My whole life I've been an unusual combination of confident in my career but very shy and reticent socially. To the point I hate socialising, going out to the pub or nightclubs – feel very out of my depth. I've also been very overweight my whole adult life, although have lost a lot of weight in the last few years. At my heaviest I was 27 stone, I now weight around 14 stone due to some surgery.

I have a very good and pretty public job. I'm a CEO and a figure head, now in the press a fair bit and having to be more public facing. Finding this hard and increasingly the job takes over every minute of every day. Here are my big challenges:

  1. Finacially I'm far from sorted. I still rent a flat but will not inherit any money from my family. I earn 100k a year, but living in London makes it hard to save and I think owning a property feels totally out of reach. I have roughly 45k in savings.

  2. I'm out of shape physically. While I'm no longer obese, I’ve tried joining gyms before but after induction have always drifted off quite quickly. The truth is I don’t really know how to use my body, how to get in shape, how to lose weight or any of those things. I have no real strength and would struggle lifting even the lightest of weights. And fear at 40, it's too late. I also eat junk. Though I don't drink alcohol, do drugs or smoke.

  3. I'm gay and have occasional dates and men that I have long on and off again relationships with – but I don't seem to be able to sustain interest longer term from my side. The truth is I'm also pretty ugly, my body shape is not what anyone is looking for and I can't compete in the market place.

I've tried some therapy, but have been more honest in this post than I was in a year of talking to a councillor.

Basically, be honest with me. How do I move forward? What can I do from here? Feeling stuck and need some wisdom.


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