First a little bit about me: I am male, 37 and have been watching internet porn for probably more than 20 years now. I never felt it was a problem for me.
I also never had any romantic or sexual relations, because I just was not very interested in it. Sure, sometimes I felt like it would be nice to have a significant other, but that usually lasted only for a day or two. Since I was quite a bit overweight and shy I also never had the “problem”/”luxury” of just being approached by women in a sexual manner. Since I probably also have a very mild form of Aspergers I might also just not have noticed if women approached me in that way …
Around 2 1/2 months ago I stopped watching porn. Mainly because I was interested in whether I was actually addicted, and because I read that you might get less “brain fog”, etc. and I could really use that for finishing my PhD. So the experiment was basically started to see how long I could go without watching porn and after that (since I did not have any problems) to just continue with it.
At that point I was (and had for years) probably been watching around 2h of porn a day and was masturbating to it multiple times a day. Including edging to it at times for more than an hour. So probably exactly what you should not do.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that I could just stop … Haven’t had a relapse since and never really craved to watch porn since. Since it was an experiment (and I actually liked not wasting hours of my day to watching porn) I just kept going. I did keep masturbating to fantasies about women I knew and found attractive (something I always did from time to time, even when watching porn).
So I thought that this would be it. I seemed to not be addicted to porn and presumed I would watch it again at some point, but wanted to see how long I could go just out of curiosity.
Imagine my surprise when after 2 months without porn I suddenly had the urge to talk with people (of both genders), look people on the street in the eye and smile at them, go out with friends, … . In addition, I am also much more emotional than I was before. It actually took quite some time until I realized that this probably has something to do with quitting porn …
I guess all of this sounds really nice, and it was. I was actually feeling like I belonged in the world for the first time and I finally understood what all the others saw in connecting with people.
That is until I visited a previous female work college for a few days and recognized that I actually have very deep feelings for her. She is planning to get married very soon so there is nothing really to be done, but I was basically crying every night in my hotel room because here I am: A 37 year old virgin that has the same experience in dating and interacting with women than a 10 year old
I just recognized that I actually loved someone deeply for the first time in my life, I have arranged my whole life around the fact that I will be alone (and I was absolutely OK with that) and suddenly I have the deep urge to actually get a girl friend.
In addition, I noticed that my erections are currently much weaker than they were previously (something I never had any problems with) which might just be the emotional stress or a mild form of a flatline. This triggered fears of what might happen when I actually can’t get one up when being with a woman. I never worried about that because I did not think something like this might happen. In addition, I had two dates in the two weeks since all of this happened and I am afraid in my current situation I will just take the first girl that is willing.
So, now I am in the situation that I could quit porn easily from the point of craving, but I am pretty close to just start watching it again to numb my emotions because objectively I just feel a lot worse than when I was watching porn … But I really like how much better I connect to people and I don’t want to lose that.
I guess there is no real point to this post. I just had to get this off my chest. Thanks for reading …
LINK – My experience from experiment to life changing — Not sure I like the results
by SimonsM23
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