Meem0

asl

Your comment is sure a lot better for my self esteem than /u/ExistingHook 's...

they are just milking a male demographic that's lonely and craving a female to interact with

I mean, you could argue most male streamers aren't much different, just replace "craving a female to interact with" with "craving a friend to interact with." When I watch twitch I definitely get the feeling of hanging out with my buds, and it makes me feel less lonely. I guess I don't feel "milked" since I don't donate or subscribe, but there are people who do, just like for the sexualized female streamers.

Get some hobbies that involve leaving the house and associating with other people. Don't think about dating or failing to date.

This advice has always been a pain point for me lol. Like I'm supposed to pick up some hobbies solely because I want to find a date, but then when I actually do it I have to somehow not think about dating. I get that the ideal scenario is finding a hobby or activity that I'm genuinely interested in without the ulterior motive of dating, but like... I'd already be doing it if I were genuinely interested in it. Sorry if that's an angry rant, I've just tried doing this a bunch of times and it only lead to frustration and disappointment :/

Okay so.... where do I go from here?

Talking to someone like a therapist, which it seems like you're interested in, is a great step to take.

One personal recommendation I can make is the Healthy Gamer coaching program, it's way cheaper than therapy and is set up specifically to help with non-clinical mental health issues, perfectionism and impostor syndrome being high up on the list. The name comes from the fact that the organization was originally focused around video game addiction (in fact it was started not long after an AMA by a psychiatrist, similar to this one), but now it's just generally about mental health in the "internet generation."

They also have tons of content on YouTube, watching it has hugely changed my perspective, I had seen 4 therapists over 2 years without much progress, but after watching their content for a year I went back to see a 5th and now I'm making way more progress each month than I did in the 2 years before.