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Hello, my name is Brian. I may be a bit older than some of the posters here I think... I am a 25 y/o male. But still I have issues I am dealing with as well and trying to figure out ways to get back to enjoying life...

Before I go further I just want to say I completely acknowledge some of the things I mention below that are causing me problems are due to my own stupid actions and I realize and accept that.. But please if you have nothing constructive to say please don't flame me...

I guess I will start with a little background. Back in High School I was one of the nerdy kids, never popular. I had very few friends, and only had a couple short relationships. Summer after I started dating this one girl, and it was the most amazing time of my life (between HS grad and college start), I've never matched that happiness since then. We did that long distance thing for entirety of college, some periods on and off where we always came back to each other.. We always visited every 2 weeks for a weekend until she moved in with me while I finished my masters, then we moved to San Diego after I was done. Things began going south a year after, I have an amazing job here where I was supporting both of us with a good quality of life but I was gone on travel about half the year. Basically we drifted apart.

After second year in SD she called it off and moved home with family. I was devastated. I didnt know what to do with myself. I fell into the wrong crowd and began acting like a reckless fool. I was newly single, excess of money from good job, just going out partying all the time. One night I screwed up really really really bad, and got busted for a dui. Stupidest mistake I have ever made. It took me a full year to deal with with all of it, basicallly after that I was just living day-to-day. I mean, I was also doing that before the breakup but it just made it worse.

I pretty much lost all my sense of self confidence and goodness as a person after that. I'll shorten the story here but for a good amount of time I felt like crap. I am super shy so its been hard for me to get back into the dating game i guess.

I have been suffering from a number of struggles since then (and some from before).. In general I'm just shy and have a hard time meeting new people and dating. Second, I still have some emotionional issues due to events I mentioned above. I tell myself I just need to get over crap but its not working for me.

I'm looking forward to any help you can provide...

Hi Brian.

I don't think things are as bad as they feel for you right now. Of course, that's easy to say and maybe even easy to hear, but rarely is that easy to accept. I think you should break things down and deal with them one at a time.

First, your breakup. The funny thing about breakups is that everyone goes through them but when we do we feel like nobody understands what we're going through. When people talk about it, we get the sensation of "Yeah, I understand you've gone through this but this is different." It's really not. Everything from thinking about TV shows you used to watch together to jokes you told one another can be heart wrenching. All of the plans you had for the future were suddenly changed. That's a very hard thing to adjust to.

One good sign is that you're talking about the difficulty of meeting new people and dating. That shows that at least a small part of you has gotten over the pain of the past and is ready to move on.

As far as the stupid things you have done... welcome to the club dude. A guilty conscience and negative emotions are powerful in that they can initiate positive changes in our lives. Yes, driving while intoxicated is incredibly careless and stupid. BUT... you got pulled over. Thankfully you didn't kill yourself or anyone else.

Regardless of any stupid party mistakes, it sounds to me like you still have a promising future. You've already had a great job and you're only 25. Yes, you've done some stupid and bad things but you feel bad about it which is what good people do.

If you ever want to chat a bit check out my profile on the board here for my E-mail address / Twitter handle.

Everyone does stupid things and regret them, but what's done is done and you should understand that one single failure doesn't characterize you as a person. The fact that you are so disturbed about what you've done proves this statement.
As for that girl, I should say that many of us tend to get stuck with people that they consider to be "love of the lifetime" or "soul mates", but the truth is it can happen with pretty much anyone. The fact that you hang out with someone for a long time and know her favorite color doesn't mean you actually know this person. Once you meet someone who really is your soul mate, you would understand that immediately and realize how stupid your previous affairs were.

It is really hard to find things we really enjoy, but you have to just keep looking. I think you should look into getting a new hobby or possibly some new friends? If you are alone a lot this will definitely not help this problem at all.