If you are physically and socially active, but still don’t feel self-value and have tried the standard things (e.g. taking a break, eating well etc) then maybe therapy is the best option?

Self awareness (NOT cynicism).

Learning to understand emotions creates room for emotional regulation, regulation is basis for self confidence.

I don’t think love is something one should think of as deserving or not. If you love somebody, you can’t stop that train. If somebody loves you, it is almost just as hard to stop. Best not to try if that happens. Just enjoy the ride. If you disappoint somebody, you move on.

Remember you don’t have to have something “to offer” aside from an ear and a hug from time to time.

Do something that scares you.

I’m not talking about something actually dangerous, just something that will push your boundaries.

A while back I got a job that I swore I couldn’t handle. It was front facing with the public, and I’d have to deal with doctors, police officers, and mental patients.

Every night when I got to the job I was scared, but after a few months I started getting my feet under me. My boss told me that I was doing a good job.

You might try something like scuba diving, or riding a very high zipline. Anything that let’s you say “I was afraid to do this, and I pushed through and did it.”

I would also like to overcome this

not even for myself. because my roommate is on a mission to get me a girlfriend and I don’t feel capable of loving myself let alone another person and it’s driving me nuts

For Me, confidence came with transitioning to My preferred gender. I couldn’t be happy while thinking of Myself as a man, because I didn’t want to be a man. It was impossible to love Myself as a man. It was easier to like Myself as a woman, but not to love Myself, because I wasn’t a woman either. It’s easy to love Myself as a goddess. And I feel more lovable this way too. I certainly get more romantic attention! And now that I know who I am, I know how to respond to it.

So I’ll say: you have to learn who you are before you can love yourself. Who do you want to be? What does success look like to you? I don’t mean financial or social success, I mean what mental picture of yourself actually makes you happy? Who are you in your wildest fantasies, sexual or otherwise?

Long story short I don’t feel like I deserve romance in my life yet. I feel like I got nothing to offer.

Turn this perspective around. Assume you have a mate. Describe what things you like about them such as:

Character

• Do they offer help to people they know?
• Do they offer help to people they don’t even know?
• How do they treat people in service industries?
• What charities do they support (if any)?
• Do you think they have reasonable interactions with their family?
• How honest are they with themselves when they make mistakes?
• How do they treat the feelings of others?

Finances/Employment/Career

• Are they able to cover their bills?
• Do they have a level of ambition with regards to their career that you respect?
• What does their savings look like?

Intelligence/Education

• Do you feel they have completed sufficient schooling?
• Can they handle difficult situations on their own or are they constantly reliant upon others to navigate adult life for them?

…etc.

Now, how do you stack up against your list of traits and values you want for your mate? Do you see any particular shortcomings in yourself? If so, that’s your list to work on and you can know you can offer your mate exactly what you are looking for from them.

I think your question reveals that you are conflating “confidence”, “self love”, “love” and “romance”. As someone approaching 40 who has struggled with all of these things to various degrees over time, I strongly recommend against mixing these things up or treating them like the same thing. They aren’t. And by conflating them, you’re only making it harder to feel satisfied with any of them!

If you skateboard then you already know all about “confidence”. You can’t land a trick without confidence, and the only way you can gain confidence is by practicing until you can do it in your sleep. I think that same mentality applies to all things, including just basic social situations, making friends, and dating. You might land it, you might bail, or you might totally eat shit, but you’ve gotta practice putting yourself out there to build confidence. Reflect on yourself to determine what you feel unconfident about, and work on it. Practice it like you’d practice an ollie.

“Self-love” is a difficult one, because many of us are our own harshest critics. You might want to be the best version of yourselves and feel let down or disappointed when you fall short of that. You might have a tendency to blame yourself for things that are fundamentally outside of your control. Worst of all, you might be someone who channels every negative emotion (boredom, loneliness, fear, anxiety, etc.) into self-hatred, instead of just accepting that you can feel bad without being bad. We have to resist all of those tendencies because they are negative and self-destructive. Look at the things about you that are good. Look at your talents, look at your relationships, look at the way you treat other people and animals, and so on… Furthermore, it’s really important that you learn that self-love is fundamentally different than love or romance for others–being in a relationship is unlikely to teach you self-love, and self-love is something that you have to work on finding even if you are single or feel lonely.

“Love” is also difficult, if only because you can’t force it. It’s also not the same as romance. Depending on your circumstances, you can find love in your family, be it parents, grandparents, siblings, kids, or other relatives. You can also find love in a beloved pet, like a cat or a dog who always wants to be with you. You can find love in a lifelong friend who you truly care about and who cares about you right back. Love isn’t romance (and it certainly isn’t sex), but it’s powerful and you know it when you feel it. There’s no recipe to finding love out in the world, but if you look around you, I think you might see that it’s already there in some form.

I’m certainly no expert in “romance”, so I’m probably not a good person to ask about this… But I think a lot of romance is just showing the other person that you’re thinking about them and care for them. Romance is not sex; you can have romance without sex and you can have sex without romance. Being “good at sex” is not the same as being romantic, nor is it necessary. I have really come to learn that the most romantic thing you can do is be emotionally intimate with a partner, by talking to them openly, asking them how they feel, breaking down the boundaries between you both and making them feel comfortable and safe in every way that people need. If you can care for another person, listen to them, and share their most intimate moments, then I think you probably do have what it takes to be romantic.

Finally, it’s also important to address the idea that “aromanticism” and “asexuality” exist in a whole variety of different forms. These ways of being have probably always existed throughout humanity, even though they weren’t discussed as frankly due to the pressures of social conformity. I think you really need to at least consider the possibility that part of the reason you’ve tended to shy away from seeking out romantic relationships is that you feel that you might not really want a conventional one. Only you know for sure, but it’s at least worth thinking about.

This could just be depression.

practice it.

you have to practice it to do it and get good at it. like anything in life. you can’t learn a language without sitting down and learning the words and the grammar and practicing it again and again until you star to memorize it.

you have a internalized belief that you need to change about yourself and the world. the only way to change it is to stop practicing that belief. as a person who was in terrible relationships for a long time… well I was under a lot of false beliefs that kept putting me in that situation and once I learned to stop thinking that everything was my fault/responsibility… it was a lot easier to stop it.

the other mistake you are apt to make, that mots of us do, is expecting results quickly. what you have to understand is this is a life-long process, you can’t just temporarily do it and expect it to stick. not anymore than you can go on a diet, lose weight, and go back to your pre-diet eating habits and expect to keep the weight off. you have to stay on the weight-loss diet the rest of your life. this is also true a therapy, a lot of people do therapy, and then go right back to their old self, and claim therapy didn’t work… for it to work it has to be a fundamental shift.

Most people out there are looking for their person. They wanna know who the right person is for them. Most advice out there is about how to attract whatever kinda person you want. The world is full of selfish people. Your first question was about how to be the right person. You’re much more solidly on the right path than you give yourself credit. You demonstrate both a willingness to honestly examine yourself and a desire to change for the better. To be clear; you’ve already started the process.

As for what you want to accomplish, knowing what to do is simple and easy, the work itself is difficult and takes time as you’ve already anticipated. I could get into the neurological framework behind it if you like, but basically it’s just like the process of working out/going to the gym. You do the things that strengthen those “muscles” so to speak. Uncomfortable with your own appearance? Stand in front of the mirror and be cognizant of your self-talk. Your goal is to be able to look at yourself without making value statements about yourself. Your focus should be on your reaction rather than the initial observation. You always have the option of having no opinion. Train yourself to not be critical or prideful of yourself, but rather to be honest. “I am me, to expect more or less of myself is a choice I’m under no obligation to make”.

To make lasting change within yourself, you must become more mindful of your opinions and reactions. No one can make you angry, or cry, or happy, it’s your opinion of whatever happens. You’re not angry because that guy cut you off while driving, it’s because you belive he was unjust to do so and he did it with malformed intent. Is it possible he did it to avoid hitting a dog? How could you be angry then? Even more realistically, it could be that he wasn’t paying attention, but even then, why be angry? “He should pay more attention!” That’s not up to you, so what good is your anger? “He could have hurt me or someone else!” Then adjust your behavior accordingly, and shouldn’t you expect this behavior already? Humans are well known as distracted drivers, how can you be angry with something you expect as a byproduct of one’s very nature? The goal isn’t eliminating emotion, but to not be controlled by them. Anger has it’s place, but it’s abused to death the world over. Anger should motivate you to move into rational action, not consume you with rambling outrage. This is just an example of how you work out changing your own behavior, and in turn, changing yourself.

The difficulty is that you have to do it consistently. Just like working out, starting is hard and won’t really show results, but it gets easier over time as you progress. You have to constantly remind yourself, you must constantly refocus your attention, and you must constantly find new ways to practice being uncomfortable. The process is difficult, but more than rewarding when you look back on your progress. And when you simply become someone who is more in control of themselves, the self-love/confidence follows close behind. This way you treat the cause of the symptoms. I have much more on the subject if you have questions. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a good read for this.

TL;DR: Stoic philosophy.

everyones sorta a loser because unless your the best there are other folk or folks out there who can do what you do and even better. Thing is people can also be the worst at things or have no talent. People value things at different levels and sometimes that can be things they are good and interested in and sometimes not. Some things are not as showy or maybe generally spotlighted in life. I did not see you mention any soft skills like listening or being honest or nice. Not everything is about physical activities. Someone can be pius in ways but not be a priest. Those things assoicated with males or females sometimes are expected but plenty of folks won’t fit the mold. This is why red green had “If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy” but some men are not handy (honestly me. I mean I can be a bit for certain things) but they have some other things that someone can love. I would think less about what makes you worthy and think more about whats important to you. Let them decide if you have the things important to them.

Fist your hands, raise them high and say out loud: “Fuck, I’m good!” and/or “Fuck, I’m the best!”.

Do this semi-regularily on different occations.

Nothing boosts self confidence like a little praise.

People have inherent worth. What do you think t need to do, or be, or accomplish to be worthy of love? Because I will tell you almost none of it is necessary beyond being a good partner. My wife, in some ways is a better person than I could ever be — and in some ways not.

If you communicate, compromise and are attentive, industrious, and honest I would hazard a guess that you will find someone eventually because just those qualities make someone a good partner — if you can do that, someone out there is looking for someone like you right now, because they’ve been burned by people without those traits.

Then the real trick is to find someone who is worthy of you in return. They should be the kind of person who wants to be part of your dreams and goals, and you should want to be part of theirs. And they should have the qualities of a good partner as well.