I feel like I’m never going to get a girlfriend. That thought follows me everywhere — in the morning when I look in the mirror, at night when I’m scrolling through my phone alone, and in every quiet moment in between. The worst part isn’t even the loneliness itself. It’s the reason behind it. I don’t have relationship experience. Not even close. And at 20 years old, that feels like a kind of failure I don’t know how to explain to people.
I hate myself. I know that’s a heavy thing to say, but it’s the truth. I wish I wasn’t so ugly. I wish I could just be someone a woman would look at and feel something for — anything. I just want someone to want me back. That’s it. That’s the whole dream. Not fame, not money, not anything complicated. Just someone to look at me the way I look at them. But that simple thing feels completely out of reach, and I’m so tired. Tired of hoping. Tired of trying. Tired of feeling lonely all the time like there’s a wall of glass between me and the rest of the world.
I’m 20, but I look way too young for my age. People have mistaken me for a high schooler before, and every time it happens, a little piece of my confidence chips away. I feel like no woman will take me seriously because of it — like before I even open my mouth, I’ve already lost. And the dating apps don’t help. I’ve tried them all. Swiping until my thumb goes numb, putting together a profile that I thought looked decent, waiting for something — anything — to come back. But the likes never come. The matches never happen. I stare at the empty inbox and wonder what it is about me that makes me so easy to pass over.
So I tried something different. I decided to put myself out there in real life — cold approaching. In public, at the grocery store, at the mall, even at work. I’d see a girl I liked and talk myself into walking over, heart hammering the whole way. Sometimes I’d manage to get a conversation going. Sometimes I’d even think it was going well. But it always ends the same way. Just friends. They only ever see me as a friend. And when I try to push past that — when I try to show that I want something more — there’s this look. This polite, awkward, distant look. Like I’ve said something wrong just by existing and wanting something.
Lately though, it’s gotten worse. It’s not just rejection anymore — it’s the way it’s happening. There’s a girl I liked recently, someone I worked up the nerve to say something real to. Her response stopped me cold. She looked at me and said, “Why would I date you? There are better looking guys in here.” Just like that. No softening it, no kindness. Like I wasn’t even worth a gentle letdown. I stood there and didn’t know what to do with myself. Part of me wanted to disappear on the spot. Part of me had already known it was coming.
I’d had a feeling for a while that looks were the real reason. That no amount of confidence or conversation or effort was going to fix what I was working with. And it wasn’t just strangers confirming it — it was my own friend. One of the people who was supposed to be in my corner. He makes jokes about it regularly. Tells me I’m ugly, laughs it off like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t land somewhere deep every single time. He tells me not to waste my time approaching attractive women because I’m just going to get rejected. And the brutal thing — the thing I hate admitting — is that he’s not exactly wrong. Every time I try, it seems like the outcome is already decided. She has a boyfriend. She’s not interested. She doesn’t look up from her phone. She gives me the polite smile and turns away.
I know I’m supposed to say that looks aren’t everything. I know I’m supposed to believe that the right person will see past all of it. But right now, standing in the middle of all this rejection, all this loneliness, all these moments of being made to feel like I’m less than — it’s hard to hold onto that. It’s hard to believe it. I’m just a 20-year-old kid who wants to be wanted, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep walking into walls before I stop trying altogether.