Hello I'm new to the forum. Here is some background on me.

I'm 45, 5'10, 300lbs. I've been fat my whole life. I also suffer from depression, possible undiagnosed adhd, and low self esteem. I've been married twice, no kids, and I've been single since 2014. I have done a lot of online dating with little success. I'm pretty introverted and more of an observer in social settings than a participator. I think this stems from me so desperately wanting acceptance as a child I wound up turning people off with my personality and being ridiculed because of it. So I tend to keep my mouth shut in social situations--just peppering a comment here and there or waiting for someone to talk to me. I tend to think of myself as an observer.

Now the good: I like to think I'm quite funny, very smart, and moderately successful career-wise. I have a very youthful face and I believe I'm relatively handsome, despite the extra weight. I have a strong moral compass, no major vices outside of eating poorly. I am a dog lover with two rescues. I love to travel. I love tattoos, music (but not live), going to hockey and baseball games. Most of my hobbies are pretty nerdy and not very social.

I used to have crippling anxiety as a child and young adult but a combination of medicine, therapy, and time has taken most of it away (except talking to women in the wild, obviously)

I have very rarely done an approach. All of my dating has been OLD. I just have terrible PTSD from girls in my teens that at this point I just shut down and freeze up. It's only gotten worse since the pandemic.

I've done a lot of reading in TRP and seduction sites, audio/ebooks, etc, but it's so very difficult for me to put it into practice. I am introverted by nature (or nurture?) and pushing myself to talk to people feels so unnatural. I don't really have many friends, and the men that I know are all married at this point.

I realize that a huge barrier to my success is my weight, but honestly I'm not sure that is going to change, and if it does, it will be very slowly. I certainly will never be "jacked". With that said I am beginning a strength program. It's just pretty demoralizing to hear that the advice I've been given for 30 years "looks don't matter", "you're handsome", "just be yourself", "it's all about personality"is all bullshit, and I'm not going to see results unless I do something that I've spent 30+ years being unsuccessful at. With that being said, I have been working on myself, but again it's very slowly. Years of being told I'm not good enough, further reinforced by my own brain is so hard to escape from.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this. Partly to just get it off my chest. Maybe for some advice, but "lose weight" and "just talk to women" won't help at this point. I thought that by now I'd be just content being alone, but that hasn't happened either.

Anyway hello all!