Have you gone through a period in your life (after your teenage years) where you wanted to abstain from sex?

Yes... too much bullshit goes along with it, and it's just not worth it to me at this time. I had a lot of random hookups in my mid 20's. Since then. I was in a few slightly LT (2+ year) relationships that have always ended with similar circumstances; long term incompatibility.

In the past few years, I've also seemingly morphed major depressive disorder into an anxiety disorder (so we have this much in common), and anxiety seems way better than MDD to me, so I've got that going for me. I've spent a lot of time on working on and bettering myself; by myself.

I did the OkCupid thing for a bit, because I know that I'd like to be in a relationship and that I don't want to die alone, but the women in my area that I had any attraction towards all started to seem like slight variations of the same person to me, and the long-term childfree women I have either been not attracted to, or dated once and hated. I got the feeling like I was on OkCupid too much and that I was maybe giving off a "creepy-vibe" because I'd look through a lot of profiles on a regular basis, and barely send out any messages... then would forget that I looked at this person the day before, and would read the profile and think to myself, "Oh right, that's why I didn't message her..." After I while, I started hiding profiles from myself that I had no interest in based on my initial impressions, and the options seemingly dwindled away to nothing.

I've been celibate and not looking for about 16 months. I may try again once I turn 32 in a few months, but I think that some time needs to pass before I get back on a dating site, I'm tired of the same people that I've had no interest for and talking to people in public is sometimes very difficult for me due to the anxiety - even though I force myself to do it on a friendly basis every now and then just to make sure that I don't wither away into a complete social recluse.

/r/AskMen Thread