False Measure

I've just realised that I shackled myself when a young man by trying and failing to live up to an imaginary and impossible ideal of what I had to be to have a chance with women, rather than looking at the other young men, young couples around me, and realising that I was no worse and often better than those men. But I judged myself very poorly against the impossible ideal in my head, a standard neither I nor probably any man could ever have met, and which was so far above me I was disheartened even by thinking about.

The sad thing is that these insights win me back not one second of the time I've lost, not one single chance I let slip by. I'm still right here, while those other young men, and those young women have moved far, far ahead and are now middle aged people with life lived and expectations of a partner much greater.