After years of not doing any daily exercise, I’ve developed a strategy for choosing physical activity over the couch.

1. When I come home from work, I make sure I’m not ravenously hungry. This means bringing lots of healthy snacks for me to munch on during the last hour at the office and on my commute home. So I come home feeling satisfied and ready to run.
2. I love technology and social media, so I make my exercise routine more exciting by using apps that let me track and share my progress with family and friends.
3. I created motivation and accountability by telling my BF that if I skip my running routine for (previously established and agreed upon) unacceptable excuses, I owe him $100. This clause exploits my thrifty nature!
4. I keep my standards relatively easy and achievable: minimum 20 minutes of activity is all I need to achieve to feel personally successful.

I’m trying to find similar motivation to get myself to cook, period. And possibly cook healthy. I find cooking so tedious and annoying! I like the point that was made earlier to learn to cook 3 recipes off by heart, may give it a shot!

What you said here stuck out to me: “He is my everything, and I have lost myself in this relationship; but I would rather lose myself in him than be lost in a dangerous internet world.” Being lost as a girlfriend or being lost in random relationships are not the only two choices available to you! Maybe to be found, you need to take a different path than the two you’ve presented.

Final thought: in my personal experience, if your answer to “am I/was I in love” is “I’m not sure”? The actual answer is no. Real love has a certainty to it that is hard to ignore, and I’m sure in time you will find it, both within you and outside you.

There’s an article from the Tiny Buddha blog that I keep bookmarked for this exact purpose: http://dev.tinybuddha.com/blog/4-lessons-on-how-to-find-the-right-direction-in-life/

I also agree that Peter’s advice is equally valid. If you want, try leaning into your restlessness and see where it takes you.

My mother tried to teach me to knit and I absolutely did not get it. But then she showed me the basics of crochet and I took to it like a fish in water!

Is anyone on Ravelry? That’s where I go for all my patterns.

I’ve been in similar situations; I find myself in an intense relationship that seems to shatter every notion I had about love and happiness, but the same relationship is highly dysfunctional as well. None of these relationships worked out because I realized something: sometimes love, no matter how powerful, is not enough. I could feel like this someone had an unshakeable connection to me, but if they couldn’t give me the security, stability, and comfort that I needed, I would be miserable no matter what. So remember, your needs and happiness are important!

In the end, the decision is yours. But if I was in your shoes I would square myself up and move on.

Thank you for sharing your story. First of all, you are NOT a horrible person! You were unhappy with your relationship, she was not treating you with respect, so you ended it which was the right thing to do. Ending a relationship doesn’t make you a bad person, and you are not obligated to stick with someone who hurts you.

I’m sorry that this happened to you and I can relate, I was also super shy at your age and never found the courage to ask out anyone I liked until I was in my late 20s! Going through what you went through would have devastated me, but I also know that eventually I would heal. Take time to recover from this; do the things and hobbies that you love, spend time with family and friends who genuinely care about you. And most of all, be kind to yourself! We all make mistakes, that’s what makes us human, and the best thing to do from mistakes is to learn from them.

Hi Louise! I wouldn’t worry too much about not having oodles of sexual experience; I was in the exact same boat as you at 24, which is when I finally started dating. And I went on a lot of dates that didn’t go anywhere for years. It wasn’t until I was 28 that I started dating someone that I actually wanted to sleep with. Now I’m 33 and my current boyfriend is the same age as me and we have about the same amount of sexual experience (1-2 previous partners) and things are great between us. Contrary to what we’re led to believe, there are a lot of men out there who are just as inexperienced as we are.

Think of it as a test. If you eventually tell a guy you’re dating that you’re not all that sexually experienced, how they react tells you whether they’re worth pursuing to begin with. Any man who makes a big stink about it or makes you feel weird/abnormal isn’t worth your time! The right man will be supportive and accepting, regardless of how much experience he has. 🙂