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Thank you for opening up, I feel like your story (while I know is very personal to you), is one of many that many men feel, but are too nervous to confront. I think you hit the nail on the head. A relationship in the moment feels like the thing you need, but what you're actually needing is to feel content with yourself first. Once you work on yourself everything else falls into place.
But you have to want to want that change, the world won't do it for you
Much like anything else, having that strong foundation of physical, emotional, and spiritual health within yourself is going to make adding outside relationships much easier.
It's not like you have to be anywhere near perfect; you just needs to know your strengths and limitations. Having a personal handicap in common with someone can be a bond, or having complementary quirks can sometimes strengthen things for both of you if you are healthy about it. Like someone that knows they spend too much but has poor impulse control and someone that is too restrictive and needs some to say it's ok to reward yourself occasionally.
We all just want happiness, and we think getting a girl, a fancy house/car, a pet, a child, whatever it is will fill that hole inside. But the problem is within, and that is where the solution needs to come from.
When you rely on someone outside to complete you, you end up being that person that's drowning, and your struggle ends up taking your would-be rescuer down with you instead. Other people don't deserve suffering to try to fix you. Some may try, but that is seldom very successful, and you'll often just hurt those you care about. I've lost many friends and girlfriends that way.
I think it's important to talk about these things, especially with other men. I grew up around selfish parents and never got to spend much time with people my own age, learning how to interact, and looking out only for me was a survival instinct. I felt it was weak to rely on others, to get help, to feel sad, etc. It was all really self destructive things, and I still have to fight constantly with myself trying to break free of it and enjoy my life. It makes it therapeutic to talk about it whenever it comes up, because it shows me in a good way my situation wasn't unique and others are in the same position. We can help each other get through it, and I'm not the type to pull the ladder up behind me and leave you to your own fate.
As I said, I will never shake all the shitty things inside to people I cared about, and I can't fix most of those broken bonds of trust, but I can talk myself through my emotional scars with you all, and hopefully help you do less damage to yourselves. Trying to prevent some of this from repeating to someone else is about the only way to make up to myself for things I've done.
But isn't the most effective way to prevent others from being harmed due to your own issues to simply isolate yourself from people who would potentially care? You cannot harm anyone but yourself if there is no one to see you struggling and trying to help.
None of your friends could possibly be hurt if you had zero friends.
I've gone through periods of time like that, but I don't feel it's necessarily the healthiest way to go. If you want to be isolated and dwell in depression, that's absolutely a choice. I always felt better though spending time with either my brother or my one lifelong friend when things got that bad. I don't think humans are meant to be totally alone for long.
Additionally, if you're looking to improve your situation, being alone where it was just me and my self-destructive thoughts wasn't the most productive environment. Ideally, you would be continuing to learn to be better around those people. Keeping isolated is just going to keep you comfortable alienating people.