Ever thought about therapy?

If you are blowing money on stuff that doesn't make you happy - that is a problem.

If you are emotionally stuck in a rut and want to get out - that is a problem too.

If you don't know how to interact with people outside of the protocol of "Wanna dance" "Yea, sure" - that is a problem.

It sounds to me like you have a slight if not big time sex addiction thing going on. A little more can be had here slaafws.org to determine what might be going through your mind.

SA isn't about having sex all the time - it's replacing something else - or multiple something elses - with the high one gets from the 'mones running through your blood.

Sometimes, it is simply social laziness - which I admit I have. I'm not willing to put the effort into some social aspects.

And maybe it is a touch of social anxiety. Like I said, a strip club has a specific social protocol. Everyone knows what is expected and what is not. What is to be talked about and what is not. Out in the open - the randomness of the interaction can be dizzying and confusing.

Happy Holidays. If it makes you feel better you could have things a whole lot worse. You could have gotten married to a bitch. No sex, no money left over after she spends it all, constant arguments, and not enough money to get a divorce and debt you have trouble from getting away from with your wife's constant spending. This isn't me but it does remind me of some others. They would probably say you have it good. At least you have your freedom to do what you want to do. Single people can feel grateful for their freedom even if some feel like they are in a rut.

You may have a point though about social interaction if you spend so much time in strip clubs that you end up going out with strippers instead of with normal girls.

So if you're getting some pills, I assume from your "clinician", then I would further assume that your clinician is a Psychiatrist. Good place to start - get any brain chemistry issues into repair/management mode. Mid-to-longer-term evaluation, and corresponding resolution, needs to take place with a Psychologist. Might take a couple of years and cost some $$, but you've got lots of years ahead of you. They should be enjoyable and you should be the person you strive to be.

My therapy is seeing my ATF otc and itc for great sex. Yes it sometimes bothers me I have averaged 15 -20k a year on this hobby the last several years but others spend those kinda funds on golf or boating. It takes setting a budget and not being manipulated by some gals drama.

As I am married to a bitch as described above like casual guy therapy is a waste of time. I am pushing 60 anyhow - not looking to start over LOL. I have found there is no greater therapy for me than my SC hobby or great sex with a really hot gal.

Player, don't let 15k-20k a year bother you.

They summed it up pretty well on South Park:

southparkstudios.com

haha snake I like the south park clip "Do You Know What I Am Saying?"

What interests me about therapy (or any other procedure or intervention that might lead to a "fix") is, generally, the benefits that Deogol alluded to:

"If you are blowing money on stuff that doesn't make you happy - that is a problem. If you are emotionally stuck in a rut and want to get out - that is a problem too. If you don't know how to interact with people outside of the protocol of "Wanna dance" "Yea, sure" - that is a problem."

I don't really see sex-addiction as ringing the right chimes, however. The more accurate point would be one about "social laziness," I think.

Though, to think again, maybe I should reconsider that. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get laid by hot women, and I THINK (though, I don't really know) that I really put myself out there among civilians and gave it a real go. It just never seemed to materialize, and the idea of being socially pro-active actually caused me MORE, rather than less, grief. I was feeling like all that good effort I was putting in, was starting to piss me off. I was actually driving myself DOWN into an 8unhappiness spiral precisely because was social pro-active.

So, maybe it's all kind of mixed up in my head. I dunno. It still pisses me off, the way that women fuck the men who are bad for them and mistreat the men who are nice to them (yes, yes, I know all the reasoning about hunters, providers, alpha-males, aggression, selfish genes, etc.). And I still don't know how to go about being effective with "playing the part" of some person who DOES get laid.

But really, that's what I want out of this. I don't need to "unlearn" strip club skills, or lust. I just need to be able to pick up a hot girl and have a pretty girlfriend. Is that a target for therapy?

Hmm. Happy holidays. :)

Hanging out with strippers is fun. Having sex with them, for money or for free, is a lot of fun. Hookers are fun.

We all pay. Look at the strippers and hookers as sex training for nice girls. Working on your skills and all that.

Women are all crazy. Hot women are typically full of themselves and are looking for the bad boy or the type A alpha male who will shower them with material things. Fck all that.

The ideal situation is a hot girl who used to be fat but still has bad body image. But those are few and far between.

I goto therapy now, it's called a strip club.

Gatorfan, I used to think I was getting therapy at strip clubs, but after I started getting REAL therapy (for sex addiction) I understood why that is just a joke. Maybe you meant it as a joke, but I think a lot of people believe strip clubs have therapeutic value. No they do have entertainment value, and my therapy has not eliminated my desire to participate in the strip club culture.

Book Guy, as Gatorfan says, the strip club is therapy. If fact, if you want to feel better, find a dancer who needs help and be psychologically supportive to her in addition to etc. etc. That should give you a boost.

But if you're always down, even with counseling, try joining a "men's group" to talk through things and you'll see you're not the only one with issues, But you'll also find ways to deal with things. Your counselor should be able to help you find a men's group.

In a way, TUSCL is it's own men's group (no offense to the other participants), but you need to try something else.

I thought about attending a sex addicts anonymous meeting but never went through with it.

"Hot women are typically full of themselves and are looking for the bad boy or the type A alpha male who will shower them with material things. Fck all that." I agree 100% with this. I would rather pay for it at SC then get involved in a relationship with them.

I would rather pay SC gals and hookers for really great sex than suffer the BS a lot of other types of gals will put me thru.

I remember 20 years ago I had a few dates with an engineering secretary who would not fuck bc I was married and told me I had 6 months to leave my wife or the relationship was over. One nite I might have actually gotten some but her 8 yr old son interrupted things. She was telling co-workers who were telling everyone else. Instead of fooling with that stupid bitch, I just needed to be going to a Strip Club!

Book Guy: First of all I admire your candor in admitting your social shortcomings in front of everyone on this site. That admission, in and of itself, is a part of therapy. Yes, I do think you could benefit from some sort of traditional therapy if the activity is bothering you. I would suspect that most of us who regularly visit strip clubs/hookers are sex addicts to one degree or another. While it is probably a lot healthier to get sex from a traditional relationship, it is certainly easier and less complicated in a strip club. Also, in my case, I am middle aged, balding and overweight and I know that my chances of having sexual contact with a hot 20 year old in the real world, is just not going to happen. Since I am not interested in sexual contact with most girls my age I go to strip clubs. Addiction or not, it is what I choose to do and I am comfortable with it.

Strip clubs as therapy? Please like the stupid, lying, thieving whores could be of any help to anyone. Heck they can't even be of help to themselves. I think you will get all the costs of therapy and none of the benefits.

Oh, so many thoughts.

1. Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I see where you're going. Yeah, you too. :)

2. I got some private messages. Thanks for those, too. I'll get 'round to replying some time soon, I'm sure.

3. Middle-aged men CAN attract physically appealing women. Remember when you were 20 and all the hot girls were dating older guys? Well, NOW YOU'RE THE OLDER GUY! You just have to be the right KIND of older guy, that suave lives-his-life-the-way-he-wants runs-his-own-affairs type of guy, not the desperate-to-get-to-work-on-time so that he won't-get-fired-by-his-adolescent-boss type of middle-aged guy.

4. Clubs aren't THERAPY, in that they don't IMPROVE my social skills, my dependencies, or any of my complaints. But they are BENEFICIAL, in that they offer a type of sexual release (if indeed I get one) and also a type of social outlet. They're like crutches -- they don't do anything to actually CURE the problem, but without them I'd be stumbling even more, yet if I get dependent on them I may NEVER heal. It's a double-bind.

5. Hot women aren't as bad as people report. When you get on their good side, you find out they're just as full of insecurities, and nincompoop stupidities, as anyone else, and all of that "not going out with the guy they should go out with" is probably something SHE regrets as much as HE does. Many "typical backstabbing manipulator" hot women aren't actually TRYING to manipulate, and if you were somehow able to be the angel on their shoulder and point out to them every instance -- "see, look, he feels pussy-whipped, like you're jerking his chain again" -- then many of them would probably be quite surprised. "Really? I was just letting him see my tits because he likes to look at them. I didn't know that the fact that I TEASE but then DON'T please, actually means I'm BAD rather than GOOD. Don't boys LIKE being teased?" It's this odd obliviousness they have.

Really, once I had to EXPLAIN to a long-term girlfriend of mine, that if she ever again ACTED like she was going to fuck me, BUT THEN DIDN'T ACTXUALLY DO IT WITHIN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES, I would break up with her. It came as a big surprise to her. She genuinely thought that, because I responded positively to her (ultimately false) promise of potential sexual intercourse by beginning to follow through on the act, therefore, I was pleased with her promise, whether it ultimately turned out to be true or false. I can see how she allowed a little bit of self-congratulation, and a little bit of willful obtuseness, to go a long way, but just because it's a girlish crime doesn't mean it's not a common one. I see that kind of self-misleading going on among a LOT of hot girls. They just can't quite BUY the idea, that they're mis-wielding their power. "Wait, what? Me? I don't have power ..."

Then again, there are the proactively, commitedly, deliberatley manipulative cunts. But I honestly think they're pretty easy to spot.

My trouble isn't, in dealing with hot women who "jerk my chain," though that did happen to me once or twice during my formative years, to a great degree. I think I've gotten over those past hurts.

Rather, my trouble is, I DON'T KNOW ANY HOT WOMEN. It's not that I can't make friends, or can't "pick up" a girl, it's that they aren't accessible to me, OR TO ANY OTHER MEN who don't deal drugs. This is the thing. They keep themselves locked away where we don't get at them. When they have to go out on the street, they plaster a cell phone to their ear or drive in a little white Honda against the flow of traffic so we can't get AT them.

So, as a general concept ... I'm OK with people, and with hot women as people. But I'm not OK with my own social milieu. I just don't know how a mid-forties guy can possibly have a job AND meet hot chicks AND sleep AND eat and have time to ... ya know, bathe, do the laundry, that kind of stuff.

In fact, the ADHD takes up all my time. If I do have a job, I do'nt have time to eat. Really, for me, a mere M to F, 9 to 5 job takes up more time than is biologically possible for me to commit. I can't get the work done during work hours (mostly because they want me to do six people's jobs and I'm very bad at doing a half-assed version of anything) and I can't get errands done sufficiently not to get ill from over-work. It's all sprinting from office to car to laundromat to cafeteria, or doing without one of -- shower, clean clothes, food, sleep. I have never read a book and also held down a job at the same time. I have never had a friendship and a job at the same time. I have had to quit every single social and personal activity in order merely to be able to ATTEND a job, if I hold a job at all. I don't know how other people do it. But finally a doctor has said to me, "Ya know, that's not normal. Other people get their weekends off and manage two or three meals a day." And he's concluded, "It's not your fault." (Remember that scene in "Good Will Hunting"?) It's very nice to hear, after twenty years of getting fired for being brilliant ... which never made sense to me until now.

OK then. 4:23 am. Must be the Ritalin kicking in ... :)

Happy holidays, the remainder of them.

I've found the very good looking women to actually be nicer than average or below average ones. The world gave them a gift and treats them well so they have reason to be happy and pleasant.

I've also found it easier to attract women as I get older. All the things you are supposed to do just come more naturally.

Now as for you, BookGuy, my prediction is that in therapy are you going to have to learn to value women for things other than looks, and to have more realistic goals regarding your interactions with them. I get the feeling that, right now, your goal is to be the Fonz: snap your fingers and a half dozen hot girls come running up to you whether you like it or not.

Having a healthy sex life is important so I guess you could consider strip clubs therapy. Too bad my insurance won't cover it though lol