Being undesirable and living a life devoid of intimacy changes you irreparably.

Knowing I will never touch a woman has changed me. It is something that changes you. Just knowing changes you. I reflect on how it’s changed me over time, and it’s something I can feel intimately, but somehow struggle to verbalize. It’s a specific feeling.

Imagine when you’re sick and have a cold, and the worst of the cold is over, but you’re still congested. You still can’t taste anything, you still can’t smell, you still talk funny because your sinuses are still clogged from the residual mucus of the last week. You don’t feel or look as sick but whoever’s speaking to you is probably thinking to themselves “Hmm, they sound like they’re under the weather.” It’s tough to get comfortable in bed when you’re trying to fall asleep at night because you still feel a little pressure in your face and you can’t breathe through your nose, so you’ll wake up tomorrow morning with a really dry mouth.

It feels close to that. It is a vaguely physical sensation that presents itself as an intense sadness but also an embarrassing piece of something inside of you that feels like it may be noticeable if someone is paying close attention enough. But you feel it all day, every day, and it affects every part of your life. It colors every conversation you have, every thought or memory you have, every thing and person you see. Going in public—any public space; the store, the gas station, the woods, driving downtown—is taking a walk through a gallery of giant prints depicting physical representations of your biggest fears and insecurities. Families, couples old and young, lovers, people, women, men. Everything you see is there to remind you that your are not loved, you are not wanted, and that you will never be touched by a woman. See them kissing, you will never experience that because no one wants to kiss you, a woman would be disgusted to imagine kissing you. See that baby? You will never be the father of a baby, because a woman is never going to be attracted enough to you to marry or have sex or have children with you. See that school? You graduated from that school and back then you still thought you had a chance to have a girlfriend and meet a woman you could spend the rest of your life with. You were wrong, because you are as ugly and disgusting and repulsive to women as you were to girls your age back then. See that video of that couple? You will never get the chance to propose like that because a woman is never going to be attracted to you because you are disgusting and an adult virgin and that is disgusting.

This is every day. This is all day. And it changes you. It becomes permanent. It becomes you world. It becomes all of your life. It becomes a cancer that eats your life and your mind.

It changes how you feel. Even the happiest you can become is not enough to distract you from the feeling that is still there. A dirtiness, an unclean, disgusting feeling. I walk into the grocery store or a bank and I feel like I crashed a wedding covered in my own feces. I feel like a degenerate, a pervert, like someone who belongs out of sight and mind, someone who shouldn’t be allowed to be around other people. Someone who is a threat. Someone who is an embarrassment. Someone disgusting. An adult virgin. A failure in life and in his manhood. Paraded around others discomforted by the sight of him.