Repost as I mentioned another sub that triggered post removal.

I'm posting here because I want a male perspective on my life. As this is an RP offshoot, I want someone to examine the romantic, sexual, and social side of my life especially, and offer some opinions on how I can improve it.

I'm 26 years old and have just broken into an interesting and stable job in an industry I really like. I take a lot of pride in my education, and would one day like to undertake a PhD in Development Economics. My aim is to grow my career into one where I can travel as much as possible and hopefully help disadvantaged people.

Socially, I'm a very private person. Though I'm ambitious, most people don't really understand what I'm aiming for and would probably disparage it if I brought it up. People from where I live don't seem to have the same type of goals. Though I have a couple of close friends, the pressure is really on me to carve my own way through all sorts of resistance and negativity. I've been excelling at this so far.

About my romantic side, I'll list off my main relationships for judgement:

• The first was a school sweetheart at age 15, very valuable to me. Met via mutual friends. It set a great foundation for my sex life, because there were no weird power plays, it was just experimental and fun. The relationship itself was pretty goofy and ended at a natural time a couple of years later.
• When I was 19, I started to see a slightly older but sheltered girl. Again, met via mutual friends, had some fun moments over the two years we were together, but things quickly became bitter when it seemed like she cared more about television shows and pop culture than reality. Lots of ugly and petty arguments, which I wish I could have handled better. Ended as amicably as I could manage, but we haven't communicated since.
• The next was a friend I had met online when I was around 17 or 18. We were confidants for years. Looking back, she was an absolute wreck of a girl. Her entire self-worth seemed to hinge on whether people wanted to have sex with her. On the other hand, she was intelligent, sensitive, and seemed to be very much in love with me (for a time, 20/20 hindsight). We flew out to see eachother a couple of times, once when I was 22 and again when I was 25. Nice memories, but of course she was seeing other people. There was a horrible string of affairs that showed without doubt she was a lost cause, and it ended pretty messily from there. She used people and thought she was justified in doing so. This coincided with a period throughout which she underwent hormone replacement therapy and began identifying as a male. I haven't spoken to her/him in over a year.
• Probably my most conventional relationship was a girl I started dating from a temporary job at a bookstore. She was bright, cute, ambitious herself, had a lovely dry sense of humour, and we paced ourselves really well. We went on dates, got to know eachother, and things unfolded in a way I still find really exciting. She went on a work placement to another country and encouraged me to come out and see her. She booked accommodation for us and we went on about four or five days of sight-seeing. There was one night of sex, but she seemed reluctant to be physical. When I pressed her on the issue, she told me she was asexual and began crying. She seemed so level-headed before this. A couple of other 'off' moments in which she would deliberately take jokes a little too far convinced me she wasn't someone I wanted to be with, but it still hurt like hell. I remember a few months later texting her to say I'd like to be friends, and she replied it was 'sweet of me to think of her, but it's too late for that'.

The rest of my life is in good order. I am disciplined, in good shape, and I am working my way toward full financial independence. Those last two relationships, though? That's left me reeling with how I see myself socially, romantically, etc.. I think it's understandable why I haven't gone out of my way to approach women since. Honestly it's starting to feel like choosing between different varieties of poison.

That being said, I am a young(ish) guy. I want intimacy, sex, and a part of me even still wants to be able to share my life with someone who has similar goals, but it seems like the options just aren't there right now. What would you guys recommend?