Alopecia World
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Dating problems, rejection insecurity, where I go again!
Hello, everyone, my name is Jorge am currently 31 years old Portuguese guy living in Melbourne Australia.
I have alopecia universalis since I can remember, the patches started when I was 8 years old and involved to AU when I was about 15 I guess. I don't remember myself with hair, to be honest. Its 3 am here in Melbourne 3 degrees Celsius outside and it's the first time in posting something here besides some photos a long time ago.
I would like to say that I never felt excluded and I always had an amazing group of friends that never let me down. Saying things like "you are one of a kind", "you look great its or trademark image", "you should be more confident with a woman they like you". You know the kind of things your true friends say but deep inside me, I know they were just being amazing and trying to give me some self-esteem boost. And I do thank them for that!
I always was a funny guy the one with confidence and the guy that makes everyone else laugh all the time. Now that I think about it, at the start it was the way that I found to break the ice and interact with everyone and make them laugh instead of focusing on my alopecia, they were too entertained to thing about hair!!!.
I though I was confident enough to don't care about AU, I even helped some people with AU giving them kind of motivational speech, cause at the time I was being successful in my professional life and imagine in my love life too! Can you imagine I had the most beautiful and hot girlfriend for 5 years, and she approached me (i never approach a girl first, to scare of rejection) crazy I know!! A beautiful girl how the hell that happened!
So basically all fall apart after she broke up with me 5 years later. And all of the daemons of AU come back to me, all the insecurity, fear and sadness, anger, asking why me... crying alone. Yeah, men do cry sometimes!
Basically, I was depressed 1 year at home, without even realizing that I was in some kind of depression! Me the one who makes everyone laugh, the guy that help the others all the time and the guy that says the life is a wonderful present! It couldn't be possible I should be the last person in the world to be depressed.
Anyway and don't want to write my memories yet so I'm gonna resume.
I know I had to change my life so I left country, family and my friends and came to Australia to start a new life.
And here Alopecia strikes again, and here it hurts the most, being rejected from the woman. I feel that here more than ever. When I go to one bar or a club and I'm dancing I just see how fast I'm rejected, I have the impression they look at me like an alien sometimes. Sorry to be so raw with the words.
Maybe I need to work on my self-esteem again, but for me having a girl was my way to say "In your face Alopecia". It's stupid but makes me feel good, makes me feel desired and accepted, normal in some away, starting with alopecia with 8 years is too much of a burden sometimes.
Sorry for the long and nonsense post maybe. It was a good opportunity to train my English anyway, my writing skills are not good yet. I'm much better in Portuguese!
I would like to know how you deal with this dating thing? Any suggestion?!! how do you approach opposite sex?
ps: The thing that upsets me more is not having eyebrows
pps: Thank yours for your time I felt better after throwing some words here.
Sincerely,
Jorge
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Permalink Reply by Michael Powers on
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Hi Jorge - reading your words (thank you for the honesty) I had the thoughts multiple times that you are mixing up different sources for your problems. Alopecia is so big in our own minds when we have it, especially when young (me too at 8). When we take a hard knock like a breakup we immediately go to the most fragile source in our own mind, how we look different. I imagine that either the relationship just ran it's. purse or there really was some issue that blocked love and you should look at what that was (jealousy? Too little conversation? Isolation?) - there can be many reasons and every relationship is a chance to grow as a person - don't allow yourself to regress and fold into your wounded place because then you can't learn - maybe it's safer to say 'it's my baldness which I can't control) than it is to say that maybe you were selfish or bottled up with your feelings which you can control and develop. I for one can agree with others that it's never your looks ... ever ... like 99.99% never
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Permalink Reply by Photolic on
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Michael thank you for your crystal clear comment! You know what I totally agree with you! And I kinda said that in my comment above.
I took my lessons from my big breakup, and we managed to make a soft breakup no one talk to each other since then, cause it was too deep and she doesn't want to give me hopes. But yeah you know the normal stuff happy birthday and new year eve text is a must. And it was 3 years ago.
Anyway relationship apart alopecia is indeed the weakest link, so when I get depressed I blame AU cause it's easy, not only because its easy but I know AU kinda change the way I react normally to a situation, it is hard to explain with words sometimes.
Like you said 99,99% it's not your looks, but the looks condition my way at some social events, for instance, I have the paranoid feeling that people are looking at me like a cancer patient!.
And I agree with your 99.99% but the thing is to be in that position you need to get someone first.
And the AU barrier it is a problem at the beginning, to being accepted first, after that if you actually start a relationship I would agree with you.
Thanks mate for your words!
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Permalink Reply by awooga_ on
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Hey Jorge, I am also here in Melbourne - moved over from the UK :)
I get where you are coming from alopecia does hit your self confidence and you have a lot of self doubt about what others think. I'm at a stage where I can just about cover my alopecia up - with quite a bit of effort! but when I'm home and can't be bothered the alopecia is very noticeable and I do worry some women might be put off by it.
But lets face it, Alopecia doesn't change who you are as a person and it's not all about looks :). I think it's natural we think the worst but some women won't be as bothered as you think. So just be yourself!
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You are right! Confidence is everything easy to say then to chance, but actually, if I care less about the other people just come to you. If you act like a magnet of positive energy,
Let me know if you want to grab a beer sometime in Melbourne!
Cheers mate
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Permalink Reply by Chris F on
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Hey dude -
You are what you think you are. We attract what we believe we are. You need to go back to the old you and see the successes there then repeat that. I still struggle with this whole process as well. I lost my hair again after having it for a couple years and went into a DEEEEEP depression. I wouldn't even dare to think a girl would find me attractive. The thing that changed me was realizing if I'm going to live, I need to get what I want out of life. I wanted to get things I felt I was missing while I was depressed. The answers were simple the follow through is much harder. I just became myself again around people and acted in the moment. Once your present, you aren't thinking about alopecia, the other person will stop thinking about alopecia. They think, " hey this guy is something I need to talk to him more." The process of getting yourself to think confident, think present, and just believe in yourself is sometimes exhausting. I have had more girlfriends in the past couple years than my previous 26 combined. The last girlfriend being the prettiest girl I've ever dated. The point isn't about how she is but it's that you can get whatever you believe you can get. Right now your mentality sucks so you aren't getting shit. Change your mood, change your mind and the results will follow eventually. It's like in baseball go back to hitting down the middle and eventually you'll start hitting the home runs again. Trust the process. I won't lie I fall short many many times myself , for example when I am in a relationship I may start thinking " WHY IS THIS WORKING WHY DOES SHE LIKE ME I M UGLY I HAVE ALOPECIA." Then I start acting weird in the relationship and it gets ended. I wasn't acting like the guy I was before I started thinking too much. You need to go back to winning!
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Super comment mate!
It is all about confidence like I said before you need to be a positive magnet, not easy to change. We are people not robots with buttons that you just press and change. Your attitude made me smile! thank you for sharing. May I ask you something?
How do you deal with rejection? And another topic I used Tinder and other apps like that at some point and never never get matches. Does that happen to you?
But yeah when I look back in the time when I was able to get my ex, I was a guy just saying my jokes, having my surf, doing my job well! I used to be a teacher of photography (girls have some weird fetish with teachers), and basically, I was being myself not thinking about woman or relationships. So maybe I need to focus on myself again and after that come back to the relationship field and try to hit that homerun!
Cheers Chris! Keep in toutch
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Permalink Reply by Debbi Fuller on
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Also, when you try to meet people on line, they don't KNOW you. They are just looking at what you wrote about yourself and your pic. Meeting people in person, who are interested in the same things you are would be a better bet!
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Apologize for not seeing this ( IT LOOKS LIKE YOU RE DOING GREAT NOW )
Rejection sucks, but we will get rejected no matter what. Everyone gets rejected. What you have to do with rejection, is use it as motivation to get better. Better your personality, refine who you are and what you are doing. Tinder isn't the real world. Check out Jordan Peterson talking about Tinder. Women when surveyed reject 85 percent of the men on the site as not suitable for them! 85 PERCENT! Tinder isn't easy for anyone, because it based purely on subjection. The girl doesn't meet who you are, she doesn't know anything about you from pictures. Most women don't like men based off of seeing them once, it just doesn't work that way. They look for different qualities. Tinder sucks because it's giving females 1000 different options without substance. Any man can swipe them so it's giving people a lot of fake courage. You may get lucky or someone may look deeper once and a while on Tinder but I promise you, you aren't the only one with issues with a dating site. I have very good looking friends that girls usually would consider attractive who don't get a lot of messages on Tinder. It's a bad source to gauge how you are doing with women.
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Permalink Reply by Amanda Banana on
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I love this comment as well!
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ciao Jorge,
i know exactly what u mean, i have alopecia areata since long time.
but as u said u had a very hot girlfriend..so this is the answer... u will find someone else that loves you without hair...ugly or hot...handsome... rich or poor!
be yourself always... don't make any tattoos... i'm sure u don't need it ...
sorry for my english as well (i'm italian) :D
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Thank you Kiki! Your English is just fine! Italian ! Wonderful, kinda find the Italian very similar to Portuguese! I hope you are rigth is not about being hot or not it's my attitude! Some times I look to a girl that I like and I don't make a move because I think it's a lost case allready even before trying, since I'm see myself was not worthy! Or allready thinking that she is gona dislike me because of my AU. But this whole thing is a rollercosrer sometimes I'm more confident other days i just feel I'm the uglyest guy in the world. I need to control that better! And start loving myself.
Bacci bambina!
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