expose yourself to people, you still feel empty and alone at the end of the day, what can you do? It's like trying to drink water to quench your thirst, only for it to turn into dust inside your mouth with every gulp
i have a similar problem but i can't fake my personality well. i dont come across people that make me feel things even when they happen to like me which is rare anyway. how to get out of head and enjoy the presence of another human?
If you dont have a connection with people, they are not your friends. You might be their friend though. But my idea for you : - keep on trying. You will never find a good relationship without tryi g so its worth the effort. - if you feel nothing towards the people that you engaged with for a certain time, cut contacts. - do this until you find someone with whom you connect. Im no expert, but there is a chance that you will be successful socially eventually
I feel this too! I have a lot of friends but am not particularly close to any of them, and I also have to travel to see them. The lack of intimate friends/relationships throughout my life has put me on this downward spiral
After some research and consideration I think I've been "suffering"(?) from Avoidant personality disorder with Schizoidal tendencies. I don't have a lot of issues interacting with people on a superficial(like small talk in line at the grocery) or professional level. But the very concept more intimate friendships or even deeper into a romantic relationship is...unsettling and unpleasant in the extreme, almost to the point of engendering a physical reaction. I've never really had that kind of friendship with anyone, much less been in a romantic and at 44 this is unlikely to change. But I can see a time, not to far in the future, where my Father, whom I live with, will pass away and I will be utterly alone. And it bothers me.
@@Dimitris_Half You are probably right. It's probably safer to just continue on considering myself fucked up beyond recognition and as such undeserving of the comfort of human contact. Which is unfair and a complete overreaction to what you said. Suffice to say I only use those labels to describe myself and my history rather than some sort of prognosis.
i felt this and i hope things change for the better for them and anyone else in a similar mind set and struggling in life with others who you care about
Older video and assumably buried comment, but truly thank you for this discussion to all involved. I have been in a dark place for the last decade with this issue at the base. Applying these thoughts and practices has helped immensely.
Pleeeease what you said at the very end (about the negative emotions that you can enjoy), please do a video about it! I have no idea why I enjoy (and even prefer!) sadness and melancholy in video games, movies, books etc! I prefer a sad/melancholian endings over happy ones every day of the week! Why is that?? It's something I have thought of but never come to a satisfying conclusion about! Please help!
I tell myself that people got their own minds and their own mouths and their own agency to express themselves. I'm gonna be the best friend I can be and if their perception is that it's undesirable they'll tell me. Give people a chance to express themselves by being yourself.
Deep down, I know that I'm not alone, but it still can be there when you have no one to talk to about the things you want (and I don't mean the day-to-day basis). There's a lot of things that I would say feel "bottled up" that it's best not to even talk at all. I would hate for something for that to happen one day, but sometimes I feel if I hold onto the thought for so long, I may implode and even at the same time explode. The reason why I don't go on this tangent is because, "I don't have time for that pettiness.". To me (and I don't know if this has helped for others), but I kind have these thoughts... split personalities so to say that tells me these sort of things. Couldn't say this is either by ego or having this will to move forward, but I learned that I can't bare to let myself down because at the end of the day negativity is the nastiest kind of mood to ever experience, so I talk to myself (sad it maybe to think about) and don't let it get the best of me. I do hope many don't think they're truly alone, but life has it's turns and you live for a reason, not to be disposed of, but to ask the question, "What's next?".
I generally agree with Dr.K on most things, but I have to disagree with him on his "You're not unlovable, it's all in your mind". Way too many people are indeed "unlovable" in the eyes of the people that matter to them, such as love interests and potential friends. Thus, them being unlovable becomes an objective fact and not something that is all in one's mind. We should either address what makes people unlovable to the people that matter, or teach unlovables to drop these people that matter off this pedestal and help them develop some self-love to cover this irrational need for external validation. Or see it by this analogy: you are selling a product that no one wants to buy. So you have two options: change this product so it will appeal to a larger market, or you direct your marketing efforts to a specific niche that will appreciate the product. EDIT: I beseech you all to look at the replies to this comment for very interesting nuances and very reasonable objections to my argument.
THANK YOU. I feel Dr. K has a way of communicating ideas that sound really deep and profound (he's a great speaker) but what I notice is that some (NOT ALL) of his breakdowns or solutions or whatever, seem very surface level.
If you're interested in what makes people feel unlovable I would suggest looking into any of the interviews dr.k has done with self proclaimed incels. If you're looking for information on how to change yourself from unlovable I think it could start with how you change your limiting beliefs and working on fostering compassion for yourself. I don't think youre analogy is as helpful as you think. Viewing yourself as an object to be bought or sold, changed and commodified, loses sight of human beings being valuable just for being alive. It discards our humanity.
@@pgwrks4149 the reddit question videos do seem surface level. I think that's because you can only extrapolate so much from what the person posted before assuming things about the original reddit poster. If you haven't done it yet, the older interviews dr.k did with viewers sheds more light on specifics because it's a longer form conversation without as many abstracts.
This. Humans DO NOT value other humans anymore. Society is just becoming more & more superficial every year. I just came from one of those redpill videos & they always baffle me. All those "ratings" are based on superficial bs, yet ppl want to whine about that same superficial mentality coming right back to haunt them. Superficial begets superficial. Both men & women are engaging in treating ppl like commodities instead of ppl which simply perpetuates this cycle of using eachother until everyone feels useless.
@@officialgoogleyoutube Unlovable and "practically unlovable" are two different things. Many use the word to mean the latter because you practically cant confirm the former. It's like defining "success" to mean the richest person in the world financially: you can't know if you'll never be that rich, but its most likely in your lifetime that you won't. Under that definition, Unlovable not in your mind but instead an judgement/observation of your reality and your future. In the end, the framing/use of the word isn't what matters: What matters is whether you think you have a chance at being loved at all, regardless of if you're currently loved.
Interesting video. Personally, I don't think I'm unlovable. I don't think anyone is. There's always something to love. But what I struggle with is that despite the fact that I know I'm not unlovable, I can't seem to get the opportunity to show people what's fun about me. Or if I do, they seem to prefer other people. For example, when I sit at one table, and another colleague at a different table, most of them will join the other person. So then instead of sulking I get up and move to the other table and engage in the conversation. Then eventually some have to get back to work and I'm left at the table with one other colleague. I'm excited to continue the conversation, but the colleague just stands up and moves to the other table where some other people sat down earlier. And I'm left alone again. Okay, now that I think about it, maybe they just have a question for someone there, or feel like talking to someone else. But it still makes me feel bad. Why is it I seem to always be the one sitting alone if I don't join someone else? I wish people were just more open about their thinking. Sometimes a colleague says something like: "sorry, I have to get back to work", or "sorry, I want to talk to that person for a sec" it makes me feel so much better.
For me the solution is a two parter - work to accept how deep these feelings of longing go, and work to let go of them, both at the same time and continuously… it’s the only thing that’s both honest and practical, I’ve found. You’ve got to let it go but you also can’t lie to yourself about how deeply you want to connect. And it’s a process, it’s going to take continuous practice, and it’s going to be intense, because these feelings are intense. But keep accepting them, feeling them, and then keep letting them go, letting go of that incredible desire for connection. Only then can you lesson the power it has over you. And only then are people going to start feeling safe around you, because only then will you start to develop control over these powerful forces within you
I guess one counterpoint you could somehow make for the thing he said around 8:30 is that 'unlovable' is another way of saying I don't like the kind of people who'd love me or some variatian of this
I guess it should just be rephrased to "unlovable by people who matter". If a 600lb woman in her fifties who smells of freshly taken shit and cheetos told me she loves me, it wouldn't matter to me at all. Sure, I would be technically lovable, but what's a 21yo 180lb dude got to do with this?
I think gamers in particular are very logical. You've crunched the numbers and the stats predict low to no success rate with love - like your winrate in a competitive game, but when is love ever logical? Especially friendships - often friends can even bond over their worst qualities, two very judgmental people really enjoy judging people together, two really cynical people love hating the world together, two violent friends even always got each others backs in a barfight. For example none of my few friends are particularly positive, i can never get along with very positive people because they never seem to understand my pain. My friends often are ok with looking at the shit things in life and thats when bond the most, because connection only happens through vulnerability, not social skills.
@@microfx Genetics don't determine love. Validation isn't love either. Lifestyle is more in your control - yes you won't find connection being 100% introverted.
@@Balloonbot just saw a Twitterpost today ... it was saying: not trying to hook up ugly fat women is just as bad as rape! Of course it's the same for women. BUT they always have makeup and lots of horny men.
Imo It’s not that we feel unlovable so much as we know we will only ever be loved for what we can/are willing to provide vs being loved for who we are.
this all simulation guys. If you feel down that mean your player sucks at gaming. tommorow is another day. You have goals and things you wanna do in this life. Keep on going
I dont like this particular piece of advice of dr K. It just doesnt seem to help the guy- whose main problem doesnt seem to be 'unlovability' but not getting attention/affection. The author's EXPERIENCE is that he does not get what he wants. That is REALITY. Realizing that it doesnt mean he isnt lovable does not solve anything. Furthermore, i have met many ppl who are less attractive, less natural or less laid back than the average person. They didnt get acceptance or attention from others because of some traits. It seemed very injust but simply stating that they "werent unlovable" wouldnt solve the problem and even wasnt true. Sadly, in some way they were as they lacked the beauty/wits/mental health. Luckily it didnt make their quest for love and friendship hopeless but it did make it A LOT harder. So i wish dr K really addressed that problem cause to me it doesnt seem just a problem of ego.
My best friend in the world invited me over to hang out (rare since we lived kinda far apart) and then had some surprise first boyfriend over too, and they ignored me to flirt the whole time. I confronted her on it later and we ended up in this huge fight - our first fight. I admit I was not in the best place emotionally since me and my mom were homeless at the time and living in a shelter, so the whole thing felt like I'd lost my best friend on top of everything else I'd had to lose, but to this day I wonder if I was justified at all. Well, as karma would have it, my phone promptly ended up falling off the creaky windowsill, right into a cup of water. It short-circuited immediately. So I had 0 way to directly contact her again. I tried email from the library, but she ignored me. Months later when I finally got a new crappy government phone, I texted her apologizing for the bajillionth time and she still was ignoring me. I just felt so completely empty and betrayed and generally un-loved. She was my only friend at the time, since I had stopped going to school. So she finally did text back one day out of the blue, and I immediately latched onto it despite it being quite curt on her end. Maybe I ended up too clingy after that or something (another thing I struggle with wondering if I was justified in or not) but we would specifically make dates to hang out online (we lived even further apart now) and write together or just talk, etc, and she would blow me off almost every single time to go play DnD with her other friends (who I didn't even know, other than that boyfriend I met once, who ended up cheating on her after sleeping with her when they were both 16...) and then get mad at me for getting mad. I asked her point blank if we should even bother trying to be friends again because she didn't seem like she cared enough to make any time for me. I still remember how much her response of "Y'know, maybe we shouldn't" hurt. Even moreso because she just sounded so annoyed and done with me, like I'd been upset for no reason. We *did* keep trying, but eventually things just fell apart when I seemed to be the only one who cared. Years later she invited me to her wedding out of nowhere and said it just felt assholeish not to invite her former best friend. I was too hurt by that relationship to even try anymore, and I told her she deserved better than someone like me who was clingy and moody from mental illness and that she didn't need to invite me out of guilt. Maybe it was unfair, but it was genuinely how I felt. She urged me to come and wanted to send me a wedding invite and all that, but I stopped responding this time. I legit couldn't do it anymore. I feel like I belong on Am I The Asshole? because I'm still so torn on it. I know she had a lot of damage as well - her family was very broken and overall she was treated more like a slave than a child there - but she really left so many permanent scars that keep me from having healthy relationships to this day (I'm not blaming JUST her, I have massive family issues too, plus the poverty trauma). I was so convinced we were close and then it turned out she probably never liked me all that much, or at least didn't value me once she made new friends. Now I have this overwhelming fear that anyone I make friends with is only liking the persona I put on to people-please, and would hate me if they knew the "real" me. I constantly get stuck feeling like I'm a nuisance or too clingy and narrow minded and people are just too polite to tell me. (That same ex-friend had also told me once she'd "learned to tune me out" when I was babbling excitedly about interests, which still remains one of the worst things I've ever been told, just because I didn't expect it from her.) I do feel comfortable with my only current friend to open up and get heavy, but only to a degree before I feel like I'm just burdening her and being annoying again. Sorry for using this as a vent post, but I thought I was over it until I randomly had a breakdown about her last night and regretted letting the friendship die a third time. I keep thinking she's probably different now, and as much pain as she caused, I can't help but miss her. I just needed to get it out, I guess, and this video's subject seemed to line up.
@@elisee9935 Hi, thank you for checking up on me. That's very kind of you. To be honest I have good weeks and bad weeks, and it was a very bad one when I posted that. So at the moment I'm doing okay! Working towards making it so I have more and more good days.
I’ve never felt loved, nor have I ever loved. Yet there’s still the functioning part of my brain that longs for it, so I just end up longing for an unobtainable thing for no reason, and there’s nothing I can do. It’s physically painful, I feel like my mind is rotting from the lack of any feeling.
1. Where's the Alan Watts video? 2. This seems tone deaf to me. For me, feeling unlovable is the fear behind the real problem: Not having someone to hang out with on Saturday nights (or whenever). This is far less of a problem for me than for my wife or for my friend who suffers from bi-polar that just can't seem to get friends. They're generally happy people, but no amount of feeling loveable solves the problem of growing friendships. I'd be much more interested on Dr. K's perspective on how to MAKE good friends than on how to FEEL like I have good friends.
When I was growing up I actually liked difficult emotions. I had those stories about a superhero queen from another planet that was sort of my alter ego and she went thru terrible tragedies and suffering and this was my way of feeling those feelings... trying them out... I often were inspired to try out a scenario when I've seen something in a movie or read in a book. Strangely enough, it was quite enjoyable on some level... I guess I needed that for my childhood. I stopped doing that when I started a relatioship with my long time partner. My household wasn't the best place to grow up emotionally so I guess this was how I tought myself about certain feelings.
I'm so happy for you. I've been emotionally curious about myself since I was young, because I often felt things I couldn't name, usually due to aesthetics, social settings, music, etc.
This world is nothing but a popularity and looks contest. You can be the nicest person in the world, and if some don’t think you have enough of the same type of people surrounding you, they will just keep you at arms length.
Ah, yes, it's all just a feeling. What a beautiful lie. You know, I feel like people who say this just want to make all the lonely people shut up because they don't want to admit this world creates so many people who are so unworthy of anything they can't even fulfill the most basic human function.
Except its really hard to do normal human interaction when there's a massive amount of stress and trauma happening from what the mind is doing. Taking the step Dr K talked about is the first step to learning how to not be unworthy. Quiet the stress, focus on the present, and learning becomes a hell of a lot easier. Is it a magic bullet that will fix things? No. But it is absolutely a useful step to take if you want to change from what you are to who you want to be.
Have you ever been worried about something ever that you look back on and wondered why you thought it was so terrifying, its basically that. The mind attaches meaning to, because its the same for any pain anyones going through, not just specifically those who feel unlovable. Its the same for those who feel too stupid to do their job, or feel they won't ever be good parents, or feel they'll never find purpose or passion. This isn't the only issue in life he's just making stuff up for (all of which is 1000's of years old btw).
I've decided that I don't want to do the chasing anymore. I don't want to do the following up or the "reminder that I exist text" or the first text. I'm done wasting my time trying to build relationships with people who simply don't even have common courtesy anymore. There's a point where I realised that my time is more valuable and that I no longer want to try to bring others in my life only for them to drop off or for it to never flourish and grow. I'll adapt to the loneliness and lack of affection. I'll rely solely on myself and in this journey I'll learn things about myself. I'll become self sufficient and if I never find a special someone so be it. I will find strength and happiness in myself because at the end of the day other people let you down, they hurt you, they abandon you. I'm done making the moves, it's time for others to make the move. If they don't, so be it. I'll take my solitude as a gift.
I feel like I've been gaslighted by Dr.K. Our perception is the only way to learn about reality. If I will devalue my perception and will not trust it I will be fucked up. Imagine crossing a road and not trusting your eyes to see if there is a car or not.
@@baneofbanes that's not his words, but this is (part of) what is behind them imo. This is exactly the problem that he is talking about the other part and doesn't mention dangers.
Chose to not identify, chose to not react and perpetuate lonely thoughts... This is a very specific task and shouldn't upset your whole perception of what's real.
No my life experiences and 40 years of rejection, being ignored by everyone, pushed away, never being needed, tells me I AM unlovable. I try and try and try and it gets me nowhere except more rejection. I should have been an abortion. And that's the gods honest truth. I don't think anyone will be surprised when I finally wear a rope necktie, if they even notice.
Be independent honey, just do to things you love to do. I am my entire life a lone wolf. I take everyday long walks in nature. It makes my mood better.
Okay. Sure. I can acknowledge that the feeling isn't real. But I fail to see how that solves the problem. I still have no friends. Everyone I ever thought might have cared about me never actually did. How can those facts be reconciled?
Because this is the first step to solving the problem. It solves feeling unlovable, it doesnt give you people who love you. But. Once you're not distracted by all the stress and suffering that comes from feeling unlovable? It takes a lot of the pain out of trying. Without the distractions taking up so much mental bandwidth it can be easier to form connections with people and be in the moment where those connections are made. It can get easier to learn and notice what puts people off or what value there is in a decent or mediocre friendship instead of chasing some deep friend-for-life connection. Tl;dr it doesnt change your history, but by tweaking your perception of it you can make your present more bearable and your future more malleable.
Something I have learned, through Mindfulness, meditation, impermanent, is that we do not fix this and it goes away forever. We practice and it gets easier. That's why we practice meditation, mindfulness in the day, etc. The biggest resource in the world to pair with this is compassion. Compassion is infinite and it is for all suffering.
Hi Dr. K and everyone here. I would like to be honest here that YES, our minds are or might be making things up when it 'fluctuates' but in reality even though what we feel with which you've mentioned that it is not a THING and it's just a feeling (not real), but in reality in some of my cases these REAL THINGS a.k.a people/family/friends and maybe my pets outright told me to my face that I am not likeable/loveable because of my nature of being a HSP. How's that? Is that unreal too? It's like a sin to be a HSP to a lot of people and should I force myself to change into what the majority society WANTS? The Standard Criteria to be a Person? Meaning, I cannot be who I am? Of course there are a tiny amount of people that do tell me that I am nice but as I go along, my situation that makes me feel that I suck is the same as the person who posted to you about his problem, he is the one who always have to make the move to text people, to put in more and more effort to make things right but the result is otherwise. I have been purposely left out by a group of so-called BFF some years ago and this has seriously impacted my mind and as a person. It's like a trauma and when you gave us the example of being stood up and we remember the day wrongly, no..... some things are done intentionally by some friends because the fact is, they dislike me for who I am. Back then it was so painful to accept but now, I'm moving on but I have trust issues already. It is very tiring when an unreal mind is already so loaded with crap plus some truths about myself from the mouths of people that I'm close with. So, I personally don't think it's just me and my mind but it takes two to tango. For now, I'm just gonna go with what's right for me and for those who do not like or find me hard to love can just leave. owh! and also, I'm trying meditation as encouraged by you and a few friends of mine. Thank you Dr. K and to the one that reached out to you. Sincerely~ Shar (The Unwanted/Unloved) LoL!!!
The mind itself is real, it's a process manifested by your brain, which you can scientifically measure. If your thoughts and feelings are fluctuations of the mind, it's impossible to get ''rid'' of them, merely deal with them. The nature of a belief is that it isn't true? Your beliefs can be true or untrue. Thing with a belief, you just don't know for sure most of the time.
I think more than anything the thing that draws me to Dr. K's videos is that he seems to get where people are coming from and meets them where they are at. I feel understood so often watching his videos and he's not even talking about my specific circumstance.
so much this. all the posts he picks up are not ones i can just randomly open up to the people around me and expect them to understand
Yes! He humanizes us and validates us for our failures. That's big coming from a doctor, no arrogance I'm better then you,I know more then you attitude. Just legitimate trying to understand and offer input therapy for free!
I recommend you watch his guide to conversation, if you haven't watched it yet. It helped me a lot with my social skills and in becoming someone who can make people feel understood, it's great.
@@misterkite99 can u link provide please?
This is a man who truly cares about the betterment of our society rather than it being a job. He’s providing effective therapy completely absolutely free right now, it may not be direct, but you are right. He makes you feel understood and that’s why it helps.
"Put yourself out there" is one of the most annoying things people say...
I try to and people just end up disliking me very much. That's not paranoia either because people say so.
It doesnt work.
It always makes me want to ask "Where the hell is 'out there'?"
@@kaczok1985 social events that you reject,office parties,birthday parties,clubs,bars,gender reveal (you got the point) that's the basic,if you want advanced then: talking to people you never talk to at your job,at the gym etc
@@vyacheslavperesunko732 I haven't been invited anywhere since 2017.
I have a lot of people around me who were always in relationships, even after a breakup, they would find a new SO within a month or two. They will never understand the struggle of people like me, who are desperate to at least get a hug from someone, who are starved for human interaction and human touch (even nonsexual). Right now I am not even mad if a stranger bumps into me on a bus, because at least I experience touch from another human being.
I build my career, I work out (actually I am a marathon runner), I try to develop myself, eat healthy, all that, but at the end of the day, I would just like to cook someone a dinner, tell them how I missed them and hug them. The loneliness and emptiness that comes from being single for years and years, being crushed after rejection when you thought it was going someone over and over again - it takes toll.
I simply cannot even express my pain anymore, because I know that people would always assume that I'm just pathetic loser and incel crying about not having a gf or sex. But it's not like that.
I began to work as a petsitter - once, for my love for animals, but also just to be able to at least hug a dog after a long day (can't afford my own dog right now).
It's just something that most people will not even grasp, because they have friends, family, kids, wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends, so they just can't imagine how it feels when literally for years no one sincerely hugged or kissed you.
I feel like a disgusting freak that doesn't belong anywhere in this world. I gave up all hope for true love, marriage, kids and all this stuff, I know I'm never getting those. At this point, I would just like a hug to not feel lonely for 10 F-ing seconds.
Yep, it’s an entirely different world for these people
I feel this so much. Like, I made a post on Facebook a few months ago complaining about my touch-starved forever alone status and how people shouldn’t have to be romantically coupled to have physical and emotional support (I’m aroace, for context), and my roomie (who’s been my best friend for 20+ years and is also now coupled) talks to me about it later that day and says how she gets it and that she didn’t know she was a cuddler til a few years ago… then proceeds to gush on about how great it feels when her boyfriend touches her (nonsexually) and cuddles her. Like gee, way to come so close to the point AND THEN JUST COMPLETELY CHICAGO BEARS DOUBLE DOINK IT. And make me feel worse in the process.
Like, I feel I’ll never be worth anything to people because I’m not a romantic prospect, or because I don’t have a romance for people to be all “oooh” excited about. It makes me sometimes not even want to socialize because I know I’ll just be the umpteenth wheel that gets shoved to the fringes of every social group. Even now, the hugs I do get from friends and family are short and feel more like pity hugs because of that Facebook post I made. I don’t think I’ll ever be worth the kind of hug I really want (internalized amatonormativity and all that, that I’m trying to unpack but it’s so hard).
I feel you, man. I love that one girl for 6 years now. She rejected me 5 times in a row and I gave up trying. Started relationship with another woman, with which I spent 5 years of my life. 5 wasted years of no romance, uninspired, cold sex, she even refused to hug me. We broke up without any pain attached to whatever how little we had in common in those 5 wasted years, but then I made 6th attempt to date the girl I had unrequited crush on all these years. It's a catastrophe. It seems like I don't belong in this world. Nothing in it wants me or needs what I give and can give.
try to have a look at which parts of your beliefs are fluctuations and which are realities, imagine if it was a friend saying this, what would you say to them?
@@solarino9603 i can assure you, there is no place for interpretation
Why are you always in my head; these titles be too on point
No you are lovable bro, just be you and make sure you taking everything into perspective.
@@ollytanner951 Thank you man !! You are too! You got great energy
It will get better.
because literally everyone is lonel, depressed and anxious all the time
same, i feel like xy today. Dr. K: *Have you seen my latest video yet?*
While there are the feelings of loneliness and not finding someone to be intimate with. I also find it a struggle to interact with others on a daily basis. This can be going to a job, going out for groceries/necessities. Overall just having to interact with other humans on the road, public, whatever it may be. A very big distaste for the general public. Id go as far as to say developing misanthropic qualities just from bad experiences or expecting the worst in people.
To combat loneliness would be to try and reach out with others, but what if you're just so used to being ignored, mistreated, and so forth, that it impacts you on how you interact with the world and its inhabitants. It's the stuff that makes you not want to go out at all because it just feels better to avoid it altogether.
I agree 100% with you, i'm experiencing the exact same thing. Also i don't agree with everything that dr. K said, i don't think that recognizing that feeling unlovable is not a true statement in the mind makes the possibility of ACTUALLY be unlovable go away. Probably i say this because i encountered people who died completely alone and told me that they've been alone for their entire life. And sure, i didn't know their situation, there could be plenty of things that lead to that that i'm not aware of, but this is enough to show me one thing: the possibility of actually, really be unlovable is there. And it's there for everybody, including me. I'm not having much results with people, and results in my opinion are all that matters in this case, cause i don't really care if there could be some people out there that could love me, if i don't actually meet them before i die it's not really useful. Therefore i think that be unlovable could be a reality for some people. If you're reading this, please don't misunderstand: i'm not saying that there's no hope. I don't want anybody to give away their hope, actully i'd love to see people succeed in their goals and start to spread some positivity. I was just venting a little bit. But don't worry i'm not giving up on my goals either
Hit me like a fucking truck.
every time i start to wonder if i've grown too jaded i get a gigantic reminder that the system i was born into isnt built for people like me and rewards people to actually harm me. also punishes me for wanting to dare to exist without harming others.. and i remember its not me thats jaded. its the system that rewards frauds and cheaters above hard work and honesty
I feel you, but do you think these misanthropic tendencies and disappointment in interaction with people might come from something else? Like it's a defense mechanism of your insecurities? In this case you need to kinda rewire your brain, you need to change how you perceive others' reactions or actions. Are they gonna mistreat you in the other life as well? Are they gonna tell other 7 billion people how "bad" you are? No. Does it matter what a stranger that doesn't know you fully thinks about you? Of course not. If they are willing to be biased and alienate you without fully knowing you, then be willing to not want to know them either and just move on to the next person. The next person should not deserve bad treatment, because you had a bad experience with the previous one, right?
But it is in your power to open up and introduce yourself to others, so they know your full personality.
And you are not obliged to go out there and force yourself to interact with others. Just when an opportunity to interact comes you have to keep in mind that you are not obliged to be liked by everyone. So don't hide yourself from others, be open and sincere, be yourself, introduce yourself to others, and let others introduce themselves to you. And if something doesn't connect, wait for the next opportunity
@@Tracer73866 Yeah it is this, mostly just projection and i know as someone who feels the same. I always feel defensive going out - my body is on high alert ready for an argument or for me to defend myself. We can see people as inherently bad to predict the worst things they can do, which makes us avoid them and despise them. The only time i'm proven wrong is when there IS actually someone who's an arsehole, because it makes you realise the rest of the 99% of people aren't doing what that person just did.
I dont feel satisfied with his answer here, even when I think about it, me having more than my share of an effort in friendships and not getting anything in return is SO FLIPPING REAL. The mental exhaustion and anxiety may just be in my head but the actions which have brought about those feelings are oh so real and there seems to be absolutely nothing change whatever I try to do. How is accepting and understanding my feelings going to help me here, am I just supposed to fix myself and continue "putting myelf out there" making me vulnerable to the same shit all over again?
What i got from the video is that you should stop caring about what you feel when this situations occur, because at the end of thr day you are seeing them as negative.
I think this point of view works for some but is extremely dangerous for most, going this way without proper instruction can lead to absurd niilism which can result in numbness and suicide.
Yeah, same. I appreciate dr.K's input. But this time I felt his views didn't match my experience of those feelings. I have been trying to get rid of or at least cope with feeling unloveable, and yes, I always tell myself that it is just a thought, that it's nothing real, but I just find myself falling into the same vicious cycle over and over. I think the root problem is my experiences during my childhood and teenage years, and meditation didn't help me so far. So yeah, those beliefs ARE grounded in real experiences, and I still remember every hurtful word my parents and those around told me, I still remember how I felt when my best friend ditched me, and it happened more than once. I always get left out every time in social situations despite my best efforts to put myself out there. What makes it even worse is that I'm a hyper-sensitive individual, I pick on the slightest details that signal someone's disinterest in me. So yeah, I know it's real. Call it a bias or something, but dr.K's strategy of reasoning with those experiences/feelings didn't work for me thus far. It's just called avoiding your feelings.
@@The1991102 You managed to use words to explain exactly what I've been going through since the past year. Past experiences make me hyper sensitive to any sign of disinterest or exclusion, making me feel unlovable as a whole. Worst part is, it's a cycle which never seems to end, it's painful and never stops
@@yodaisme7605 I don't know if this will help you but it has helped me with the exact feelings you are describing. If you think of yourself as a train passing through life. When you are blaring your horn putting in a ton of effort to get people to get onboard with you so you can have fun together, find love, ect. I think this often ends up pushing people away because a lot of people detect (even subconsciously) neediness or desperation.
Instead I started thinking of myself as said train going through life, but instead of desperately asking people to get onboard I am pouring myself into my passions and if someone wants to join this ride that I find interesting they better get on. Still a work in process so I won't claim its a panacea for this issue. But, at minimum I've felt a lot better about myself and have built some level of pride I did not have before.
Good luck friend.
I'm not really sure about this one either, but I think what you all are saying basically goes in favor of K's argument here. It's not hard to imagine yourself reacting to things on an entirely different way from how you actually do, the work you'd have to put to get there could go from very simple to insanely mentally damaging depending on the person and the objetive, but you can't deny it is possible. I talked about this with my best friend and he says it's not about controlling your emotions but rather managing them.
My point is, I agree with him on it all being essentially unreal, and you saying it's "so flipping real" only goes to show how deep into our minds we really are, nobody said it was easy, in fact, quite the opposite, but never impossible, and that, you can be sure is a real thing.
Take care!
He's right. Our actual self is always neutral. Emotions are transitory and can be separated from the self like taking off a wet coat. First you think you're wet. Then you realize the coat you're wearing is wet. Then you separate yourself from the coat. It's still wet, but the yourself is actually quite dry and neutral.
This is the best gosh darn channel on youtube, hands down. I watch these videos almost every morning and it just gets me in the correct headspace. I am slowly starting to think like a psychiatrist and it helps me tremendously.
"Whoever gives nothing, has nothing. The greatest misfortune is not to be unloved, but to never give love"- Albert Camus
Eventually the free candy , runs out
That's a fantastic quote; it definitely rings true!
@@sirc1446 camus is talking about dont let the lack of love cloud ur vision and get closed off......... not being a doormat nice guy
I've given enough. And time and time again, it was thrown back at my face. I genuinely tried to give love and got nothing but ridicule, rejection and hate. Now I have nothing left to give. Except that which was given to me in return
I was contemplating ending my shit, I feel so empty inside rn, but thank you so much for this quote, I'ma soldier on. Thank you. 💯 I mean it.
Right, I’m not UNlovable, it’s just that I haven’t been loved for the last 10 years. Which is so obviously different /s
Idk feels like pedantically to me, if we had unlimited time on earth, sure, this would be fine. But at a certain point someone will have spent over half their life feeling destitute and alone and they are just supposed to think “oh no, it’s only a feeling, it’s not real and doesn’t have any impact on my actual life”
I get that, but as a super confident successful friend of mine once said, it doesn't mean it won't happen if it hasn't happened yet. It did happen once for me. Found the wrong person but people can and will love you when you're at your best. Harsh but true.
25:34
This is the exact problem with this video
Maybe the thought could be "it's only a feeling, it's not real and therefore doesn't have to have any impact on my life if I so choose." All of our thoughts and feelings and beliefs shape how we perceive things, but if you're aware of that, you can choose to let them do exactly that or try your best to actively minimize their long-term impacts. This does not exclude the possibility of expressing your thoughts, feelings, or beliefs in everyday situations (in this case, with other people), but they do not have to dictate your every waking moment (thinking about how lonely you are). Making that choice is the hardest part, though, and that choice must be made anytime they creep up until hopefully it becomes effortless and habitual.
The idea that they aren't real may not be a convincing reason to discard their influence. After all, if they have affected your life so far, then it will likely continue to do so in the future, whether they're real or not. Some other facet of the nature of self vs thoughts/feelings/beliefs might serve as stronger evidence for you to try detaching from them, but that's as much help as anyone (Dr. K included) can provide. The 'what' and 'how' is the personal choice to take the control away from the fleeting thoughts and feelings and bring it back to "you". Even if said thoughts are persistent, repetitive, and thus seemingly a constant stream of endless berating, they are still fleeting.
This is all just my personal understanding, of course. Hopefully it helped.
@@199789638 This. And also, to me, there actually IS a pretty big difference between 'unlovable' and 'not loved for a long time. 'Unlovable' is an attribute I assign myself (well not specifically this one in my case but anyway), which predestines me to never being loved at any future time. It's saying stuff will be equally this bad for as long as I am me. Also a pretty harsh value judgement because what the hell has to be wrong with a person for them to be wholly unlovable? So, something is fundamentally and severely wrong with me and it will stay this way always. That's literally as bad as it can possibly be, the single most damning way to look at it.
'Not loved for a long time' has none of that. It's just a statement of fact, and yeah the experience of not being loved feels bad, but you can do stuff to minimize the pain and eventually maybe change your situation.
I've often thought I was a worthless waste of the world's best resources, and realizing that thinking it doesn't make it real, weirdly enough, has given me license to still occasionally think it, but not attack myself further for that, and generally let these thoughts be much less devastating. Having had many failures is real (to an extent) but everything else I attach to it, the guilt and the hopelessness, are just that, things I attach to it. Not what happened, but how I feel about what happened. Having the shape of verbal thoughts doesn't make them descriptions of reality. They're expressions of my feelings, and are valuable as such (especially for someone like me who's not always in touch with their emotions), and definitely DO impact my life. But the whole point is that the impact is lessened exactly by realizing that thoughts and feelings should not be given the weight of inescapable fact.
The most insufferable people are the ones who don't know the difference between platonic love and romantic love. Very often, we get advice like "Oh, you're lonely? Just go find some more friends!" as if they can't realize that the holes left by the absence of eros love and philia love are different and often aren't interchangeable.
Sometimes you can feel lonely even if you have friends or a partner
Im 14 and this is deep
I feel like you're right. I'm very afraid of ending up without a partner forever and despite me having friends, the feeling of helplessness and dread is still there. I just hope that there is some way to live a relatively fulfilling life without a romantic partner, because i don't really want to believe that dying is the only way out.
@@prismaticpaul Chill. I got my first gf at 25 and I broke up twice in 3 months. Now an ex. She made life hell and made me lose 1 year of college bc I gave all my energy to her and she still called me selfish while giving me 0 love or respect. You can't be in a worse position than this. To have wasted so much of you on the wrong person is 200x worse than loneliness. I am free and happy now.
@@sirprize5191 Stfu "you can't be in a worse position than this". Your little "fling" is a boon, as far as I'm concerned. If that's your version of "hell", you wouldn't last a day in mine.
What I’ve learned recently about human interaction and keeping up with social relationships and connections is that people are very fixated on whatever is in front of them at that certain moment.
For example: if your best friend or someone you know that you think would text/call or whatever is out with another group of friends they’re most likely not going to text you or think about you at that moment and I’d most likely do the same.
So I’ve learned not to take these things too personally and if you want to keep these social connections active then you try to make yourself more visible to others with confidence/charm or friendliness (easier said than done)
Great observation, thank you for sharing!
I was thinking about this, because today I visited one of the very few beautiful examples of modern architecture in my area. And in one room they added several details to sort of give an illusion of a round room in what was actually a perfectly square building and room. And all the other rooms were completely full of squares and straight lines.
I am not a visual person at all, but even I picked up on this right away and I spent a good part of the day asking myself what the designer might have been trying to convey with that. I thought maybe it's a metaphor for the gap between our minds and reality. Thanks for always making the perfect video at the perfect time.
This is the video I had most hopes for yet got the least from. Me being disregarded by people IS real. What am I supposed to do about it, just focus on my thoughts? That's like saying "if you focus on the physical pain long enough, you'll realise it's just a brain signal", well yea but that doesn't prevent pain from occurring. That doesn't make the pain go away. That just gives me tunnel vision on my own pain, which is worse.
This video made me feel worse about the problem I didn't really think about previously.
People disregarding you is real but it doesn’t mean you are unlovable.
The problem is not the 'bad feelings' but lack of companionship and multiple failed attempts to get any.
Problem is that we hold ourselves to normal people’s standards. I know I am subhuman so I shouldn’t expect anything more
@@sebp9882 what defies being subhuman oppose to human?
I think this is a rare occurrence where K cannot help, and I appreciate the honesty. Loneliness is a death spiral, the more lonely you are the more lonely you are likely to become. It is sad to see people becoming exponentially more lonely, it is even more sad when they get all motivated and hoped up, and then it doesn't work, and you can see the incredible despair in their eyes, makes me want to cry even saying this.
The solution K provides seems more like an avoiding strategy rather than a solution, and it makes sense. Understand your desperate feelings as a neurologist, detach from them personally, and you will ease the frustration.
@@Dimitris_Half i actually lost brain cells reading this
@@Dimitris_Half If only it was that easy. No one would be talking about this
feel this as well, but I try to put myself in the shoes of people who have to live with worse you know? LIke I try hard to not be lonely but doesn't work and I just have to live with it until it does. But I put into perspective that alot of people have to live with things they can't control, sometimes for even worse things. Makes me a bit stronger when I do that.
The solution could be shrooms for this issue. An issue that cannot be fixed in the mind can be fixed with shrooms because shrooms can fundamentally change how the mind works
@@ethangilbert7305 😐
It takes energy is exactly why they can't be bothered. Seems simpler to just go to work on your craft within the environment of similar people until friendships organically grow, instead of trying to force a superficial friendship
I agree with this completely. I realized I have hobbies that are mostly single player: reading, podcasts, music, games, exercise (even games/exercise because I like to do them alone). So I needed to find something that I can be passionate about that puts me in proximity to people. Got a dog and poured effort and love into it. It helped since if they are friendly you end up talking to folks on walks, and going to dog parks often you just end up interacting with folks. Even if it is just a single use friendship for that session. It's really helped me improve small talk, and learn to like just shooting the shit with these folks since at minimum they like dogs.
I do also think though that a lot of lonely folks (myself included in the past) would get into these scenarios with their main motivation being to meet people to then not be lonely. I think you have to be somewhere genuinely not just seeking friendships/relationships. If they happen to occur while doing the thing you like its a positive on top of a positive. I think subconsciously people can smell when someone is desperate for friendships/relationships and its off putting to actually getting the thing they want.
@@Clearmediumso whats the point
On a roll lately! Thanks for all the quality content
I genuinely can't remember the last time I tried making friends. I've told this to others but it's hard for me to give affection that feels genuine and it feels odd to receive it too.
I can agree that for me it's a matter of mentality and lack of confidence. But it's really hard to fix those when most of my life I've viewed my mentality and low self-esteem as normal. I've accepted it and am okay with it, and that honestly scares me.
Bruh if you're not over 25 I don't want to hear this bullshit wait until you're out of school and see how amplified those feelings are. I fucking hate people
I'm kinda the same way. Sometimes I feel like I'm faking the affection.
But often times I get past this by reframing it in the perspective of "I'm trying this affection on for size." It's not going through the motions, it's not putting on a new identity: it's trying on a new shirt.
It's the "Gar is an affectionate person with his daughter/friends/family" shirt. :)
That way the question of whether it's genuine becomes moot.
Like Vulcans, I sometimes don't know what to do with my feelings. It'd be great to have a human friend to feel them for me. But it's OK to try them on for size, I think.
Bloody hell i'm exactly the same.
Remember that you are not alone, it seems that people like us are actually way more numers that excepted, but we're all isolated
Again he strikes again, this videos come out exactly when I need them at point! It’s like he reads in to my mind
This is the illusion though, a lot of people going "its me!" - because they think they're the only one who feels this way and everyone is pure joy incarnate
I think this is also a collective societal issue. We live in a very isolated, individualistic society, and covid only amplified that. I think the key is not personalizing it. The collective currently does not value relationships or any sense of community in terms of friendships, unless you get yourself involved in very specific organizations and still it is difficult. This doesn't say a lot about ourselves as people but rather the world around us. It doesn't mean we're unlovable. People just don't want to love and aren't very open to it often.
oh thank god you are talking about this.
I personally took this even further. After years of feeling like that I went into a sort of "well maybe i'll just pretend to be disinterested" mode to try to cope. So much of the problem was described to me as "Just focus on yourself, you're too invested in what others think of you", so I made it my mission to become the least engaged, most "whatever" person I possibly could.
As you can imagine, this did not work either, because now I was acting standoffish to people I cared about because I thought by not showing interest in them they would start showing interest towards me. Naturally, they just started interpreting this as me not being interested in them, and I just pushed all my friends away and hurt the friends that I actually did have that I didnt think I had when I had these thoughts.
I had a therapist suggest that you just need to encourage and tell people what you need in your relationships, but that always felt kind of odd to me. I think hes onto something though.
So a couple years ago, I started talking to a lady from Sweden completely unromantically. It was easy to remove romanticism from it on my end - we lived across the world from each other, she was a decade younger than I and interested in someone more her age who lived closer, and I had a bad dating history that made me gunshy. We talked four or five days a week casually, shared personal stuff, but it was just friends.
Then one day she mentioned that when covid wound down, I should come visit and have dinner. It was a pleasant idea, but I'd never left the country and never owned a passport. My mom's family came from Sweden, though, so I figured if it ever happened, I'd be killing three birds with one stone.
Got my passport a few months later, then talked to her about it. Rented a hotel room in downtown for myself, started building a little travel itinerary for myself. Made sure to communicate that I wasn't expecting or demanding that she play tour guide.
Two days before the trip, she decided to tell me she wasn't comfortable meeting me. I'd done everything I could to minimize that, but still evidently came off as too much of a creep to meet in person.
Talk about a gut punch. I basically ghosted, because after years of seeming too intense or creepy to people, and years worth of work, the same result. Caused a huge depressive episode that I never really got out of. I start therapy Tuesday. Man, it's rough.
Have you ever thought that maybe she was the one that believed her feelings were reality? She gave into the thought of “maybe this guy is a creep” so, I’m sorry this happened to you mate and I don’t believe you did anything wrong. We can’t control if other people overthink or not.
@@THEKOTASTER Yeah, I had to remind myself after that that I can't control other people's reactions, only my actions. Still a gut punch tho.
@@KingOfNebbishes That sucks, man, and I’m sorry this happened to you. I have a question for you or anyone else that felt like chiming in.
Serious question as I’m trying to bridge the gap between my own mentality and what I’m seeing in comments here and trying to find a way to help.
On a deep level, what do you think makes you yearn for female companionship? Procreation? Do you feel incomplete without a woman by your side? Do you feel like a girl and especially an attractive girl by your side would kind of “vouch“ for you to society and to your friends/family and show that you’re “worth a crap” or “successful“ or anything like that?
I ask because I have always preferred my solitude and have never felt a yearning to have a girl in my life. I did date with relative ease when I was younger and when I actually made half an effort, so I’m wondering if the fact that I already had those experiences “got it out of my system“ in a way.
But also, I’ve always been extremely secure in myself. As in, never felt like I had “another half“ out there. That I am a complete person on my own. I grew up in a Russian orphanage and from a young age went through what most people would call “hell on earth“ that made me very resilient and mentally strong.
I’ve also never had any part of me that had a care how society/family/friends viewed me if I was married versus not married or dating or anything else. It just doesn’t even enter my mind. But that level of security and confidence in myself seems to “keep people in their place” to where they do not say a word to me about my personal life as I have been told I “own“ anything that I do unapologetically and I suppose there is a psychological component - when we see someone completely confident in what they’re doing, we’re less likely to question them.
I’m basically just trying to understand better because I’m hoping with that understanding I could figure out what makes my mentality so different from others, because if I could help others reach the same mentality all I can say is it’s unbelievably freeing. I yearn for nothing.
My contentment relies on nothing outside of me. Things like whether or not a woman was in my life, whether or not I had friends, whether or not I even had a roof over my head. In spite of that contentment, I still have worked hard and have achieved career goals that I’m proud of at this point. But the mentality is that I could have it all taken from me tomorrow, and I’m still good. I still have everything - because I have me.
Any comments welcome - nice, rude, random thoughts. Anything.
@@j4513 My personal feeling is that a lifelong companion is nothing but a good thing, and brings positivity into my life. If there's any validation imvolved, it's along the lines of "someone cares enough for me to put up with me" without societal pressures.
@Lonnie Harris yeah, people are fickle and two-faced. they might act nice to you in text, but when u offer to hang out OPP sorry im all of a sudden busy and won't schedule a time with you.. for their own convenience or to avoid hurting your feelings. I recommend you cut all ties with that person (which im sure you did). Life isn't worth worrying about people who are scared of you. or who try to avoid you for no reason. I had a person try this with me, (yeah i see what ur doing) and told them not to contact. It helps if you can see this early on so you can spare the shock/surprise later.
I seriously relate to the author of that post, I can try seemingly hundreds of times to try make friends to try make connections, but no one ever seems interested in being connected to me, why can't someone reach out to me, why must I ALWAYS BE THE MOVER, I know I am strong, but I want to be allowed a moment of vulnerability and have someone comfort me, is that so wrong.
The only way I go on these day is the fact that I have learnt to accept this nature, if I continued to chase it, it would destroy me and my life, I am forever alone, no one will love me, this world hates me. I hate it but it is the only thing that keeps me going, I do keep trying to connect to people, but only when my energy overflows from my cup and only with that energy do I pursue it, doing it I do not feel strained, I am evolving to stop caring what people think, I mean the idea of asking someone out was absurd in the past, but these days such a unspeakable thing, is sort of open to consideration, because at this point I have nothing to lose, hell even having people ridicule me for being pathetic would be welcomed, because then, then I would have someone, a RIVAL, someone to give my life more meaning than how it feels to be absolutely isolated and alone.
I just want a friend, I just want to be a reciever of love, but my strength makes it hard to open up, that and the world seems to hate me, when people just talk about this stuff, i'm just like they are so lucky to even have those problems, I know I am a good person, I love so much and have so many skills and I find myself highly interesting, inspired by Seymour Skinner, I can say no it I am the one who is wrong, it is the world who is wrong, the question is then, can I fix the world?
Same! I totally relate to this 🥲
Is there anyways I can talk or be friends with you if needed? We can do that through Facebook or Twitter if you like. I know that I might not fully understand your pain but I would like to friends with you if possible because you need it. I'm a stranger but at least I love to help you as much I can with my current limitations.
@@neronarancia1090 Thank you very much, Pretty much the only social platform I am on is steam as it is where I play games.
I know why no one wants to connect with me is because I am repulsive
@@sebp9882 In body or of mind?
or perhaps even both?
This is one of few times I resonate with video's topic 100%. All of my relationships are on life support, that's such a good way to describe it. No one writes me first, no one reaches out. I gave up. Getting read of "I'm unloveable" thoughts wouldn't help me to find friends. It seems like it couldn't be helped. All I can do is at least try not to feel so shit about myself. I guess it was helpful.
Hey, if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm down! :)
@@tsubatasan thank you! Don't know about how comfortable it is to have conversations in youtube comments but it always nice to see real people and not just bots all the way
Which country are you from?
@@Kareena1988 Belarus. Why?
@@kafkaisnotdead just curious...near Russia?
I think you just gotta find the right group of people. Hard to find though. I think most people value me for what I provide, but not who I am. It is what it is. I don't worry about trying to make friends anymore.
I feel it's a lack of love in general. Love as in hugging smiling act of kindness that another person is valued and cared about. Now we are behind screens no physical interactions, so much abuse and upbringings without love and connections that leads to isolation. So much pain inflicted on others for self gratification justification just selfishness. Truly we can never be happy can we
As of the time of writing this comment I have been working on myself for 7,5 years, and I have made insane progress that im very proud of, I used to be so introverted that people though I was mute when they first met me and I had no friends, let alone a girlfriend, I used to get explosive nerves whenever I tried talking to someone and thanks to putting myself out of my comfort zone for years I eventually improved my social skills and made friends, but it took an insane amount of time and effort. I somehow became an integral part of a friemd group that was already formed and didnt need another member and for that I am very proud of myself.
However, there is one thing that I can't get right no matter how hard I try. All of my friends are men, I have no friends that are women and I have no women near me that i can approach naturally but I can't help but think how good it would feel to have girl friends. I am the type of person who needs a lot of affection to feel fine but you don't get too much of that with the boys. Still, everytime I try to approach a girl at a party or something I get extremeley nervous like i have made zero progress at all and I get an influx of flashbacks of terrible experiences that I have had with girls, I mean, every time that I have tried to flirt its been comically catastrophic and I don't know if its worth the risk trying again, but I desperately want it too. Not in a sexual way, I don't really care about sex anymore but I am in desperate need of affection. At this rate I don't think I will ever be able to talk to girls and after so many years I am exhausted of so many awkward interactions and going out of my comfort zone. I know all I can do is keep practicing but its very discouraging to feel just as emptionally drained as day 1 after so much effort.
Sorry for the essay, i had to get this off my chest.
As for the terrible encounters that I have had with girls that make me want to be alone for the rest of my days, I asked 2 people out during highschool, the first one just straight up laughed to my face and the second one got the whole class tu bully me for a couple months so that I would never consider the possibility of going out with her again.
I know im no longer in highschool and most people aren't like this but I can't get it out of my head.
Update on my situation if anyone cares, I had a perfect chance to befriend a group of girls from my uni and I fucked it up, hooray for me. At least it wasnt embarassing this time.
@@Shinngin Girls in groups can have really weird dynamics when someone else tries to enter their group (especially a guy), even if everyone’s intentions are good. I would recommend trying to find one girl who has similar interests. Maybe there’s a club or meet up you could go to? Having a common interest or hobby to talk about is so helpful if you’re not used to talking to the opposite gender.
Measuring the progress of life goals is very much demotivating, much like if you swim with your head underwater from one end of a pool to the other, but you can't open your eyes and see how close you are. It's discouraging. Or holding your breath while looking at a timer.
I was at the moment that the video came out, going through a lot of stress relating to this subject. Watching the video and doing the meditation did help a lot with making me feel better and looking more objectively at the situation I'm currently in.
It helped my mind realize that things are not as bad as they seemed, quite the opposite actually (in fact I knew this already but my emotions were going wild at the time). Thank you!
Hang in there man we're rooting for you
I never was a sociable kid and i finish the school having just two persons who i kept comunicating with, one of them migrated from the country and the other one become a bit distant after school despite speaking time to time with him, im tired of being lonely and yet i struggle to get out of it.
Im realistic and i know im as lovable as everyone else can be, most of the times the problem is that it's difficult trying to get close to people and finding people who actually you have things in common with, even when you have people here and there in your life you still felling lonely bc actually you don't have anyone who you can share your thoughts openly or actually talk about something you like.
Sadly the hard truth is that to get out it takes time and it requires you to care, personally the best thing you can do it's rather work on your insecurities and personal fears first; it will not get you friends immediatelly but it will make you easier to get closer to people and find those who care about you and you easilly
Hey Dr. K, love the content. I've learned a lot of valuable things about myself and relationships because of your videos.
I have to say that I'm not at all convinced by this one. I don't feel like anything that you mentioned here actually addresses the problem at a _fundamental_ level. The division between thoughts and reality is completely arbitrary. Thoughts are as real as any sense object, and the same can be said of feelings. Just because they exist only subjectively does not make them not "real". The _real_ mirage here is the word itself "real". As if there is some kind of "out there" and some kind of "in here", and that only one of them is real makes no sense. Either they are both "real", or neither one of them is "real". So you can see how the meaning of the word real is almost comical. If you are going to maintain that thoughts aren't real, then you have to deny the reality or utility of math. It is a pure abstraction of patterns from "real" things... that does not make it "not real". In the same way, social conventions are also not "not real". They definitely produce "real" effects on our behavior. To say that they aren't real seems to me like a cheap cop out to avoid the problem.
The question for me is why is the mind producing those feelings and thoughts? As far as I can tell, there is nothing inherently insensible in the kind of feelings OP mentioned. They are a reaction to the circumstances in which he finds himself (I'm assuming its a guy). You can say that the feeling of being "unlovable" is just an idea produced by the mind, but that doesn't address the reality that what OP is worried about is the possibility of this friendless state _continuing into the future_ . There is nothing delusional about that. If I am starving and there is no food around, my mind is going to produce anxieties and negative emotions that relate to this state of deprivation. Those are not "fruits and flowers and leaves that barely have a trunk". As far as I can tell, unless OP is going to become a monk and withdraw from the world of human relations, it does him no good to try to convince himself that his thoughts aren't grounded in reality. They *_are_* grounded in reality - as an abstraction of previous experiences and reactions from other people. The Buddhist answer here for me is a narcotic. A more sophisticated heroin to cope with shitty circumstances.
yep, my thoughts are kinda the same, not convinced
I think what he was trying to say is that certain thoughts such as "I'm unlovable" can come from an inappropriate anxious reaction to some negative experiences. You experience rejection for a while and eventually your mind extrapolates that every interaction in the future WILL result in rejection, which is not reflective of reality (because how do you know the outcome of a future interaction?)
I think the point here is when you experience a catastrophic anxious thought like this, to check back with reality to determine whether that anxious thought is factually accurate. Most of the time it's not, and thus is not worth all the anxious rumination and despair. It's better for your health in this case to simply dismiss the thought and let it pass.
I am with you on this. The eastern perspective doesnt seem right with half of our experience being delusions considering we cant view world objectively so whats the point
I wonder what you think about religion and traditional symbolic view on life
I agree. This buddhist "go monk" attitude is just another form of hiding the head in the sand, that does not address a fundamental issue and K attempts to gaslight a person in dire need of being loved, being respected and needed by others into believing his/her "unlovableness" is just a product of his/her own mind. Nope. Lack of attention and warmth from other people is real and has long-lasting and far-going consequences in our materialistic physical world. Thoughts, while however might be subjective, ARE, indeed, very physical in nature. It's electromagnetic signal being sent from one neuron to another.
This reminds me so much of Kobe Bryant’s speech about how the concept of failure does not exist. I never really understood it fully until watching your video. Thank you
What do you do when consistent life experience serves to further feed this belief? It’s hard to convince yourself you’re lovable when every time you’ve given someone the opportunity to, they have dropped the ball
So when I close my eyes and think about what's true and not just a thought, it's that I'm alone. That's real. I have no close friends irl. That's real. Is that unlovability? Not technically, but it's the biggest symptom of it. It's not a tightness in my throat or anything. It's that if I want to go to an event that would be way more fun with a +1, in my physical presence I have nobody with me, and I don't have anyone to ask to be there, despite everyone who's come through my life. To say that none of that is real and doesn't matter doesn't comfort or help me. This feeling of unloveability is my biggest issue right now, I'm glad you made a video on it, I really value your words, I just wish there was something better to be said about it than that it shouldn't bother me.
Bottom line for me personally is I struggle with the same issue. I understand the problem to be one of society. We are way to individualistic in the West compared to other countries. We tell people to pursue your dreams follow your passion; and loneliness is really the end result. Why is loneliness the end result? Because we are constantly telling people to disengage with others over the simplest of difference leading to lose of friendships and lose of general sense of community for one another. Any thoughts ?
100%.
Yeah, i think bunch of pseudo intellectuals didn't foreseen that telling pursue your goals , don't care about others, etc we might end up alone. And we mammals aren't meant to be like that. But then we give up on people on such a little thing. I have observed it moving to Europe. So people who are well off(like loving parents, etc) just get to live, while others unfortunates wonder whether they even deserve to exist.
I love myself,. But i also like to be belonged. But don't know how
@@rajanlad You are right. Individualism can be good but I think like you said we are seeing the bad side of it more and more.
We don't just need to be individuals, we must find people to be individual with. Thus the importance of communities.
Right after you complete your class in college most people unfriend you. It’s just life is how I see it. You only really meet genuine friends when you start out in school. After that people are merely tools for your success and nothing more.
For the past 31 years on this earth I see endless hemming and hawing over what to do about loneliness. Self improve, do this, do that, etc. etc. It's all so tiring. Some of us never gave up, never stopped trying, strived for greatness and self love, and it was never enough. Those who tell me to keep trying could never measure to the amount of things I have done.
Exercise, weight lifting, meditation, socialization, "touching grass", i've done it all. I've been thousands of miles away chasing down a dream, a dream I knew might be doomed but went forth anyways with my chin held high. It did not work.
I have been to extreme lengths, I have been to the nth degree, I have tried, and not tried, I have put forth effort, and i have been calm and "let things come". They never do.
I can love myself all day but it does nothing to satiate these natural, human desires I have. Could someone ever love me? If not, could I ever rid myself of these feelings? Could I one day magically stop desiring love, intimacy, sex, etc? Why must I deny myself what comes to so many others effortlessly? Why am I the one that has to do this...
Everything is an illusion, he's right. Nothing is real. Things like love and acceptance seem so far away and things that were never possible for someone like me. I truly am alone in this world, and I hate it. And i hate being told to cope with it. The only solace I have is that I will die. Knowing that this nightmare will end is all that comforts me at night. When you are dead you no longer feel empty, or alone. You arent subject to anyones opinions. You wont have desires that taunt and torture you on a daily basis. Only death is real.
Christ dude. No hate hate, but if you come across anyone with the negativity you've shown here, they're going to be pushed away.
Yeah that’s about the response I expect from people with basically nothing to say.
Literally this guy explaining his life, but NO he's being negative. Other people will never understand the struggle. They just don't get it at all.
@@ChurlzVA he is not being negative stop gaslighting him he is saying his experiences and the pain and struggles he is enduring in life alot of us are going through the same and it's literally torture everyday is a nightmare and it's very hard to deal with this because there is no solution
Thank you Dr. K. I recently lost my lover and been hurting. You help tremendously.
The more you work on your social skills, the more you realize it's just a game. The more jaded you become about social interactions.
@@Dimitris_Half Then why is this one in particular such a pain in the ass to learn while giving you zero tutorial and being insanely rewarding to the people who learned to play when they were in the fucking kindergarten? Why does the game of life make it so hard to learn the basics to the point where if you haven't learned it by 20, you won't learn it by 60 due to zero opportunity, and it makes no sense continuing? Why is it that unlike a normal fucking game, this bullshit game makes it so that even if you do everything right, you make no mistake, you can (and let's face it, WILL) still lose and just suffer for the entertainment of your surroundings? No, life is not a "game" (meaning a videogame), life is a fucking lottery.
@@Dimitris_Half you're kidding. No, not everyone "figures it out".
@@quantumvideoscz2052 preach
You can make it a game, but its an exhausting one to play. We have to learn to slowly remove that mask and be ok with not being liked. If you pour all your self worth into what other people think, yeah you'll take constant damage to your ego - and who wants to carry on playing that.
Exactly the more extroverted I became the more people I hated. People might go after extroverted bubbly people first but then they get bored and move on to someone whose unattainable and more perfect. It's almost as if you can't win with any personality so just fk people and stay alone
I think the age play a huge role. People tend to get more and more busy with age. Most of my close friends I get during university and PHD school. Now I'm 33 and despite I meet new wonderful people regularly almost none of them become close friend because we can't find time for a proper friend "date" irl for months.
That’s a huge issue I have noticed as well :( I am immensely lucky to have amazing people at work that I was able to develop friendships with. Would have taken me forever to get to the same level of rapport if I had had to meet them outside work. Other than them, I mostly keep to friends I already have, because the lack of time and energy to form new friendships is real.
You can make a friend while being anxious 💯
My feeling of feeling unloveable is primary rooted in experience..
So I haven't watched the video yet but the more I think about all the relationship and stuff, the more of a headache it looks.
Ig being alone isn't that bad afterall.
Maybe watch the video and see.
Theres a balance, being alone is not bad and being around people you care about is not bad either to want.
Not when you work in an office and your pay and survival are entirely dependent on charisma and popularity.
I don’t care anymore. I don’t care I have no friends. Humans are too exhausting to have to deal with with their frustrating but boring dramas. I just want my pain (existence) to end
@@insertname485 that's painfully true. unfortunately, i lack rizz
@25:20 I felt I was reaching a point where I was so disaccociated from meditating that I was becoming lethargic, stoic, uncaring about a lot of things that were once very sentimental and valuable to me. I cared less about personal relationships and bonds, feeling more isolated and like an object rather than a person. I reached a point where I was regularly lucid dreaming and was just observing "me" lucid dreaming. Like I had become an outside force controlling and observing my every thought in action, conscious or asleep, I was no longer me. I was a "video game player" simply deciding things for me.
I became too caught up and involved with observing what I am physically doing and how it makes me feel, I became like a Sim from Sim City, not even The Sims but Sim City, just on autopilot while observing and analyzing what and who I was on autopilot.
Outside of feeling like a gamer playing a customized character in a video game, another comparison is... Imagine an alien species had the technology to travel to and observe other lifeforms on other planets. I was just one of the many humans, being studied and watched from afar like a human child may watch an ant in the grass or on the sidewalk.
I then reached a point where, despite how stoic and removed I was from my own auto-piloted life, where I tried to return myself to being "normal". To care about and be caught up by the modern daily trivalities that we as humanity created for ourselves. To care as if I were a teenager gossipping in high school again. To feel... involved and connected.
I struggled with isolation and forming proper friendships during my developmental years and didn't make actual, genuine friends until college. I found my meditation anf self-awareness only further isolated me from connecting with others emotionally and physically, two things that we as human life desperately need as much as food, water, and shelter from the elements. My meditation led me to see humanity as a sea of isolated individuals who can only know of each other's existence but never properly meet and connect with anyone else. I want to be more grounded where I am just... friends with another person and live life alongside them, without "The Observer" part of me analyzing everything like a gamer trying to utilize their efficiency in leveling up their character in a video game.
But it's difficult returning.
If you think you're unlovable just remember that even Hitler was loved by someone!
And then face the fact that you are doing worse than him...
That’s a new one, my go to is always women in busloads sending love letters to serial killers and somehow I’m worse than them
@@Zygmuntt Good point but I don't think that this negates what he did to the jews.
What I mean is fixing the country's economy and starting a war is one thing. Treating people like cattle is another.
That relationship was definitely not a healthy one. She attempted suicide at some point if I’m not mistaken (or threatened to).
@@FrogEnjoyer17 you are most definitely infinitely more lovable than those assholes. Just not as “mysterious” and “misunderstood” and excitingly notorious. Don’t worry about it. Those women don’t love those monsters for who they are but because they themselves have unhealthy attachment behavior (wanting to be the “savior”, the woman he changes for, and other crap.) That’s not real love.
@@FrogEnjoyer17 to be fair, you actually DO NOT WANT those women to date you, trust me xD
That thumbnail goes hardddddd
I never had any kind of love as a child because my single mom was very abusive and violent towards me. I don't know what love is and idk if I'll ever know. People don't care that I even exist unless they need something from me. I am depressed and VERY lonely. I'm 34 and have a lot of mental issues now. Being unloved, unwanted feels very saddening.
This was really powerful thank you so much. You described exactly the issue and how to concretely combat it. And I’m not struggling with feelings of unlovability directly, but I did the same meditative exercise with what was going on in my head and holy cow
I don't agree with what Dr K said. That being unlovable is not a reality and it's just a state/fluctuation of the mind. The person in the post has clearly said that they have been trying to gain friends and relationships for the past several months or possibly years, but they still find themselves alone. IMO there could be many possible issues here: it's possible that the person has a Hollywood-esque perception of what real friendship looks like, or that they feel as if the other side is not putting in the efforts at all (the other side is, but since the OP is so lonely they seem to take that as a sign of barely any interest) etc. There's a lot of things that can be problematic here and meditation is a solution in most of those situations.
BUT, assuming that the OP has looked through all these scenarios (especially with the help of therapy) and it's the honest truth that they are unable to find a friend, then that IS NOT a fluctuation of mind. It means there is some genuine issue which the OP cannot figure out. Saying that this is just a state of the mind is completely counterproductive in this situation.
I think the biggest hope is that SO MANY people feel this lonely, friendless, and unlovable and those people would have low enough standards and also have compassion for the other friendless people out there. This means that as long as they met each other they should be able to find a friend in each other. It's almost certainly possible for that friendship to form. Those two people being incompatible as friends seems wildly unlikely.
Yes, its typically because they feel like everyone else is complete - thats why they have friends. Its usually the opposite, its what makes you different that brings you closer
@@stratosphere2323 I disagree. Have you seen introvert and extroverts being friends together? Sure I have seen many friends like that but irl you can get together and be friends with each other even if you both are introvert just your communication style should be different. What does that mean? For example if someone is more likely to talk the other person should be more likely to listen. If someone is more likely to be passive in certain situations then the other should be more assertive in those situations.
Unlikely. Extreme loneliness can make you disinterested in people. Hell, it can make you dislike people. Good luck making friends in that state.
I find the problem isn't that you feel unlovable for no reason. It's that you reinforce the belief of unlovability with evidence. I'm 31 years old and have never been loved by anyone outside of my family, so therefore I must be unlovable as conditional love "should" have happened at least once by now. But it hasn't, why is that? it must be my fault? I must be doing something wrong...
Now of course, as the good doctor says, that doesn't make it real. And to some extent I think even we ourselves know this as we have conflicting feelings. We assume its our fault but cant come up with any logical explanation as to why it is our fault. I look in the mirror, im not particularly bad looking, nor good looking, just an average joe. I have a decent personality, a good sense of humour. There's no obvious reason as to why I should be unlovable. But it doesn't stop the feeling does it.
Exciting and confident gets the girls. It just works. Doing nofap now to have more energy and motivation, also because I think 1-3 times a day is too much. Gotta get things in balance and reach confidence. Rest is easier
@@sirprize5191 ... I had laugh a bit there with that last comment. But tbf exciting and confidence can also mean an abusive person, charming and social are a few traits for a user. But it seems your intention maybe well placed
It really fucks with your mental when shitty people have multiple close friends and lovers. I mean, why does my shitty personality give people second thoughts?
I think people don't like my brand of shit because it'll remind them of all the negative things they don't want to address within themselves. I don't make a good distraction. And no amount of masking will hide that from their subconscious
@@sirprize5191 I think it's a noble goal to shoot for an exciting and confidence-filled life, but I don't know if getting the girls should be the reason you do that. Many people including girls can see through phoniness.
An exciting and confident life is to be applauded. Maybe think about what excites you, what makes you feel confident? Then pursue those things. Then people who are drawn to excitement and confidence will be drawn to you.
@@garmisra7841 Yeah it's best to change things stopping one from being confident. People live unaware of how exercise, even walking can change so much. It's important to find the causes and make yourself genuinely confident. I didn't fake either. And yess queen, being wanted by girls is amazing when it happens, and when they chase you instead, and in the whole process you were just becoming a better person and the best version of you anyway. What's there not to like
Feeling loved is a fake thing. The author reminds me of myself 2-3 years ago but I eventually moved on from that type of mindset when I realized that having a friend means finding a common interest and relating to each other. Always being emotional to someone or being deep hoping to feel validated by other people can be emotionally draining to them. I have a friend that I get to talk almost everyday, and the thing that we only talk about are games. Sometimes, we open up about our personal problems but it only happens maybe around 10% of our conversation, then we forget about it and go back to talking about games. She's a long time friend but I don't feel loved by this person the way I expect the feeling of being loved years ago. It doesn't feel anything at all. It just feels normal to me talking to this person. I don't feel lonely, yes, but it also doesn't feel magical or something. I care about her, and I hope she cares about me as well, we just don't say it to each other cause it feels weird lol. I notice the difference of having someone to talk to, even if it is not directly about our thoughts and feelings. My friend becomes less dramatic on social media and so do I.
The guy: I don't have any friends, how do I fix this?
Dr. K: achieve enlightenment.
I don't have any issues making friends. I'm able to project fake confidence, some level of charm, etc. But I don't feel any connection to people, I don't feel anything for anyone. I can be around people 24/7 and still feel empty and alone. I guess to me people feel more like objects in the world as opposed to people with feelings, thoughts, depth, etc. I don't even know where to begin to start to address this problem. At least if your problem is lacking friends, there's concrete, meaningful steps you can make to tackle that problem, such as putting yourself out there in social situations more. But if no matter how much you expose yourself to people, you still feel empty and alone at the end of the day, what can you do? It's like trying to drink water to quench your thirst, only for it to turn into dust inside your mouth with every gulp
i have a similar problem but i can't fake my personality well. i dont come across people that make me feel things even when they happen to like me which is rare anyway. how to get out of head and enjoy the presence of another human?
@@ginkgoteki The day you answer that question, hit me up
If you dont have a connection with people, they are not your friends. You might be their friend though. But my idea for you :
- keep on trying. You will never find a good relationship without tryi g so its worth the effort.
- if you feel nothing towards the people that you engaged with for a certain time, cut contacts.
- do this until you find someone with whom you connect. Im no expert, but there is a chance that you will be successful socially eventually
@@ghostbluster8900 based
I feel this too! I have a lot of friends but am not particularly close to any of them, and I also have to travel to see them. The lack of intimate friends/relationships throughout my life has put me on this downward spiral
I appreciate how you analyze these things. I can so relate to what you always say its scary.
Thanks for the advice.
You should do a video on agoraphobia, social anxiety and paranoid delusions type things
Hitting in the feels there, dr K.
this helped me so much. i cannot describe it in words.
thank you Dr. K and keep up the great work
After some research and consideration I think I've been "suffering"(?) from Avoidant personality disorder with Schizoidal tendencies. I don't have a lot of issues interacting with people on a superficial(like small talk in line at the grocery) or professional level. But the very concept more intimate friendships or even deeper into a romantic relationship is...unsettling and unpleasant in the extreme, almost to the point of engendering a physical reaction.
I've never really had that kind of friendship with anyone, much less been in a romantic and at 44 this is unlikely to change. But I can see a time, not to far in the future, where my Father, whom I live with, will pass away and I will be utterly alone. And it bothers me.
@@Dimitris_Half You are probably right.
It's probably safer to just continue on considering myself fucked up beyond recognition and as such undeserving of the comfort of human contact.
Which is unfair and a complete overreaction to what you said. Suffice to say I only use those labels to describe myself and my history rather than some sort of prognosis.
This just made things worse for me. :(
i felt this and i hope things change for the better for them and anyone else in a similar mind set and struggling in life with others who you care about
tysm. This goes real hard doc. I've even shed a teardrop.
Older video and assumably buried comment, but truly thank you for this discussion to all involved. I have been in a dark place for the last decade with this issue at the base. Applying these thoughts and practices has helped immensely.
Pleeeease what you said at the very end (about the negative emotions that you can enjoy), please do a video about it! I have no idea why I enjoy (and even prefer!) sadness and melancholy in video games, movies, books etc! I prefer a sad/melancholian endings over happy ones every day of the week! Why is that?? It's something I have thought of but never come to a satisfying conclusion about! Please help!
I tell myself that people got their own minds and their own mouths and their own agency to express themselves. I'm gonna be the best friend I can be and if their perception is that it's undesirable they'll tell me. Give people a chance to express themselves by being yourself.
Deep down, I know that I'm not alone, but it still can be there when you have no one to talk to about the things you want (and I don't mean the day-to-day basis). There's a lot of things that I would say feel "bottled up" that it's best not to even talk at all. I would hate for something for that to happen one day, but sometimes I feel if I hold onto the thought for so long, I may implode and even at the same time explode. The reason why I don't go on this tangent is because, "I don't have time for that pettiness.". To me (and I don't know if this has helped for others), but I kind have these thoughts... split personalities so to say that tells me these sort of things. Couldn't say this is either by ego or having this will to move forward, but I learned that I can't bare to let myself down because at the end of the day negativity is the nastiest kind of mood to ever experience, so I talk to myself (sad it maybe to think about) and don't let it get the best of me. I do hope many don't think they're truly alone, but life has it's turns and you live for a reason, not to be disposed of, but to ask the question, "What's next?".
I generally agree with Dr.K on most things, but I have to disagree with him on his "You're not unlovable, it's all in your mind".
Way too many people are indeed "unlovable" in the eyes of the people that matter to them, such as love interests and potential friends. Thus, them being unlovable becomes an objective fact and not something that is all in one's mind.
We should either address what makes people unlovable to the people that matter, or teach unlovables to drop these people that matter off this pedestal and help them develop some self-love to cover this irrational need for external validation.
Or see it by this analogy: you are selling a product that no one wants to buy. So you have two options: change this product so it will appeal to a larger market, or you direct your marketing efforts to a specific niche that will appreciate the product.
EDIT: I beseech you all to look at the replies to this comment for very interesting nuances and very reasonable objections to my argument.
THANK YOU. I feel Dr. K has a way of communicating ideas that sound really deep and profound (he's a great speaker) but what I notice is that some (NOT ALL) of his breakdowns or solutions or whatever, seem very surface level.
If you're interested in what makes people feel unlovable I would suggest looking into any of the interviews dr.k has done with self proclaimed incels. If you're looking for information on how to change yourself from unlovable I think it could start with how you change your limiting beliefs and working on fostering compassion for yourself.
I don't think youre analogy is as helpful as you think. Viewing yourself as an object to be bought or sold, changed and commodified, loses sight of human beings being valuable just for being alive. It discards our humanity.
@@pgwrks4149 the reddit question videos do seem surface level. I think that's because you can only extrapolate so much from what the person posted before assuming things about the original reddit poster.
If you haven't done it yet, the older interviews dr.k did with viewers sheds more light on specifics because it's a longer form conversation without as many abstracts.
This. Humans DO NOT value other humans anymore. Society is just becoming more & more superficial every year.
I just came from one of those redpill videos & they always baffle me. All those "ratings" are based on superficial bs, yet ppl want to whine about that same superficial mentality coming right back to haunt them. Superficial begets superficial. Both men & women are engaging in treating ppl like commodities instead of ppl which simply perpetuates this cycle of using eachother until everyone feels useless.
@@officialgoogleyoutube Unlovable and "practically unlovable" are two different things. Many use the word to mean the latter because you practically cant confirm the former. It's like defining "success" to mean the richest person in the world financially: you can't know if you'll never be that rich, but its most likely in your lifetime that you won't. Under that definition, Unlovable not in your mind but instead an judgement/observation of your reality and your future. In the end, the framing/use of the word isn't what matters: What matters is whether you think you have a chance at being loved at all, regardless of if you're currently loved.
Interesting video. Personally, I don't think I'm unlovable. I don't think anyone is. There's always something to love. But what I struggle with is that despite the fact that I know I'm not unlovable, I can't seem to get the opportunity to show people what's fun about me. Or if I do, they seem to prefer other people. For example, when I sit at one table, and another colleague at a different table, most of them will join the other person. So then instead of sulking I get up and move to the other table and engage in the conversation. Then eventually some have to get back to work and I'm left at the table with one other colleague. I'm excited to continue the conversation, but the colleague just stands up and moves to the other table where some other people sat down earlier. And I'm left alone again. Okay, now that I think about it, maybe they just have a question for someone there, or feel like talking to someone else. But it still makes me feel bad. Why is it I seem to always be the one sitting alone if I don't join someone else?
I wish people were just more open about their thinking. Sometimes a colleague says something like: "sorry, I have to get back to work", or "sorry, I want to talk to that person for a sec" it makes me feel so much better.
18:34 Start here if you're suffering, helps everytime
For me the solution is a two parter - work to accept how deep these feelings of longing go, and work to let go of them, both at the same time and continuously… it’s the only thing that’s both honest and practical, I’ve found. You’ve got to let it go but you also can’t lie to yourself about how deeply you want to connect. And it’s a process, it’s going to take continuous practice, and it’s going to be intense, because these feelings are intense. But keep accepting them, feeling them, and then keep letting them go, letting go of that incredible desire for connection. Only then can you lesson the power it has over you. And only then are people going to start feeling safe around you, because only then will you start to develop control over these powerful forces within you
Identifying as the self places one above the trivalities of the mind and it's temporary emotions. The self is one step closer to truth
I guess one counterpoint you could somehow make for the thing he said around 8:30 is that 'unlovable' is another way of saying I don't like the kind of people who'd love me or some variatian of this
I guess it should just be rephrased to "unlovable by people who matter". If a 600lb woman in her fifties who smells of freshly taken shit and cheetos told me she loves me, it wouldn't matter to me at all. Sure, I would be technically lovable, but what's a 21yo 180lb dude got to do with this?
literally sobbing, thank you for always understanding and for making these videos 🫶
My issue is the opposite:
I will never love someone
Understandable. I had this feeling
@@wifparanoid If you don’t mind me asking, did you ever overcome the feeling? Or at least get on the road to overcoming it?
Thank you so much for your video, it really helped me !
I think gamers in particular are very logical. You've crunched the numbers and the stats predict low to no success rate with love - like your winrate in a competitive game, but when is love ever logical? Especially friendships - often friends can even bond over their worst qualities, two very judgmental people really enjoy judging people together, two really cynical people love hating the world together, two violent friends even always got each others backs in a barfight. For example none of my few friends are particularly positive, i can never get along with very positive people because they never seem to understand my pain. My friends often are ok with looking at the shit things in life and thats when bond the most, because connection only happens through vulnerability, not social skills.
that's too easy... lots of genetics and lifestyle also comes into play.
@@microfx Genetics don't determine love. Validation isn't love either. Lifestyle is more in your control - yes you won't find connection being 100% introverted.
@@Balloonbot Genetics as in "the big serial killer" that has attributes women like (being protective, handsome). Good genetics are a magnet.
@@microfx What about women with bad "genetics"? Who are they with?
@@Balloonbot just saw a Twitterpost today ... it was saying: not trying to hook up ugly fat women is just as bad as rape!
Of course it's the same for women. BUT they always have makeup and lots of horny men.
Imo It’s not that we feel unlovable so much as we know we will only ever be loved for what we can/are willing to provide vs being loved for who we are.
Very rarely is anyone loved for who they are. some are loved for what they can provide. I am never loved. I am useless
this all simulation guys. If you feel down that mean your player sucks at gaming. tommorow is another day. You have goals and things you wanna do in this life. Keep on going
I dont like this particular piece of advice of dr K. It just doesnt seem to help the guy- whose main problem doesnt seem to be 'unlovability' but not getting attention/affection. The author's EXPERIENCE is that he does not get what he wants. That is REALITY. Realizing that it doesnt mean he isnt lovable does not solve anything. Furthermore, i have met many ppl who are less attractive, less natural or less laid back than the average person. They didnt get acceptance or attention from others because of some traits. It seemed very injust but simply stating that they "werent unlovable" wouldnt solve the problem and even wasnt true. Sadly, in some way they were as they lacked the beauty/wits/mental health. Luckily it didnt make their quest for love and friendship hopeless but it did make it A LOT harder. So i wish dr K really addressed that problem cause to me it doesnt seem just a problem of ego.
My best friend in the world invited me over to hang out (rare since we lived kinda far apart) and then had some surprise first boyfriend over too, and they ignored me to flirt the whole time. I confronted her on it later and we ended up in this huge fight - our first fight. I admit I was not in the best place emotionally since me and my mom were homeless at the time and living in a shelter, so the whole thing felt like I'd lost my best friend on top of everything else I'd had to lose, but to this day I wonder if I was justified at all. Well, as karma would have it, my phone promptly ended up falling off the creaky windowsill, right into a cup of water. It short-circuited immediately. So I had 0 way to directly contact her again. I tried email from the library, but she ignored me. Months later when I finally got a new crappy government phone, I texted her apologizing for the bajillionth time and she still was ignoring me. I just felt so completely empty and betrayed and generally un-loved. She was my only friend at the time, since I had stopped going to school.
So she finally did text back one day out of the blue, and I immediately latched onto it despite it being quite curt on her end. Maybe I ended up too clingy after that or something (another thing I struggle with wondering if I was justified in or not) but we would specifically make dates to hang out online (we lived even further apart now) and write together or just talk, etc, and she would blow me off almost every single time to go play DnD with her other friends (who I didn't even know, other than that boyfriend I met once, who ended up cheating on her after sleeping with her when they were both 16...) and then get mad at me for getting mad. I asked her point blank if we should even bother trying to be friends again because she didn't seem like she cared enough to make any time for me. I still remember how much her response of "Y'know, maybe we shouldn't" hurt. Even moreso because she just sounded so annoyed and done with me, like I'd been upset for no reason. We *did* keep trying, but eventually things just fell apart when I seemed to be the only one who cared. Years later she invited me to her wedding out of nowhere and said it just felt assholeish not to invite her former best friend. I was too hurt by that relationship to even try anymore, and I told her she deserved better than someone like me who was clingy and moody from mental illness and that she didn't need to invite me out of guilt. Maybe it was unfair, but it was genuinely how I felt. She urged me to come and wanted to send me a wedding invite and all that, but I stopped responding this time. I legit couldn't do it anymore.
I feel like I belong on Am I The Asshole? because I'm still so torn on it. I know she had a lot of damage as well - her family was very broken and overall she was treated more like a slave than a child there - but she really left so many permanent scars that keep me from having healthy relationships to this day (I'm not blaming JUST her, I have massive family issues too, plus the poverty trauma). I was so convinced we were close and then it turned out she probably never liked me all that much, or at least didn't value me once she made new friends. Now I have this overwhelming fear that anyone I make friends with is only liking the persona I put on to people-please, and would hate me if they knew the "real" me. I constantly get stuck feeling like I'm a nuisance or too clingy and narrow minded and people are just too polite to tell me. (That same ex-friend had also told me once she'd "learned to tune me out" when I was babbling excitedly about interests, which still remains one of the worst things I've ever been told, just because I didn't expect it from her.) I do feel comfortable with my only current friend to open up and get heavy, but only to a degree before I feel like I'm just burdening her and being annoying again.
Sorry for using this as a vent post, but I thought I was over it until I randomly had a breakdown about her last night and regretted letting the friendship die a third time. I keep thinking she's probably different now, and as much pain as she caused, I can't help but miss her. I just needed to get it out, I guess, and this video's subject seemed to line up.
You have no idea how much I relate to you rn
@@xeixi3789 I'm really sorry to hear that. I hope we can both start to heal soon.
I hope you were able to process this eventually. It's been 10 months since your comment, how are you feeling?
@@elisee9935 Hi, thank you for checking up on me. That's very kind of you. To be honest I have good weeks and bad weeks, and it was a very bad one when I posted that. So at the moment I'm doing okay! Working towards making it so I have more and more good days.
"Thoughts aren't real" - This is a thought, too.
I’ve never felt loved, nor have I ever loved. Yet there’s still the functioning part of my brain that longs for it, so I just end up longing for an unobtainable thing for no reason, and there’s nothing I can do. It’s physically painful, I feel like my mind is rotting from the lack of any feeling.
This 100x
1. Where's the Alan Watts video?
2. This seems tone deaf to me. For me, feeling unlovable is the fear behind the real problem: Not having someone to hang out with on Saturday nights (or whenever). This is far less of a problem for me than for my wife or for my friend who suffers from bi-polar that just can't seem to get friends. They're generally happy people, but no amount of feeling loveable solves the problem of growing friendships. I'd be much more interested on Dr. K's perspective on how to MAKE good friends than on how to FEEL like I have good friends.
I'm ashamed that I clicked on this so fast the notification bugged the YT app.
When I was growing up I actually liked difficult emotions. I had those stories about a superhero queen from another planet that was sort of my alter ego and she went thru terrible tragedies and suffering and this was my way of feeling those feelings... trying them out... I often were inspired to try out a scenario when I've seen something in a movie or read in a book. Strangely enough, it was quite enjoyable on some level... I guess I needed that for my childhood. I stopped doing that when I started a relatioship with my long time partner. My household wasn't the best place to grow up emotionally so I guess this was how I tought myself about certain feelings.
I'm so happy for you. I've been emotionally curious about myself since I was young, because I often felt things I couldn't name, usually due to aesthetics, social settings, music, etc.
I am now picturing Andre the Giant-all 520 Lbs. of him-fruitlessly hiding behind a telephone pole while wearing a detective hat and trench coat.
This world is nothing but a popularity and looks contest. You can be the nicest person in the world, and if some don’t think you have enough of the same type of people surrounding you, they will just keep you at arms length.
Ah, yes, it's all just a feeling. What a beautiful lie. You know, I feel like people who say this just want to make all the lonely people shut up because they don't want to admit this world creates so many people who are so unworthy of anything they can't even fulfill the most basic human function.
Except its really hard to do normal human interaction when there's a massive amount of stress and trauma happening from what the mind is doing. Taking the step Dr K talked about is the first step to learning how to not be unworthy. Quiet the stress, focus on the present, and learning becomes a hell of a lot easier. Is it a magic bullet that will fix things? No. But it is absolutely a useful step to take if you want to change from what you are to who you want to be.
Have you ever been worried about something ever that you look back on and wondered why you thought it was so terrifying, its basically that. The mind attaches meaning to, because its the same for any pain anyones going through, not just specifically those who feel unlovable. Its the same for those who feel too stupid to do their job, or feel they won't ever be good parents, or feel they'll never find purpose or passion. This isn't the only issue in life he's just making stuff up for (all of which is 1000's of years old btw).
The majority of people in this world have friends, lovers, and families. Loners are in the minority. It's not really a societal issue.
I've decided that I don't want to do the chasing anymore. I don't want to do the following up or the "reminder that I exist text" or the first text. I'm done wasting my time trying to build relationships with people who simply don't even have common courtesy anymore.
There's a point where I realised that my time is more valuable and that I no longer want to try to bring others in my life only for them to drop off or for it to never flourish and grow. I'll adapt to the loneliness and lack of affection. I'll rely solely on myself and in this journey I'll learn things about myself. I'll become self sufficient and if I never find a special someone so be it.
I will find strength and happiness in myself because at the end of the day other people let you down, they hurt you, they abandon you. I'm done making the moves, it's time for others to make the move. If they don't, so be it. I'll take my solitude as a gift.
So this is a video about distinguishing between beliefs and reality. Nice work.
I feel like I've been gaslighted by Dr.K.
Our perception is the only way to learn about reality. If I will devalue my perception and will not trust it I will be fucked up. Imagine crossing a road and not trusting your eyes to see if there is a car or not.
That’s obviously not what he’s saying and you know it.
@@baneofbanes that's not his words, but this is (part of) what is behind them imo. This is exactly the problem that he is talking about the other part and doesn't mention dangers.
Chose to not identify, chose to not react and perpetuate lonely thoughts... This is a very specific task and shouldn't upset your whole perception of what's real.
@@DavedtheWay I have no idea what you are talking about, dude :)
But I'm not talking about task, I'm talking about DrK words.
@@alanklm Basically don't take your thoughts so seriously.
i dont even want friends at this point, i just want to go to place where there are people my age.
Wow. That's what I needed
No my life experiences and 40 years of rejection, being ignored by everyone, pushed away, never being needed, tells me I AM unlovable. I try and try and try and it gets me nowhere except more rejection. I should have been an abortion. And that's the gods honest truth. I don't think anyone will be surprised when I finally wear a rope necktie, if they even notice.
Be independent honey, just do to things you love to do. I am my entire life a lone wolf. I take everyday long walks in nature. It makes my mood better.
I’m so sorry no one deserves that.
Okay. Sure. I can acknowledge that the feeling isn't real. But I fail to see how that solves the problem.
I still have no friends. Everyone I ever thought might have cared about me never actually did. How can those facts be reconciled?
Because this is the first step to solving the problem. It solves feeling unlovable, it doesnt give you people who love you.
But. Once you're not distracted by all the stress and suffering that comes from feeling unlovable? It takes a lot of the pain out of trying. Without the distractions taking up so much mental bandwidth it can be easier to form connections with people and be in the moment where those connections are made. It can get easier to learn and notice what puts people off or what value there is in a decent or mediocre friendship instead of chasing some deep friend-for-life connection.
Tl;dr it doesnt change your history, but by tweaking your perception of it you can make your present more bearable and your future more malleable.
Something I have learned, through Mindfulness, meditation, impermanent, is that we do not fix this and it goes away forever. We practice and it gets easier. That's why we practice meditation, mindfulness in the day, etc. The biggest resource in the world to pair with this is compassion. Compassion is infinite and it is for all suffering.
I needed this today thank you.
Hi Dr. K and everyone here. I would like to be honest here that YES, our minds are or might be making things up when it 'fluctuates' but in reality even though what we feel with which you've mentioned that it is not a THING and it's just a feeling (not real), but in reality in some of my cases these REAL THINGS a.k.a people/family/friends and maybe my pets outright told me to my face that I am not likeable/loveable because of my nature of being a HSP. How's that? Is that unreal too? It's like a sin to be a HSP to a lot of people and should I force myself to change into what the majority society WANTS? The Standard Criteria to be a Person? Meaning, I cannot be who I am? Of course there are a tiny amount of people that do tell me that I am nice but as I go along, my situation that makes me feel that I suck is the same as the person who posted to you about his problem, he is the one who always have to make the move to text people, to put in more and more effort to make things right but the result is otherwise. I have been purposely left out by a group of so-called BFF some years ago and this has seriously impacted my mind and as a person. It's like a trauma and when you gave us the example of being stood up and we remember the day wrongly, no..... some things are done intentionally by some friends because the fact is, they dislike me for who I am. Back then it was so painful to accept but now, I'm moving on but I have trust issues already. It is very tiring when an unreal mind is already so loaded with crap plus some truths about myself from the mouths of people that I'm close with. So, I personally don't think it's just me and my mind but it takes two to tango. For now, I'm just gonna go with what's right for me and for those who do not like or find me hard to love can just leave. owh! and also, I'm trying meditation as encouraged by you and a few friends of mine. Thank you Dr. K and to the one that reached out to you. Sincerely~ Shar (The Unwanted/Unloved) LoL!!!
This was exactly where I was at for legit three years. Really sucked man, I hope your video helps people that were in my position
what did change?
@@nekokna Eventually I became kind of okay with being alone, that and recently I got into a relationship.
@@dodsbringaren3698wow
The mind itself is real, it's a process manifested by your brain, which you can scientifically measure.
If your thoughts and feelings are fluctuations of the mind, it's impossible to get ''rid'' of them, merely deal with them.
The nature of a belief is that it isn't true? Your beliefs can be true or untrue. Thing with a belief, you just don't know for sure most of the time.
How about no one will ever love me because I can’t be vulnerable and trust people ?