Ryan,

You're intelligent, you're awake and have acknowledged the problems you face (as evidenced by the paragraph after paragraph you spent describing them), you're hardworking enough and diligent enough to retain your job for 12 years - that speaks to a certain type of strength of character. I googled you, found your blog, saw a youtube video of you and nothing about your appearance or your bearing was off-putting enough that you're incapable of making some friends.

Two of your biggest problems seem to be able to be categorized into career problems and friendship & dating problems.

As far as the career problems, I think given your intelligence and presence on this forum, you're likely already aware of many of the paths you could potentially take. My guess is your current position affords you _just_ enough comfort in life that despite your misgivings, your fears of the uncertainty of leaving it or undertaking something different is just too much of a risk for you to take. In other words, you likely have some vague ideas about alternatives you could follow, but you're afraid to take the leap. Otherwise, perhaps you'd already be studying at a university with free tuition in Germany or Argentina, teaching English in a poor enough place in Asia that even a GED is enough to get a job, working on a farm somewhere via the WWOOF program while you take stock of what you want in your future, apprenticed in a trade industry to a plumber or a carpenter or some other skilled trade, or something else people do when trying to advance from poor circumstances.

Or perhaps you really aren't aware of the paths you can take, in which case I would spend your internet cycles researching them.

The social problems are both easier and harder to solve.

Easier in the sense of - you have total control over your success or failure, there's no economic forces at work, no job market involved.

Harder in that the 'steps' to social success are not clearly laid out for us the way careers can be, because often you have no idea why a friendship fails to work out with a new acquaintance whereas at least you might have some idea what went wrong with a job application.

But the way to solve your social problems is to think of them the same way you'd think of any other skill you wanted to develop - to practice and put in work, evaluate what's working and what's not, and iterate.

Your failures are most likely due to one of a few things: 1) you're not actually putting yourself in the right places to meet people - that means on a Tuesday night you're sitting at home after work on the computer rather than going to where people are and introducing yourself or going to some sort of event where people work together or suffer together, or 2) you're at these types of places you might meet people but you're not taking some 'next step' - it could be the 'say hello' step, it could be the 'have a conversation trying to find mutual interests and if you do have a mutual interest engage them about it', it could be the 'ask to exchange contact info' step, it could be the 'follow up next week and invite them to another event or meal or for a drink or whatever else' step, etc, but at some point you may be dropping the ball, or 3) you could have some social tic you're not aware of that's off-putting and you're not iterating and experimenting with the way you portray yourself, the way you interact with people, the amount you smile or compliment people or make jokes or share something vulnerable or take it easy and be less aggressive - there's no way to know what it could be but you might not be modifying these variables and evaluating how they help or hurt.

But at a basic level, if you treat making friends or finding a person to date as a series of steps, and you spend your evenings actually taking those shots, and you change your approach, and you don't give up, and you lower your standards if it's not working, then you're almost inevitably going to succeed socially.

But the hard thing is, all of us already know all of this - but we don't do it because it's hard. At least, when I'm in a position where I'm single and alone, or in a new city or a situation where I've gone from having several friends to none, or a few close friends to none, it's only through intense, really agonizing struggle that I slowly build back up the social life I want. And as we get older it becomes more and more difficult.

But it's possible. Many of us who were incredibly weird, or were very shy, or had a stutter, or who were too unattractive, or were awkward, or were virgins, or were friendless - at various points in our lives - we've overcome these things and still gone on to succeed.

Going back to the point about how having just enough comfort in our lives actually paralyses us from taking concrete steps - if you find yourself encountering these same problems, identifying them, coming up with tons of ideas about how to solve them, but then procrastinating on those next steps - then do this - start right now. Get online and RSVP for a meetup tomorrow or in the next few days, or go to a bar, sit down next to someone at the bar - not to hit on them but just to engage a fellow human - and start a conversation. Mention the weather, ask them about what they do, whatever. The point is, don't wait. Because if you wait, you will do nothing. And it will be November 29, 2019 before you know it and you'll be posting the same comment.