sheridan

For the sake of argument, no you don't need a girlfriend. You are you because of the millions of ancestors that came before you and engaged in a contest of survival of the fittest against each other and other species. You are the product of countless generations of genetic fitness and intellectual development. How is a relationship going to help you get your life's goals figured out? Is the relationship an end goal or something that you want to have along the path to happiness? That's something you decide for yourself.

If you want to be creative in your work, find a way to get recognized within the artistic and game development communities. Create some credentials after you make yourself known so you can write down on a piece of paper how you did x, y, and z and overcame some challenge related to xyz and how that makes you qualified to do something related to the game or television industries.

You need to physically and mentally exert yourself every day in order to feel tired enough to sleep. I recommend exercise 45 min each day and gradually build your strength and endurance. The brain produces natural opiates when you work out.

Here are some recommendations to encourage sleep:
a) chamomile tea
b) melatonin supplements
c) quetiapine fumarate / seroquel (inexpensive medication, very easy to get a prescription for it. basically used to treat bipolar and other mood disorders but a recognized off-label use for it is to promote sleep. not habit-forming)

If you are really looking for girls, I recommend hanging out at the public libraries in your area and talk to the ones who work there or who seem to hang out/study. If you're really not that serious about it, I'm sure we can get Technician in this thread and have a proper /r9k/ party.

I've already been recognized in game development communities for my abilities. I don't have any problem being noticed for my skills. I'm basically just lonely right now.

I have actually been working out for the past few weeks. Got myself back into it and now I intend to move to heavier weight lifting so I can hopefully start gaining a bit of mass, haha. I dunno if I can do it, I've tried before but I don't think I've managed to put on a pound in my life.

I'm actually very serious about relationships. To me it's not about having a sexual outlet so much as real companionship. My last girlfriend broke up with me because we were physically unable to see each other for a couple weeks and she got tired of it. For me it was enough to know she was there. Apparently she didn't feel the same way.

Having said that my uncertainty stems from whether I will ever be able to make any meaningful relationships with what I'm doing in my life. Most people in my life recognize me as being talented but I just don't have many if any relationships right now that I consider meaningful at all.

It's the eternal struggle really. I don't think I'm the only one with this problem and I feel stupid to whine about it, but it is depressing nonetheless.

sheridan said:

I've forgotten at this point how long I've been working on my game project. I dropped out last October partly to work on it fulltime and now I don't know much else. Having been working on it every chance I get for 1 and 1/2 years I sometimes wonder if I'll ever finish it, or whether anyone will care if I do finish it.

One way or the other I need to get a job in march/april so I can start paying my student loans and move out. I'm never going back to university if I can help it.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I should try getting some sleep, then get back to work on my game I guess.

I need a girlfriend.

Sounds like you could perhaps use more diversion, as well. Becoming hyperfocused on any one pursuit has, in my own experience, inevitably degraded the quality of my life, with diminishing returns on productivity making it pointless anyway. The human mind craves novelty. A regular change of mental scenery is a great way to keep life in perspective, too. If you let game development (or any other sole 'thing') shape your whole life, it will, to the point where you start seeing everything else in tunnel vision.

If you "don't know what you're doing," then you probably don't really know what you want to be doing, either. Unless you have a problem with motivation or rational thought, you might as well start worrying about what you want, not about what you do. It sounds like you have hazy ideas about what you want out of life in some respects (e.g. companionship), but it might do you good to try working through your own values, beliefs, and desires, all the way down to the core of why you hold those notions and hence why you want the things you do. It's so much easier to move toward your goals in life if you actually know your starting position and the layout of the board you're stumbling around on.

Even when life seems paralyzingly open-ended, there really aren't that many 'facets' to worry about, anyway. Almost everything can be distilled down to a category like 'values', 'relationships', 'work', 'hobbies', or 'exploration'. If you want control of your life, all you need to do is 'pick' or 'design' what's in each of those broad categories, in such a way that the whole thing ultimately fulfills you. If you don't have a strong sense of how to make each facet of life fulfilling, you should be trying more new things to find out for yourself. You can swap elements in and out of your life if they don't do much for you, so just start making the best educated leaps you can; it's better to live an imperfect but satisfying life that's basically fleshed out, than it is to hold back and leave half your life empty because you don't yet know what you want most.

Anyway, if I were in your boat, I'd look for a part-time job in something reasonably stimulating but as unrelated to programming as possible, starting right now. Spend the time between now and May doing that job on the side, while you keep working on your project. That'll give you a head-start on money for moving out and repaying your debt, and it'll give you a change of pace that'll make going back to work full time in a few months more natural. It'll surround you with new people, some of whom you might connect with, and it'll give you an excuse to do and think about new things you never considered. It'll still leave you with plenty of time for game development, to boot.

I have actually been working out for the past few weeks. Got myself back into it and now I intend to move to heavier weight lifting so I can hopefully start gaining a bit of mass, haha. I dunno if I can do it, I've tried before but I don't think I've managed to put on a pound in my life.

That sounds familiar. Many of the men in my family put on bulk like it's nothing, but I've always been on the slim side (like, 5'6", ~115lbs). Building and retaining any degree of muscle mass just takes too much maintenance time to be worth it for me. I can easily get all wiry and toned, but never much bigger, regardless of modifications to diet or what I might lift. At this point I've essentially given up on the idea of exercise-for-its-own-sake. My lifestyle is active enough to keep me in good shape for the wellness and the neurochemical benefits. Giving half a damn about how I dress and wearing clothes that actually fit keeps my appearance respectable enough.

I'm actually very serious about relationships. To me it's not about having a sexual outlet so much as real companionship. My last girlfriend broke up with me because we were physically unable to see each other for a couple weeks and she got tired of it. For me it was enough to know she was there. Apparently she didn't feel the same way.

The more you feel like you 'need' a girlfriend as some sort of silver bullet, the harder it's going to be to get one. It's healthy to recognize that you do want a girlfriend. The right companion will add immeasurable value to your life, and make everyday existence more fulfilling, easier, and less stressful. Just don't mentally frame it as a 'need' anymore. Frame your lonely feelings in useful questions like "what do I have to offer the sort of person I want as a partner?", and, "how can I sort out the crap in my life in order to improve what I have to offer?" It's neither fair nor effective to expect another person to come and solve your personal issues. Products aren't sold by letting the marketing team mewl about how their defective goods would be better off if someone bought and lovingly restored them. Market yourself, and start dating as much as you can.

Libraries, as mentioned by TheCupboard, can be awesome environments in which to meet new people (protip: don't creep out / harass / stalk the staff). Many public spaces are similarly suitable. So is any place that gives you a chance to show off your wit and humor in front of an audience containing at least a few eligible women. One friend of mine swears by Toastmasters meetings; another friend performs with an amateur sketch comedy group, and he got almost all of his dates through chatting with audience members after the shows,

If you're lonely, and you live in any sort of urban area, you should not turn your nose up at online dating, either. In terms of the sheer number of eligible people you can meet for a given amount of effort, that's your best bet. Once you get the hang of it, it's surprisingly easy and not at all expensive; go on lots of quick coffee dates through, e.g. OkCupid. For 30 minutes of your time and the price of a coffee or tea, you can get to know a new person and decide whether you want to see them again.

Having said that my uncertainty stems from whether I will ever be able to make any meaningful relationships with what I'm doing in my life. Most people in my life recognize me as being talented but I just don't have many if any relationships right now that I consider meaningful at all.

Aside from the rare few that might be meaningful by nature (e.g. some family) most meaningful relationships are built up over time from initially shallow connections. Very rarely will you meet someone and instantly spark a meaningful friendship. Relationships like that aren't just 'made', they're more often 'grown' gradually. If you want more authentically meaningful relationships, you need to meet more people, and spend lots of time with those who are both interesting to know, and interested in knowing you, as well.

If what you're doing in your life impedes that sort of development, then do a few different things now and then. I took up swing / salsa / ballroom dancing classes for a few years, and besides making me a slightly better dancer, it was a really easy way to meet new people of all sorts in a fun setting.