The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Notes -
I'm socially retarded, if that's the right expression.
Due to combination of poor environment, luck and personal flaws, so far (approaching mid 20s) I had few friends, zero experience in relationships, missed several conventional life milestones and trying to catch up. I'm pretty sure I'm not autistic and not blatantly psychiatrically defective (based on reading WebMD) so it's only a matter of skill and practice to get to a tolerable place, yet...how do I navigate talking about difficult topics, especially myself? Additional challenge - I absolutely loathe having to lie.
I tried to use my strengths to combat my weakness and prepare answers in writing for questions that I anticipate but it's not really helpful. I have seen people gliding awkward questions with effortless grace, but as can be inferred from what I wrote so far, that's not something I can do. One of the first conversations with my classmates in college from some years ago:
Her: "Do you have a girlfriend?"
Me: “no”
Her: did you had one before?
Me: “no”
proceed to an awkward pause
I'm only farther behind now, and I don't know if I could handle conversations like that any better.
That made me think: is telling small lies just social glue that most people are pushed to use, except for eloquent speakers and those who are cool enough as in genuinely-don't-give-a-damn and I'm just crippling myself further?
Straight up find a local board game night location and just start meeting people there.
It is probably the most accepting & least intimidating place you could start building these muscles as a socially awkward nerd. If you say something weird, you can play it off as a character you're playing in the game. If shit really hits the fan, you come back next week, it's all new faces and your previous embarrassment is now forgotten. You can go alone or with a friend if you have one. You have have a beer to ease up a little bit. or don't and it still feels welcoming.
As someone who pulls of 'genuinely-don't-give-a-damn' reasonably well....it only works if you are truly that secure. I was at my 'genuinely-don't-give-a-damn' when I had a job that everyone recognized as prestigious and a really attractive partner who I was in a happy relationship with. You can try to fake it, but to the best ones, it comes as a result of high-base permanent external validation. Similarly, I can only pull it of in a circle of people with whom I've built a ton of good will. If you behave like that in front of strangers, that's just being an asshole.
A lie is what you make of it.
You can always reply with a non-answer.
eg: I have dog, and she loves me, does that count? or reply with some apocryphal phrase like "sab moh maya hai" (translated - all attachment is an illusion). Hey! maybe buy me a drink before
You can always reply with a question.
eg: why are you so curious ? What do you think ?
Or an absurd claim that is so blatantly obvious, that is comes across as a joke.
eg: yeah you won't know her, she goes to another school. (or if you are tall), I tried, but women just refuse to date men above 6 feet tall.
(there are far better advanced flirting techniques where you can throw it back at them, but that that's too dating specific, and likely too advanced at your current level)
You don't need to lie. I never lie. EVER. But, that doesn't mean you have to answer with the truth. I used the example you gave, but it applies to all scenarios. Didn't want to be preaching, but took me a few years to learn some of these things. So might as well pass it on.
Good thing is, this is a learned skill. I started off as a freshman who was the university's laughing stock for forgetting my lines and reading them off my hands on stage. Now I meet people who are annoyed when I tell them I work on the backend and not as an MBA consultant. One step at a time.
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