30 year old male, anxiety over always being single

Hello, first I just want to say I hope this is in the right place, and secondly that I feel kind of bad for posting as I'm lucky and don't suffer with say social anxiety all the time like a friend of mine or have had a traumatic experience, etc. So please feel free to move / delete this if needed, I'm just feeling bad at the moment and need to vent / see if anyone is in the same boat, etc.

My story is that I am now a 30 year old male and apart from about 5 weeks when I was 16 I've never been in a relationship with a woman. This isn't down to me being a player who messes with woman, any wonderings about my sexuality or other accountable reasons. And it's really started to bother me.

I lack confidence. I lead a pretty normal teenage life but couldn't talk with girls much, so I never 'learn't' how to approach women, I've still never been able to just speak to a random one in a bar for example.

When I was 27 I had what I call my 'breakdown'. I had a job going nowhere and the continuous being single pushed me to boiling point. I was constantly anxious and making myself ill for at least 3 weeks (the period is kind of hazy now). But I decided I needed to move from my small town to London and start a new life.

I did this about 6 months later after getting a contract job. I moved to a big city, new big office job and living with housemates who were total strangers. People said I was brave to do so but to me it was something I just had to do to keep my sanity.

But looking back on it now my self-confidence level seems so high. Since then I am still in London but 2014 consisted of hunting for a new job, getting one but the position being made redundant 6 months later and since October I've been out of work, struggling to live, no money to see the friends I had made, etc.

Relationship wise I haven't had any long-term success but I did do online dating and in total must have met 10 or so women from it, which for me is a massive step forward. Most of all I wasn't extremely nervous or at panic before going to the dates, it just felt like a normal thing to do, I felt normal with woman!

Now though I have no confidence at all, I can't even imagine the me of 9 months ago when I went on first dates with 4 women in about 6 weeks, got a couple of 2nd dates from it, etc.

Basically my anxiety is back for the first time in about 2 1/2 years. I'm panicking about what is happening with my life, why I've never been able to attract a woman and if I ever will experience what a loving relationship feels like.

I am overweight, not massively but it's always been there. I am finally making a real attempt at losing it after lots of half-arsed ones, but if anything this just makes me feel worse with my current state at the moment.

I've spoke with some friends I feel close enough to to discuss it and they all say sensible things that in my head I know are true "You just need to be working again and seeing people daily", "You need to live your life for yourself first", "losing some weight will make you feel more confident." I know it's all true, yet it doesn't stop me waking up at 6am and panicking that I'm single and don't have any contact with women that might lead to more etc.

I'm sorry that the above is pretty long and I have no idea if it makes sense to someone outside my head, but when I get like this I just need to let it out and I think my friends are getting a bit sick of it! Thank you.

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