My childhood was a life of constant transition. Despite my outgoing personality, we moved often, so I had few acquaintances and no lasting friends. Critically, I rarely saw my father, a socially, athletically, intellectually, financially successful man whose affirmation and guidance I would have benefitted from. With no friends and no dad I was adrift.
In my teens I began to idealize romantic companionship, but my emotional neediness drove away anyone I was interested in. This feedback loop (loneliness causing antisocial behavior, reinforcing loneliness) needed to be broken.
The turn around in my life was coming to faith in Jesus in college. I started consistently attending a campus Bible study, and made several lifelong friends, and many more positive relationships. With an active, relationship oriented community, I no longer craved romantic validation, so my disposition to women gradually shifted from neediness to cordially but confidently focusing on other things. It took a few years for this dynamic to mature in me, but by the time I was a college senior, several women around me started expressing interest in me — something I’d never experienced before. A couple of them were not my type, but one in particular turned out to be a generous, agreeable woman with a kind family, who was also quite gorgeous, someone my younger self never could have attracted. I married her, and now I get to be the father that I never had to our children.
Reading your post reminds me of the ache I felt as a young man. But I think that if you find your purpose, you can find your people. And while you never fully “arrive” there is a peace you get just from journeying in the right direction.