something_else

The root cause of loneliness is not talking to people It's kind of like saying you aren't gonna eat food to conquer hunger If you wanted to transcend loneliness in a healthy way then you have to do that from a position of having abundant social opportunity/experience and choosing to reject that in favour of solitude. Otherwise it's just running away from your problems Sounds like you're on a better track now. I'm also on the path of building up a social circle, trying to be far more social etc. As a way to handle social anxiety

I mean maybe technically it's possible but this is probably just your laziness/ego looking for a quick solution to things that take time

Was scrolling through the thread looking for a response like this, and you wrote it better than I could Same for me

I'm getting closer and closer to thinking you're an actualized.org prankster with every post ?

@Leo Gura Funny you should say that, my dad was actually into the proper pickup craft, back near its inception, like the 80s or so. And from what I gather quite successful. I only discovered this recently and it creates a weird concoction of emotions inside me to say the least ?

Entirely unrelated but this is was a nostalgia bomb These guys have a group in my city with 6 people, guess it could be interesting, idk, I feel like I'm more drawn to the path of making extroverted friends to go party with or just going out on my own. Seems to be working OK so far I don't like the idea of 'doing pickup' per se, I like viewing it as learning so socialise and beat social anxiety instead

"Adults who possess relative pitch but do not already have absolute pitch can learn "pseudo-absolute pitch" and become able to identify notes in a way that superficially resembles absolute pitch.[9] Certain people who train to name notes may indeed become able to identify all 12 notes of the scale with 90% accuracy or above,[10] and valproate, a medication used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder, may re-open the "critical period" of learning, making the acquisition of absolute pitch, as well as languages, potentially as efficient for adults as for children.[11][12] Even so, this form of pitch training can require considerable motivation, time, and effort, and it is not retained without constant practice and reinforcement.[13]" I mean that sounds like a pretty good start minus the medication part lol Pulled from Wikipedia. I also found a lot of places that say perfect pitch is usually found in people who have extensive musical training at young ages. I don't know if that's talent, I suppose it's luck that you started early. I don't know a lot about music so that all might be full of shit, please tell me if it is, but sounds pretty reasonable Yea you can be lucky and born with special skills or advantages, I'm not disagreeing with that. The problem is that the mindset of "I'm not talented enough to do X" is a really really bad one that you should try and drop

The problem is this is a retarded assumption for like almost all skills Most of what you call talent is just people who got into something young enough that it's so naturally built into their being that it looks like talent Sure there are sometimes people who are exceptionally gifted at things but you also notice that most of them tend to work pretty hard at their talent too and that's not coincidence Their real talent was having enough passion and drive about a single thing to work hard at it but there's no reason you can't recreate such a drive artificially or find something for which you have a natural passion and drive This isn't designed to cheer you up btw, in fact it should make you feel kinda unpleasant because the whole reason most people blame lack of success on lack of talent is because it makes your own ego feel good

This is the big one for me and it's a horribly vicious cycle. You're too anxious to say things, then you become anxious about being too quiet because realise you haven't talked for 10 minutes and that it would be weird to suddenly jump in after that silence That situation can also make you say weird things because you feel like you need to say something, so you force your way into the conversation with something kinda inauthentic or out of place What tends to happen is that I feel like I have more filters than someone without social anxiety, so it takes a few more seconds for me to judge a thought as being acceptable to speak or not, so even if I deem it acceptable the moment has passed A few things that I've noticed help me 'flow' with conversation more: having an activity to do while talking, like playing pool with people or some kind of game etc. And fidgeting with something Having an activity to do is kind of an obvious solution, it means the talking isn't the main focus. But there's another benefit that's similar to the fidgeting in that ironically these take up brainpower and focus that you would otherwise be dedicating to filtering your words I'm not talking about nervous fidgeting, it has to be something relatively unnoticeable to others (because ofc you have social anxiety) so something like slowly running your thumb over your other fingers is a good one. Or even just slowly and intentionally fidgeting with a random object in front of you isn't seen as weird at all and has this effect of helping you speak without over-filtering

I'm pretty sure I know the answer, 'it depends', but I'll explain myself and maybe someone can offer some insight into this I've noticed I often feel quite guilty when I buy reasonably expensive things I want. I've recently just started working as a software engineer on £30k which is pretty reasonable as a single guy, I live in a cheapish place in a smaller town cos I work remote, so financially I'm not really worried at all and I end up with a good amount of disposable income Yet, when I buy things there's often an underlying guilt and I can't work out where it's coming from For example, I'm doing a lot of socialising, getting better with girls, partying etc. cos I missed out on all of that in uni. So I figured having clothes that I really like is good and as such I've spent a whole bunch of money on some nice clothes recently, nice jackets, jumpers, jeans, t-shirts, a nice watch etc. yet every time I buy anything quality (which comes with a bigger price tag ofc) I feel so guilty for not just going to cheaper places, even though I know I can afford it Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to crazy expensive places, usually mid-range brands so like ~£100 for a jacket or jeans, £10-20 for a t-shirt etc. for context I've also bought a lot of furniture for my place recently with the same feeling of guilt, even though it was all from IKEA which is as cheap as you can get really In my mind I feel like I should be saving the money for something 'more useful' and for 'my future' but I have no idea what 'more useful' thing in the future that is so it's just some vague idea my mind pumps out that makes me feel guilty I guess what I'm asking is should I just kind of impulsively buy the more expensive things that I prefer and not worry too much about it, or should I try to be more frugal and shop at cheaper places, carefully manage money etc. Again the answer is probably balance the two, but maybe someone has some insight into the psychology of money here that might help, I'd appreciate it if you do!

Ironic that the solution to fear of buying things is buying things, isn't it I have the book list already, I'll take a look, cheers There was some weird shit when I was younger where anything nice my mum bought me, I'd be afraid to show to my dad because he was far less well off and would talk shit about how my mum spoilt me etc. (They were divorced for context), that's about the only thing I can think of but I don't feel like it's had a tremendous impact on my psyche. Who knows, I suppose Based on this, spending money on clothes is perfectly acceptable as I feel socialisation is definitely one of my main 3 things that I'm focusing on right now. In fact it's pretty much the only thing I'm intensely commited to rn until I can travel. This helped, thanks

Because the alternative is starving to death?

It sounds like you have an idea of how a typical women thinks in your head here, kind of like a strawman I suppose. Different women want different things Dating of any kind is basically a game of hurt feelings on both sides. It's impossible to date without hurting feelings and getting your feelings hurt. Rejection, miscommunication, frustration, game playing, all happen to both men and women and they all feel like shit. Most of the hurt feelings are temporary and just part of the game of dating, it's ultimately pretty harmless. Trust that women are adults capable of handling this, as are you What you absolutely don't do, of course, is traumatically hurt women which comes from the really nasty stuff like lying, cheating, heavy manipulation, controlling behaviour etc. etc. that you might often see from some toxic pickup guys. It sounds like you don't have an issue with this anyway I wouldn't worry too much about any of this tbh, just go and socialise with women, you'll get a feel for it pretty quick. If you want to attract women 'consciously' so to speak, you're aiming to be a bit edgy and cheeky without being an actual asshole

Encryption systems can have backdoors built into them. There was a whole bunch of discussion about this a couple years ago where several governments wanted to force WhatsApp to introduce a backdoor into their end-to-end encryption systems so governments could read messages

I mean at this point it's hardly surprising If you want privacy don't use any mainstream social networks/messaging services

Yea, this is one of the main reasons I push myself to go out Saturdays/Sundays so much I understand, having bad nights out is horrible. I would at the very least push yourself to go out, and if it's clearly not working then perhaps go home early. At least at that point you can say you did something out of your comfort zone and you're making progress I think a good metric for progress is if you continually find/put yourself in challenging social situations As long as you're doing that you're making progress. Though I'm viewing this from the perspective of beating social anxiety rather than pickup per se, not sure what you're going for

One of my best night thus far started with me feeling like shit. Your mind will generate a lot of questionable thoughts/rationales about why you shouldn't go out if it's not something you're used to, especially if you're going alone But if you're not used to socialising you're always going to need to push yourself a little I now just expect that my mind will feed me garbage about 1-2hrs before I'm going out and that helps me push through, I usually end up having pretty good nights

Dude, look at how much horseshit your mind is generating to avoid accepting the fact you might have been even slightly in the wrong I'm almost impressed You were labelled as a dangerous individual purely based on your own behaviour. If these places give creepy dudes second chances girls get spiked, abused, raped and murdered. It's not about being rational and fair, these people are acting to protect others and maintain the quality vibe of their bar. You have to play by their rules This is the last thing I'm going to say because you're mind is superglued clamshell level of closed and anything anyone says to you, you'll have a million logical reasons why they're wrong and you don't need to change your behaviour Which means you'll continue to get the same results you've been getting. But hey, at least you destroyed some people using your cold hard facts and logic on the internet, right?

Stop thinking of this as a logical argument or debate. Your mind will generate a million excuses about how you were not in the wrong. You were interpreted by many people as being a creepy fuckhead. There's all the evidence you need If you want the benefits of playing the social game, like sex, get over yourself and learn the social game. Stop viewing yourself as some pariah of independent thought who's above all these plebeians playing the social game You don't need to sacrifice your authenticity if that's what you're scared of, you're learning how to express it more effectively

I want to say you did nothing wrong but you've been kicked out of multiple places for the same reasons? At that point you gotta start looking inwards I got kicked out of a place recently for far far less, now I go to another place and haven't had a problem. Some places are just shitty and sometimes you just get unlucky, but this is clearly a pattern in your case You seem super authentic which is great, but you need to accept that some social rules are there for a reason and you need to follow them and sprinkle your authenticity in over time, build it up Learn the social game before you start trying to transcend it Bold authenticity is scary unless it's extremely skillfully applied with social awareness. That's why small talk exists. It's a tease. A lubricant. Designed to let you slowly work your way into the good stuff while letting others know you're safe

If you want to do online dating for serious relationships Tinder is not your best bet. I haven't tried instagram, I'd imagine that's slightly better. But like @Jacob Morres said Hinge is better for more serious relationships, Bumble is also a much better bet. Having said that you're right, you're probably much healthier avoiding online dating to begin with lol

That's... an aggressive response. I know I'm no old wise genius, but I was heavy into the "oh I'm not superficial, I'm above all that" mindset when I was a nerdy awkward kid in school and now I know that was to protect my ego And I've known a few others who have done the same, and seen plenty online too There's a pattern, it's a very common thing for socially awkward, introverted but intelligent guys to do, so I figured it was worth mentioning I was quite aggressive though, definitely shouldn't have made such assumptions and been a little less on the nose, so sorry about that And I do agree it's definitely possible to be mainly focused on deep traits, but for many guys that requires deeply satisfying the superficial desires first. Which I guess you've done, but many haven't and use the depth thing as a protection I also agree with you entirely that viewing things through the lense of pickup isn't always healthy. But the pickup style of intense, frequent socialising is an extremely valuable stage of development for many awkward guys who aren't as developed as you so don't discount it entirely. My main goal is just to be better at all round socialising

I may be entirely off base here, and even projecting my past self slightly, but in my personal experience the guys who say shit like this are usually not successful with women they're attracted to so they take this position to protect their ego Not saying that's what you're doing, just that I've noticed that pattern in other guys and used to do the same thing when I was younger

All pretty good until we get here. This is where you start sounding super fucking rapey

Problem is there isn't one. Everyone needs and wants different things