A lot of my friends and people who just met me assume I'm really well assembled in the head. But for real, on paper you wouldn't be wrong to assume so: high education, successful career, financially stable, lot of hobbies, interests, on the social side of things people said I am handsome, humorous, charismatic, very upbeat, always smiling and cracking jokes. I am often the life of the party, I like helping people and generally enjoy a large friend circle with a healthy social life HOWEVER...

I'm struggling with depression and social anxiety with regards to romance. I can talk to a girl, any girl whenever I so desire but I cannot show or display any amount of attraction out of fear of ridicule (I seem to handle rejection just fine, but I am horrified of being ridiculed because of my past experiences). I see myself as very uninteresting and unattractive as a partner and from the get-go I just assume that women are not interested in me. I need a woman to show like an obviously large amount of interest for me to do anything about it. When I go on a date I usually can't even say it's a date and often end up reverting to my standard behaviour, being friendly and upbeat so often times girls think I just called them for a friendly round of drinks (I do this not to seem like a weirdo and to avoid ridicule). Then when nothing substantial happens I have this great amount of self-hatred and guilt for chickening out. To put things into perspective let's say of the 20 odd girls I call for drinks I maybe have courage to do something with maybe 1, and often it's because she is showing an obvious interest that I can't explain away as something else in my head. This lack of courage poisons my mental state and has pushed me into a depression.