I'm soon to turn 20 and I've never had any relationships at all, and only one brief kiss - through a combination of my own incompetence and immaturity as a young boy, sick jokes being played on me, serious mental illness that really fucked with my head, verbal abuse from my own family, a general disengagement from others around me (to include talking to girls), getting catfished, getting abused by the university through malicious administration, etc.

So I don't look for women trying to talk to me, and to be honest, I shun it. In my mind it's a sick fucking joke being played on me, or someone trying to spy on me and get dirt on me, somehow. The best I can do is to not give them any indication that I'm even remotely interested, because that's the only way I know how to avoid getting burned constantly. I can fantasize all I want, but the moment I ever step "out of line", I'm going to get burned.

When you're rail thin and tall, and your former strength has atrophied from injuries and quite literal starvation, it's quite disconcerting to be treated like you're this massive threat to everyone around you. I genuinely don't understand how I can be this extremely dangerous and threatening person but also be, at the same time, be so "gangly" or "weak" that I'm repulsive. It's like, fucked if I do, fucked if I don't. And nothing I do can just be met with even mild acceptance.

I know it's not okay. And I don't expect or want any pity. But I think I can hardly be blamed for wanting to defend myself from all of those genuine and serious threats that I faced back then, and continue to face to this day. And I don't really have any family or friends to talk to about this, because of the abuses I faced as a boy by the former, and my complete lack of skill at acquiring and maintaining the latter.

Probably the only positive I can really say about myself at present is that I can make halfway decent versions of my family's traditional food. Goulash, braided bread, puddings, langoš, schnitzels, cookies, casseroles, bread dumplings, you know. I depend on that stuff to keep me alive, both from a mental standpoint, and quite literally staving off starvation. And the smell of it sometimes makes women in my dorm inquire about who's in the kitchen.

But even then, this style of cooking is so simple that it's something that anyone can learn to do, and it's not unique to me. If a woman were really interested in me, she could find a guy with chef-like precision elsewhere. I have virtually nothing to offer.

Oh, and I set a record-high GPA this past quarter. Which isn't really much considering that freshman year was a fucking disaster.