It sounds like this is the
PERFECT time for you to work on yourself (your confidence, self-esteem, health, social skills, interests, or whatever that means to YOU)! If you do that, you'll reap the rewards of being happy with yourself short-term, and for the rest of your life. Next to self-satisfaction, your social and love lives will sort themselves out nicely once you're in a better place with yourself. After all, you can't really expect others to like or love you i you don't truly like and love yourself, right? At least that's true for those who aren't your relatives and are the caliber of friends and partners you want and deserve.
And on that note, be forewarned that threads like this frequently bring attention from lower quality people. It's sad, but the more predatory and unattractive (eg cheaters, liars, dudes who are just looking to get off) flock to threads like this and also women who have lower self-esteem, or even just say they're overweight. You almost certainly already have or will be contacted by them. How you proceed is up to you of course, but if you're looking to avoid those types, there are generally giveaways such as post count, content /history, profile, how they start and try to steer a conversation, honesty, etc.). Now that it seems you have the PMs figured out, you may want to remove your Skype and any other contact info, since that's typically a big invitation to the wankers and scummier elements to weasel their way into your life, and even prey on you by getting your personal info and such. Again, it's up to you, and I'm not pointing to anyone specifically, but since you mentioned the old guy experience, I feel it's especially worth pointing out. Iif I were a sleazeball, I'd be all over you after seeing a thread like this!
