I have a weird one idk if its OCD but I know im a decent guy, at least average looking but I feel like I need validation from girls. Its like i just want to know for sure if im attractive and how much is so… perhaps from a fear of not being good enough. With much reluctance and self-hatred i downloaded a dating app and actually did get matches and conversations, etc which surprised me and gave me like a “high” for a while and a sense of relief like “oh thank goodness I must be attractive then” but no matter what, somehow my anxiety would always find a way of convincing that I wasnt. Ie: if a girl and I werent compatible and she unmatched me I’d feel like I wasnt good enough, or if she asked me to hang out id just think she must be easy and says that to many guys etc. Like no matter what my anxiety prevails and despite the reassurance I got from actually doing decently well on this app, it has only left me feeling more anxious, rejected, depressed and confused. Is this OCD?

I’m a good man and I know that. My OCD revolves around relationships. While dating someone a truly enjoy, I find myself needing to compulse everything on my mind or else I feel like I’m being a liar or keeping secrets. I also am pretty confident I suffer from false memory ocd. I don’t like to put a label on things but I’m 99.9% sure I do. My compulsions a lot of times come from things I’m not even sure are real. The more thought I put into them, the more I start to believe they are real. One of the worst compulsions I had in my relationship was I had a thought “what if I find my ex more attractive” and “what if I thought the sex with them was better”. I ended up compulsing these things to my gf. After lots of time to think and get a ahold of myself I was able to remind myself that these things weren’t true and I was just in a downward spiral. There was a 2-3 month period where every time I was relieved of something then I would instantly think of something else. These compulsions have caused insecurity in my gf and I feel like a terrible person. Never meant to hurt her at all and was just trying to find a sense of relief. While I know it is not true, I can’t fix things with words and I feel terrible. I would love to hear from people with tricks and strategies that can help. I love my gf and want to fix things and understand this is not a relationship fixer app but I would like to know what are some ways you are able to deal with these kind of things.

Okay, just wanna start by saying that I don’t have ROCD. I have perfectionism OCD, and I get intrusive thoughts that no one will like me, I’ll lose all my friends, I’ll be alone for life, etc. if I don’t have things “just right.” I feel like every time I like someone, my OCD just gets worse cause if I don’t perform compulsions, I feel like I have no chance with him. Your handwriting wasn’t smooth? Guess your love life won’t be either. The volume of your phone was too low? Guess your chances with him are too. Failed to draw your graph perfectly symmetrical? Guess what else you’ll fail at. It’s honestly exhausting, and that it isn’t even it. I feel like I tend to fixate on my crushes also. I wanna be 100% sure they’re a good fit before making a move, and that’s really problematic cause there’s just no way to know. And even if I deem that they’re a good guy, I STILL won’t do anything cause I always expect the worst! What if the first impression that I make is so bad that he wants nothing to do with me? I put so much pressure on myself to get him to like me back that I’m terrified to make a move. I’m so focused on the prospect of a second convo that I don’t even want to have the first convo! Like rn, there’s this dude that caught my eye. He’s a senior in high school, while I’m a junior. I’m taking AP bio, and he’s taking AP chem—both are 1.5 periods, so I see him in the cafe and during the passing period (we leave the cafe halfway through the lunch period). I purposely plant myself next to him in the halls during the passing period but haven’t worked up the courage to talk to him. He’s single, I don’t have any classes with him this year, he’ll be at college next year, we follow each other on instagram, and my friends have told me that he’s nice (and keeps to himself), so there’s minimal risk in trying to talk to him. Thing is though, every time I think about introducing myself, I just imagine all the ways that it can go wrong. What if he hates me? What if my first impression is actually good and we become friends, but he doesn’t like me back? What if I tell him I like him over messages, and he screenshots my text and posts it on his instagram story? I don’t know what to do. I know that high school is kinda early and that I still have time to figure things out. I’m just worried that I still won’t have things figured out when I need to. Any advice or personal experience would be welcome and greatly appreciated!

(Sorry for the long post!) So one of the OCD things that most affects me at times, and that I have not really found other people dealing with (in literature or in my work as a therapist working with people with OCD), is one that often relates to potential dating and people I am interested in. Typically, as a gay male, I meet people on chat apps or dating sites, so the first interactions are virtual. What I find often happens is that I sort of build an image of the person, and then if anything goes against that, I start to get anxious and the OCD kicks in. An example may work best. I started talking to a guy that I find incredibly attractive, and who seems to find me attractive as well, and when we became friends on instagram, I saw that he has done some amateur modeling for a friend who does pictures in various states of undress. There are a few in underwear, and a few with no clothes (no genitals are shown), and this started off the thoughts of "oh no, he must just want sex" or "I bet he is super promiscuous if he has pictures like these." This leads to me investigating the other photos on the site, and the guy who does the images to try and figure it out, what kind of work it is, etc. I even found a way to work it into a conversation with the guy, like "wow I don't think I could do that. You're braver than me," and he said he did it because the photographer is a husband of a coworker and expressed interest in doing the pictures, and he loves his body so didn't mind doing it, and they are really good friends now. OCD then gets triggered "he loves his body? That must mean he really IS promiscuous. What if he and the men also have threesomes?" This leads to intrusive thoughts of me having to picture this happening,or him having sex with other people, over and over until it "feels right." I'll recheck his dating profiles in which has said that he is "not into fast sex," and then think about and picture scenarios about how that could just mean he wants to talk to someone once before having sex. The OCD also affects conversations--if he doesn't get back to me quickly on WhatsApp, I scour the texts to see if I messed something up (ocd responsibility--it's always my fault). I texted him yesterday, and he hasn't looked at the messages (he has read receipts on WhatsApp), but I check and see that he has liked a post by someone on instagram or has posted a story, so I think "clearly he sees that I've messaged and is purposely ignoring it, because he hates me and wants nothing to do with me. That's it, I'm never going to hear from him again." We were supposed to hang out last week, but he asked to reschedule because he wasn't feeling well, so my OCD then said "he was at an event the night before, he probably met someone and is still at their house." He did text the next day to ask what my schedule was, and then said "perfect. I work in Lisbon until next Thursday" (I'm currently living in Porto, in Portugal, where he also lives), so he seems to be interested in hanging out, but then I think "he probably saw something that I did online or someone we both know in common somehow told him something and now he's done with me. Or maybe he met someone he's more interested in, and will just ignore me now." This type of experience has happened with several guys I've been interested in, and it has actually led to me pushing too hard and making them uncomfortable as I seek certainty, so I'm trying to be aware of that and not engage in that kind of behavior. I also realize that there are like a billion different OCD things in this post, and I'm writing another post as well related to how moral scrupulosity has been controlling my beliefs about sex, etc., something my new therapist identified after one session. Anyway, I just wanted to see if anyone has experienced anything along these lines, because when it happens it takes over and it is painful and I just want to rip it out of my head. Additionally, I never quite know how to manage exposure to this type of thing--there is the logical one of not checking social media, and not texting or re-reading texts, but it's also hard because I will actually force myself at times to think about him having sex with people, and then that makes me feel overwhelmed with anxiety, but I also can't suppress the thoughts, as that doesn't work, and am thus trying to do more of an ACT/acceptance approach. Unfortunately my therapist is out of town this week, so we can't work on anything surrounding this until next week. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I apologize that it is so long, but it is just really sucks right now.