Rabbi
Tel Aviv, Israel
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2020
- Posts
- 25,836
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I was adopted at the age of 2 into an American family and I also have 3 brothers who are also adopted, but are white/white-passing. I was pretty oblivious to my differences until I was about 12/13, but it has gotten worse and more painful over the years. Our parents are 6ft and 5'7ft tall, while my brothers are 6'3ft, 6'1ft, and 6ft, while I am 5'4.5ft.
While my family has never made me feel bad about myself or excluded me, it still did not prevent me from being lonely. Dating is absolutely brutal for a short Indian guy like me, while my adoptive parents have been with each other since their early 20s and all of my brothers have all dated in high school and have never had any issues dating. They have always told me to put myself out there, but I have such a low-self esteem that I've never attempted that until last year, which have resulted in a massive failure. I downloaded Tinder and didn't get a single meaningful match in 1 year. I tried going to bars/clubs, but it literally got me no where as women seem to find me repulsive.
The only time when I had success with women was when I got pretty close to this girl on Discord who was in a group chat with a few of our mutual friends from a server, but she stopped being interested in me romantically when one of our friends told her in private messages that I was 5'1ft, which I obviously am not, but 5'4.5ft is still pretty short, so she stopped talking to me and got with that friend who told her that.
Despite my height, I tried to do everything to improve my looks and myself in general. I started working out, do skincare, finally graduated college and got a decent-paying job, eating well, everything, but my height is something that I massively still struggle with. I don't even have any high or unrealistic standards for women or anything, but I still manage to fail.
It was brutal coming home for Christmas last year as all of my brothers came home with their girlfriends and I was the only one still by myself. I couldn't bare being in the same room as my family, so I spent all of that time in my room or in the garage which is our gym space. But even that has backfired as I realized that I was too weak to lift the same amount of weight that my brothers have for years, despite my training and effort. I could only really do the workouts that my mother does such as running on a treadmill, which feels very demasculinizing.
I would also rant about the racism that Indians face in the USA, especially for the past 5 years, but that is a such a hard topic for me to talk about that I just can't do it.
I just don't know what to do anymore. With all my failures, it's hard to keep going. I fear I may just end up alone. I have no one to talk about this to, and it maybe is my fault as I intentionally tried to ignore these issues through escapism through video games, hiding in my room, focusing on graduating, etc. I just need a space where I can say all this out loud without judgement or gaslighting me into believing that how I look does not matter. That's all.
While my family has never made me feel bad about myself or excluded me, it still did not prevent me from being lonely. Dating is absolutely brutal for a short Indian guy like me, while my adoptive parents have been with each other since their early 20s and all of my brothers have all dated in high school and have never had any issues dating. They have always told me to put myself out there, but I have such a low-self esteem that I've never attempted that until last year, which have resulted in a massive failure. I downloaded Tinder and didn't get a single meaningful match in 1 year. I tried going to bars/clubs, but it literally got me no where as women seem to find me repulsive.
The only time when I had success with women was when I got pretty close to this girl on Discord who was in a group chat with a few of our mutual friends from a server, but she stopped being interested in me romantically when one of our friends told her in private messages that I was 5'1ft, which I obviously am not, but 5'4.5ft is still pretty short, so she stopped talking to me and got with that friend who told her that.
Despite my height, I tried to do everything to improve my looks and myself in general. I started working out, do skincare, finally graduated college and got a decent-paying job, eating well, everything, but my height is something that I massively still struggle with. I don't even have any high or unrealistic standards for women or anything, but I still manage to fail.
It was brutal coming home for Christmas last year as all of my brothers came home with their girlfriends and I was the only one still by myself. I couldn't bare being in the same room as my family, so I spent all of that time in my room or in the garage which is our gym space. But even that has backfired as I realized that I was too weak to lift the same amount of weight that my brothers have for years, despite my training and effort. I could only really do the workouts that my mother does such as running on a treadmill, which feels very demasculinizing.
I would also rant about the racism that Indians face in the USA, especially for the past 5 years, but that is a such a hard topic for me to talk about that I just can't do it.
I just don't know what to do anymore. With all my failures, it's hard to keep going. I fear I may just end up alone. I have no one to talk about this to, and it maybe is my fault as I intentionally tried to ignore these issues through escapism through video games, hiding in my room, focusing on graduating, etc. I just need a space where I can say all this out loud without judgement or gaslighting me into believing that how I look does not matter. That's all.
