As someone who used to be in this kind of situation myself, I have a hot take about this sort of thing. To put it briefly, you need to become a normal man; nor

As someone who used to be in this kind of situation myself, I have a hot take about this sort of thing. To put it briefly, you need to become a normal man; normal meaning in the context of human history, not necessarily the current year. A normal man doesn't stare at a screen all day doing STEM stuff. He doesn't play video games. He talks to people, works out, goes into nature, cares about his appearance, is focused on building a family, etc. You can justify anything to yourself with intellect: "Well there's nothing inherently worse about video games than other forms of entertainment, at least I'm engaging with it" or "Working out is vanity and I'm above such things, so I'll just maybe eat less dessert, I don't need to be buff or strong, that's a waste of my brain power and time." You have to stop thinking this kind of thing. It's a cope that has developed throughout your entire life to deal with insecurities. You can be the buff, happy go lucky jock archetype who grills on the weekends with his buddies and his girlfriend, and crucially, you can enjoy being this. I know, "I don't want to be as shallow as a jock, that's not me," but you actually do. You project negative traits onto this kind of life because to think otherwise is to accept your lifestyle is wasted and stupid. They are happy and you are not. You are not superior to them, you are worse, because you are unhappy. Your instinct knows what to do. It knows that video games are a waste of time. It knows that coding all day is going to make you lonely and undesirable. Why would a woman want to date a guy who's main hobby is typing on a screen? There has been a recent push in society for people to "just do whatever makes you happy and be yourself," and this is the result: a huge swathe of people addicted to dopamine and escapism, who even disdain the idea of "acting" like "someone they're not". What you're not, is happy. Stop doing all that shit that you know is not helping anything. Start doing the shit you think is dumb and vapid yet somehow manages to make everyone happy for all of human history. Hit the gym and talk to a stranger. You will change by acting.