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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   1952 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for June 7, 2023

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:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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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I've owned multiple dogs, and they all seemed to lose hair on their elbows. The area seems rough. Is this normal, perhaps due to them lying on hard surfaces?

There's no bleeding or oozing, just an area without fur and darker rough skin exposed there.

What kind of dogs do you have?

A German shepherd and a Labrador retriever!

Ahh great choices. Give them some pets for me.

Hard surfaces maybe; I believe that hot surfaces can do what you described. I think it's normal enough, though.

Thanks! I think it might be from the ground pressure, but that's still quite reassuring.

Had a few dogs, I think this is normal.

I'm a gay man in his 30s who is interested in dating or forming a long term relationship with a woman. I had girlfriends when I was a teenager but it never worked out due to sexual incompatibility, which I sort of regret. My libido has never been particularly high so I think I could forego sex. An intimate/emotional relationship with a woman is something I'm interested in pursuing, I'm interested if there are other people here who would have advice or are in the same position?

I would be totally upfront of course with any woman I was courting and imagine there must be women out there who would be OK with it, though really unsure about how to mention this on my dating app profile, or bring it up when dating. I'm not sure how to go about it though.

If you're monogamous, look for a hetero-/bi-/pan- romantic asexual woman.

https://www.asexualcupid.com/ might work.

Would you require monogamy from the woman? And if so: why?

I took that as a hypothetical? That is, she could be in a relationship with someone she isn't attracted to in that way, which would be the case if (her set of people she were attracted to stayed the same and) she were with anyone other than Malcolm.

Can we talk online dating strategy? I've been away from it for a while, but the rest of my life has been running well for a while, I have recent pictures of me doing cool things, and it's probably time to re-add it to the ways I try to meet people.

First up: goals. I'm male, late 30s, never married, no kids, would like to change the last two of those. Had a few short-term relationships over the years, most from various partner dance scenes. You can probably infer a lot of my hobbies from the fact that I post here: nerdy, wordy, techy. Which platforms are doing the best for relationship-minded people these days? Last time around I signed up for Bumble, Hinge, and Tinder; and had the most luck with Hinge, then Tinder, then Bumble.

I've seen a lot of advice about tailoring a profile to specific sections of the dating market, so that the women you want to be into you are more likely to want to start a chat. For those of you who have had success online, how did you decide who to tailor for? There are a few different sides to myself that I could see myself enjoyably sharing with the right woman: I could enjoy camping/climbing/bouldering/etc with an adventurous outdoorsy woman, sharing a table with a nerdy boardgames type, etc. I feel that if I try to list everything, I make a profile that stands for nothing, and doesn't really excite anyone. But I feel also that trying to present one narrow side is inauthentic and makes it more likely that the profile's Elo will tank (more women will dislike it).

Second: I've become pretty right-leaning over the past few years. Not as far as some of our especially based posters here, but probably near the edge of my city's Overton Window. Is it correct to assume that answering "conservative" or even "moderate" for the "politics" question is a kiss of death? There was an interesting thread the other week about political compatibility between partners, and the extent to which people are tolerant of heterodoxy with an established partner. That made me think it might be better to omit it in the initial profile but also not hide it from the women I do meet when it comes up. I don't want to give up my principles for a shot at a relationship (that way leads to lies and ruin), but I also don't want to screen off people who I could actually get along with, had we spent some time learning about each other before diving into politics.

Third: Has all the language model/image generation stuff further warped the dating app landscape yet? I can imagine the bot problem being a lot worse now. Alternatively, have you used it to tune your profile/messages? If so, how did that work out?

I'm very interested in other people's success/failure stories (on-app or off), as well as suggestions for IRL places to meet people.

Regardless of platform, taking advantage of female mate-choice copying is key. It's probably the most low-hanging-fruit I've seen for men in the SSC-sphere or adjacent.

Don't overdo it, but having photos of you with hot chicks, where their body language suggests you're banging or have banged them, is the best way to pull other hot chicks. Even chaste girls want guys who can pull other girls.

If you're jacked, the occasional shirtless selfie works. Chicks dig dominance signals like traps and shoulders.

Female perspective. Profile pics are the most important thing for most of those platforms.

You need:

Proof of teeth,

Proof of hair (one way or the other),

Proof of friends,

Proof of hobby/activity (all selfies isn't getting this done). One of these photos should show that you have a body as well.

It would great if you were wearing something nicer than a tshirt in at least one of the photos. If you don't have the latter two types of photos go to some meetups. Lack of friends/activities is very unattractive.

As for the height issue, it is obviously important, but don't know what to tell you. I'm personally fine dating down to my own height 5'6 but everyone under 5'10 on all of these sites seems to be lying so I usually keep that in mind.

Final tip that nothing in your profile should be negative and about things you don't want.

Thanks for concise and actionable advice. I'm astonished that "proof of teeth" has to be on your checklist.

It's more that there are men who don't smile broadly in any of their pictures. Probably serial killers.

I started online dating in 2021 and I'm getting married soon so I think I'm qualified to answer here.

Here's some practical advice.

Assuming that you're looking for people in your relative age bracket, you should have it much easier than our younger comrades. That said, I think you should target younger generally. Let's say you're 38, I'd set your filter at 26-34 maybe even 32. Assuming a two year courtship period, the prospect of two children starts to dim quickly.

Now, on to what matters to get matches, in my opinion.

  1. Height. Sadly, this is the most important factor. If you're average, you're fine here. If you're tall you will slay. But shorter guys will struggle to match and may not succeed at online dating at all. If under 5'8" do not list your height.

  2. Pictures. Also hugely important. There's lots of advice about this that's quite practical. No shirtless pictures. No hunting/fishing photographs. No group pictures where you look short. No redneck friends. No trucks.

You want about 5 pictures total. They can be kinda boring, it's okay. Dress nicely. Use a nice camera. If you have access to a dog, you will want to have a dog pic. Many women told me they matched because of the dog pic.

MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE: Create an account on Photofeeler and try 20 different pictures. Ideally all your pictures will score 8+ in attractiveness. This is achievable if you are normal looking or better. Do not use any unvetted photos, and remember you are only as attractive as your worst photo.

Wow this is really shallow. Yes it is. You need to put your intellectual conceptions to bed. Do you swipe right on hotties and left on uggos? Of course you do. Women are the same.

Profile tips:

My profile was basic and I matched easily. Some people want to "polarize" in an effort to get some matches at the expense of lots of women going eww.. Unless you have weird requirements, I'd say don't do this. For one, it's hard to know who you are compatible with until you match. Secondly, it will reduce your ELO score.

Pictures and height are 90% of what matters. But you should let women know (implied) that you have a car/job/own apartment. Being super witty probably isn't important. Having your shit together and not being a creep is what matters. The key is to be likeable and make women feel comfortable.

Politics:

For the love of god, leave your politics off your profile! Don't weed yourself out. Most women don't care about politics. They do care about you embarrassing them. The 10% of blue haired wackos who do care will have it all over their profiles and you can just swipe left.

Children:

If you want kids, swipe left on everyone who doesn't. A women in her 30s shouldn't be "undecided", "waiting for the right time" etc... Don't match with women over 35. I broke these two rules and it caused trouble when I had to extract myself later.

Yay, you have a profile up. Hopefully you are getting matches with decent quality people. Not ridiculous hotties, but smart decent-looking women who have their stuff together. Don't waste time messaging on the app! You have 5-10 messages max to establish that you are cool, not a serial killer, etc... Every message after 10 makes it LESS likely you will ever meet in person. I would tend to exchange a few messages back and forth, maybe 1-2 a day and then if things were going well ask for an in-person date. My success rate was very high here (80% ish), although many people seem to reach a dead end at this point. If she says no, she was never going to meet anyway. If she does agree, try to exchange phone numbers and move off the app. Set up the date in the next couple days and then don't text until you are headed out.

The ideal date is probably coffee, drinks, or a walk. Just long enough to get to know them without lots of pressure. If there is money to be paid, I think it's nice to pay. Just say "I got it" when the bill comes and if she objects then split it. Don't make a big deal about it.

Scammers:

I was dating back in 2021. Obvious scammers were obvious. Even with AI, I doubt it's much worse now.

what do you suggest besides photofeeler? They banned me (doubly incel, lol)

First, congratulations! Second, thank you. I think your advice about not messaging too long and saying "I got it" when the bill comes (and then either splitting or saying "you can get the next") match my experience back when I did take women out on dates. Your remarks about politics and children are also sensible, so I think think that most of what I'm doing wrong must be in the profile and photos.

Height. Sadly, this is the most important factor. If you're average, you're fine here.

I'm about 5'10". Not tall enough to honestly put that magic 6'0 on the profile, but probably not so short that it's going to be a massive problem online? Given the amount of fudged numbers on people's profiles, maybe the better thing is to omit the number and have a bunch of photos which don't make me look short?

5'10" is fine. It's 57th percentile in the United States and you will get matches. It's true that you will be dead to the worst heightists, but omitting your height won't fix that. I wouldn't lie (because I think it is morally wrong), but I don't have any evidence whether rounding up would work or not. Certainly, setting your height at 6' would put you inside a lot more filters. You might get lots of first date disappointment though.

Yes, make sure there are no photos where you look short. And put all your photos through photofeeler. You should have 8+ ratings on all your photos ideally.

If she does agree, try to exchange phone numbers and move off the app. Set up the date in the next couple days and then don't text until you are headed out.

This is the point of failure for me. Women say yes to a date, then turn out to apparently have zero availability for a date since they're busy every single day you propose, don't propose their own day, and when you ask them what day works best for them, they say "let me get back to you on that, not sure", and this process continues until I get the hint and go away. Or they say yes, then cancel on the day of. Or they say yes, then abruptly vanish. 95% of the matches that say "yes" do not result in an actual date happening.

Back when I was dating (online or no), I had the most success with (once we'd got to the point that a date was on the table) suggesting place, time, and activity all at once. "Let's get a drink after work at [place]. How's Wednesday at 6?" It's not clear from your post whether or not you're trying that, but I found that it opened up better "yes" and "no" responses — fewer flakes on "yes"es, as well as "no, but I can do [other day]", "no, I'd rather not do [activity]", "no, I'd rather go [somewhere closer]".

The average woman on a dating app has like a zillion unread notifications and a full schedule, so batching that stuff up is more respectful of her time and there's less chance for you to fall out of her loop of guys she's talking to. Win-win.

This happens on actual texting not the app itself, and yes I present dates as one message. Most recently, I proposed two different dates with different connotations (walk in the park on an afternoon or drinks a different evening) so she could pick the one she was most comfortable with. She just replied "so many options, lol." [Sound of head hitting desk]

Sigh. I take solace in the fact that men are often just as frustrating and incomprehensible to women as women are to us.

I suppose that's why guys are told to basically go "I will be at X on Y, be there if you want".

Keep your head up, King. Dealing with female passivity, flakiness, and fickleness is a universal frustration for men in dating, one that transcends space and time.

Your experience is well-illustrated by this roughly paraphrased and translated Latin American Spanish meme:

Guy: So when are you free to hang-out

Girl: Anytime you want 😊

Guy: How about tomorrow?

Girl: No, I can’t tomorrow

Guy: Monday?

Girl: Can’t Monday.

Guy: What about Thursday?

Girl: Thursday? Can’t either.

Guy: When then?

Girl: Anytime you want 😊

Even after getting her number, getting a girl to agree on a time to meet and having her actually show up instead of flaking is like pulling teeth. Girls are so passive that they often won’t offer any assistance at all through the process when they aren’t actively thwarting you, e.g., refraining from disclosing their availability so you have to play scheduling battleship, hoping you can read her mind such that you manage to call out a time that works on the first or second try (because the more guesses it takes, the more desperate you look and the more her remaining attraction for you is killed).

I’d guess my success rate for getting a number from a message off social media and online dating combined is about 1/25. Once a message is obtained, the success rate for getting a date arranged and her showing up is roughly 1/5. However, if she shows up, the probability of me banging her on the first date is like 4/5, especially since I try to chess-game it such that the date occurs at my place (which can be a negotiation process in and of itself). Or more succinctly stated:

P(Number Obtained | Message): 1/25

P(Date Realised | Number Obtained): 1/5

P(Bang | Date Realised): 4/5

These are all very much approximate figures picked in the moment, of course, to capture the spirit and degrees of magnitude. I totally feel you on the second step there being particularly aggravating. After grinding to get a number, there are still multiple hoops to jump through before a first date can occur—it feels so close yet so far—and if you fumble the prospect during that step, it’s often seemingly due to no fault of your own, little that you can point to where you could execute better next time.

Going back to the grind, playing the numbers game, and maintaining a deep prospect pool is the best solution.

Signing on kind of just to follow along, as I'm in an extremely similar spot with you. I also got back on the apps myself a few days ago.

Thus far I've had very little luck, just a handful of matches and nothing that's gone anywhere. I did make a fairly "generalist" kind of profile and right now I actually do hypothesize that it's not targeted at any particular type of girl well enough; like perhaps I'm not emphasizing any specific part of my personality or interests enough to grab someone's attention. I think my pictures are good, I'm pretty fit and not bad-looking, but not remarkable either. Without rancor, I think if it comes down purely to looks that isn't going to be enough for me, so it makes me think I need to do more to stand out. It's a bit like a cover letter or resume, isn't it? Tailor it towards the job you're applying for? I may remake my profiles soon with that in mind.

As you note it's interesting to try and decide, therefore, who you want to catch. I volunteer at a used bookstore and my house is full of books; some girls are into that. I also play tennis and golf, and like to work out; a different set of girls are into that. And I like to drink a large quantity of Miller Genuine Draft and then belt "My Own Worst Enemy" at the local dive bar on karaoke night. Probably some girls are into that as well. But I don't know that I can appeal to all of those with one profile. Honestly, I'm sort of considering making three very different profiles on three apps. What could go wrong?

One thing I'll add: on Bumble I see plenty of girls who list their politics as "conservative." Far more than I would've expected. Admittedly I live in a big Midwestern metro and not on the coast, but still. That's an option, they do exist; and I think there's no way I'm going to match them with my profile set up as it currently is: with no politics listed. Really I only just thought of this. I kind of wonder if having no politics listed is actually a turnoff. I'm sure it varies.

It is curious to be back in the dating scene in 2023. I dated extensively in my 20s, and every girl I was with, I met in person somehow. At least at that time, the old advice did hold up, that you could meet mates just by doing interesting things. I dated a girl from NaNoWriMo; I dated a girl I met at an anime convention. I dated a girl I met at some random party, and one I met at a Meetup.com meetup, and a friend of a friend who I met at a bonfire. By some quirk of timing, I have had absolutely no success of this kind since the Covid-19 pandemic. I think that that's just a coincidence, but I also feel like I just don't get the same opportunities that I did previously. I still go to stuff, and I think, "Where are all the cool people at?"

One final thought - I've only actually dated one girl I met via an app, and that was via OkCupid back before it turned into another swiping app. In general I still like the profile + messaging-based dating sites a lot more - I think that Match.com is a great interface. But the network effects are a killer: fewer and fewer people are on those now. I used Match for a while last year and simply couldn't find anyone I wanted to message.

You're getting matches so your profile must be decent. Many (most?) guys don't match at all. I wouldn't worry about trivial things like hobbies. The important thing is that you find someone who is kind, has similar life goals, and that you can vibe with. You'll need to meet in person to do that, so maybe try to make that happen more?

I think even average guys can get good photos if you put the work in. Have you tried photofeeler?

I had never thought of that. Signed up this morning, that does seem like a good service. Voting on some other people's photos, it also gave me a good sense of what other people do well and poorly.

Get closer to the camera, people!

Any of y'all affected by the wildfire smoke: try making a Corsi-Rosenthal box. The name sounds fancy, but it's just a box fan duct-taped to some furnace filters.

Or just toughen the fuck up -- it won't kill you. Have a beer or something.

  • -15

This is not useful, and unnecessarily antagonistic.

I'll cop to the second part, but disagree that it's not useful. Not worrying about trivial crap that's pumped in the media as the literal apocalypse is in fact extremely useful -- particularly so in OPs case, he seems to worry too much and based on his posting here it's a much bigger negative for his QOL than any amount of smoke.

I'm from Western Canada and there's often quite a lot of smoke in the air even when there aren't wildfires -- and we have seasons as bad as what's happening out east (and last year in California) every 4-5 years. It's been like this forever -- just with somewhat lower frequency back when the fire services were better resourced and locals weren't kicked off their places evacuated at the drop of a hat, which cut down on the secondary fires (and structure losses) due to flying embers and such.

If you were really trying to be useful to the OP, you wouldn't put it to him as "toughen the fuck up." If you want to deliver some tough love, be less antagonistic and more sincerely helpful about it.

I've been gradually escalating the toughness of my love, as you will see if you are following his "the only women in my league are 400lb drug addicts, because I am 5'6" and autistic" threads -- if this is a little too tough for this venue that's fine and I will stop, but believe me when I say that more of this kind of thinking would be more helpful to this guy than any amount of sympathetic noises.

I haven't made and don't need one - but there might be people with things like asthma reading this who need them.

Eh, sustained exposure to that level of air quality would cause harm. So e.g. wearing a N95 mask when outside if NY was always like that would be justified. And appealing to linearity - the effort/cost of wearing a mask for a week is something like 1/50th of wearing it for a year (you probably already have one), the harm of breathing it in for a week is probably 1/50th of wearing it for a year, so it's probably worth wearing a mask for the week.

Purchasing a HEPA filter is a good choice anyway IMO, but that or building your own fan-driven filter is a higher fixed cost and less obviously worth it for a single fire than like $10. Toughening up is good for things that don't actually cause long-term impairments - e.g. "I don't feel like exercising" - but isn't a reason to not avoid things that are harmful.

Thing is I'm not overly convinced of the significant long-term harm -- we have seasons like this in Western Canada with some regularity, and have done since time immemorial -- one would think that there'd be an obvious epidemic of respiratory problems here, but it doesn't appear to be the case.

I'm pretty certain of the long-term harm from the air always being like that (like in some south asian cities). So I'd expect the long-term harm from breathing it in for a few days a year to be hard to detect - (made up numbers, there are definitely studies here but idk about the quality) .5% increased risk of lung cancer, .5% reduced lung capacity. It's worth wearing a mask for a few days a year to avoid that, but there won't be an epidemic of it

OK, so assuming people can't actually wear a mask 24/7, I'd like to see some numbers as to the proven impact of masking on this before buying in myself -- but, like, people can go nuts on the masking if they want.

I reserve the right to let these people know they are being a bunch of XXXXXX sillys though.

I haven't ever looked at studies on n95 masks as applied to smoke, because when I put the mask on I can't smell the smoke anymore and that's good enough for me (i know that sometimes something can mask a smell without physically removing the gas/particles but can tell that's not happening here).

This is like 4 minutes of effort, I probably should do more, but https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-020-00267-4

Surgical masks and respirators can provide limited protection for children during wildfire events, with expected decreases of roughly 20% and 80% for surgical masks and N95 respirators, respectively

]. In 2007, 30 half-facepiece masks were tested and the protection was further improved, with 95% of people having <30% of the exposure when wearing any of the respirators in the class [96]. While this amount of protection is likely inadequate for a worker who anticipates high lifetime exposure, in a situation where the general public is trying to temporarily reduce ambient exposure, such as with wildfire smoke, a 66–70% reduction in exposure for nearly everyone may be meaningful. In fact, in a general population cohort of non-fit-tested healthy adults, a crossover study in China found that there was less increase in airway inflammation (measured with exhaled nitric oxide) associated with air pollutant exposure when a study participant wore an N95, compared to wearing a sham N95 mask [103].

Note that 95% <30% doesn't mean the median is 30%, the median would be significantly less than 30%.

And you can (try to) notice when the fit is wrong and letting too much outside air in and adjust it yourself.

Sure, but you're taking an already small exposure (a week or so of smoky air) and reducing it by ~70% or whatever. It kind of reminds me of those "eating bacon increases the risk of <obscure cancer with .01% lifetime risk> by 30%.

That and I'm deeply suspicious of the public health effort to make stuff that was just a part of life 20 years ago into some big hairy deal -- thus my advice to crack a beer and not worry so much.

Does anybody have experience with bouncing back from a negative performance review in a software engineering job?

Just had mine recently and was somewhat surprised to receive a “Needs Improvement” rating. I can see some of my manager’s points but I mainly feel a bit blindsided because I constantly asked for feedback and only rarely received areas of improvement. He would give me certain things to improve upon, but during later check-ins he would say I’m back on track etc.

I don’t think my job is the type to treat this as a formality before being fired, but I would appreciate some advice from other mottizens who may have gone through something similar.

I do like the job and it pays well so I’m going to try my best the next few months to perform and constantly check in and be more explicit about asking things like “do you still think I’m underperforming” etc.

I am going to echo @Mantergeistmann and tell you to talk to your manager. Tell him you were surprised to see the rating, as he hadn't given you any reason to think you were underperforming. Ask him for more detailed feedback so you can improve. If the manager tries to handwave the rating away or refuses to sit down with you for a proper feedback session, go see what LinkedIn has for you. It's better to quit than to be fired without a warning.

Of course, don't actually quit. But start leetcoding/pulling on network strings, so if the axe does fall, you collect severance and quickly find somewhere else.

I bounced back from a few mediocre performance reviews, the most effective way I've found is to switch managers and/or positions.

A lot of the performance review is going to be about how you are perceived relative to the other employees under that manager. If you are with a bunch of high performers you're screwed. If your manager just kinda doesn't get along with you as well as their other direct reports, you are also screwed. Not "screwed" as in doomed, but just that you are getting screwed over by your circumstances.

Also many tech companies do a sneaky and kind of bullshit thing where they pressure their managers to "normalize" reviews. So if a manager has 5 employees the HR department might imply something like "we expect you to have one good employee, one bad employee, and three mediocre ones." Managers can push back on this if they are competent at office politics, if they like their whole team, and they have a backbone. In the 9 managers I've had in my career I've only ever seen all three of those factors converge one time. I'd say only two of them had the political acumen + backbone combination.

My overall advice is it is a good set of habits to ask for feedback and try to improve yourself. But performance reviews are 25% about you, 50% about your team/manager circumstances, and 25% about your company.

Do what's best for yourself and try to align the 75% that's not about you to be in your favor. Try not to beat yourself up too much. If they aren't giving actionable advice on how to improve there might be nothing to improve.

I have experience yoyo-ing with the performance level. I can attribute the negative reports to not putting in enough effort, ignoring tasks and emails, failing to show up to meetings and taking forever to finish projects. The upswings were a bit more surprising since I just felt like doing my job as I should have the entire time. I never got to the point of being put on a "performance improvement plan" which I understand is half literal and half a formality before being fired. My last review was negative but I do expect the next one to be positive again.

I should say that performance review at my company is based on (anonymized-to-me) peer feedback from fellow engineers, product managers, etc, and my direct manager only gets to deliver the news. This makes it a bit harder to be reviewed well just because you're likeable, which I'm very thankful for.

I’m going to try my best the next few months to perform and constantly check in and be more explicit about asking things like “do you still think I’m underperforming” etc.

I think this is the right attitude. I would also ask peers that your trust, if they think the performance review was fair, and more generally what they think you can improve on.

One thing to keep in mind is the review is often of your performance the entire year, not just of you as you stand today. You mentioned that your manager gave you things to improve on, you improved on them, your manager said you were good now. If that's the case, it sounds like "needs improvement" sums up the last year well.

I'd go straight to the source and talk with your manager. Let him know how you feel: that you understand where he's coming from, but at the same time, you had the wrong impression and would have appreciated better, more timely feedback so you could correct. Every single manager I've had has been very clear: if the first time I find out my rating is "needs improvement" is at my performance review, that's a failure of theirs to communicate and help me correct it.

I’m in my mid 30’s and I have recently come to the realization that I’m on the autism spectrum and that I have lived most of my life without knowing this. I always thought I was just kind of shy. Since I wasn’t like the autistic people in special classes I never considered that I may also be on the spectrum, just to a much lesser degree.

For much of my life being on the autism spectrum caused me no noticeable problems. I was a great student and I had school, video games, and Magic: the Gathering to keep me occupied. I didn’t have many friends, but I had a close friend, and people seemed to respect me because I was book smart.

After I graduated college, the autism became more of a problem. I was behind on social milestones (only had gone on a handful or dates, no long-term girlfriend, being on a much slower career trajectory than my peers due to lack of social skills even though I had the technical competence). People in my life were becoming less centrist and more polarized and I started losing interest in trying to make/maintain friendships.

I can often think of insightful/interesting things to add to many conversations, but I mostly don’t say them due to fear of them not meeting someone’s social expectations. My body language is mostly neutral. I don’t smile much and I avoid eye contact. I think far too long about things because my brain is slower at processing social information than a neurotypical person. I use more rule-based thinking and try to model how other people perceive things. Even when I say the thing people want to hear it takes me longer to come up with what I’m going to say and I feel like I come off as unnatural. When I inevitably say/or do something that people respond poorly to I dwell on it for a long time and keep thinking about what I should have done differently. Over time I’ve learned that I can’t please most people because autism prevents me from acting like a neurotypical person no matter how hard I try. Even if I memorize a ton of social rules and prepare for many conversation paths it just frustrates me that I have to ‘pretend’ and ‘play social games’ in order to be liked. I now avoid many social interactions because they are frustrating and I gain very little from them.

Back when I was trying to improve my social skills I put a lot of effort in to trying to get better. I would go to meetups and volunteer and generally try to be likable. Nothing much came from my efforts and it just caused me to become more frustrated with social conventions. For reference, I also exercise a lot and am in good physical shape and am 5’ 11’’.

The most success I had at growing my social skills was when I moved to an apartment with a pool and I would drink on the weekends and make friends at the pool. Those friendships were ephemeral and didn’t last after I moved to a different apartment. I also didn’t like that I was drinking up to 2 days a week and was starting to get mild hangovers and alcohol was in conflict with my otherwise healthy lifestyle.

In an effort to give up drinking but remain social I switched to a Gaba-B receptor agonist called Phenibut. I only use it once a week to avoid tolerance and addiction. It is kind of like alcohol but without the impairment. It made me feel calm/relaxed and mildly more social. It wasn’t quite strong enough, and being a truth-seeker, I felt emboldened to disregard the very strong warnings about never mixing alcohol with Phenibut to find out what would really happen. Technically, this is very dangerous combination because combining depressants can lead to unpredictable synergistic effects that cause too much respiratory depression. On the other hand, most reports said the combination was usually just like every beer you drink feels like 2-3 beers. I felt it should be mostly safe to use a low dose of Phenibut and have 1 drink. It was a euphoric feeling and eventually I developed a higher dose protocol that I now use up to once a week. I never exceed .05-.08 BAC and always wait >4 hours after the Phenibut to drink. Even that could be dangerous for some people so please do not mix Phenibut and alcohol.

The downsides to mixing Phenibut + alcohol that I’ve personally noticed:

  • Way easier to accidently have short-term memory impairment. Even at .05 BAC I forget some minor details.

  • Alcohol is bad for your body.

  • Sleep cycle gets interrupted and I get tired out more easily on sober days.

  • Very unfiltered – easy to accidently say something offensive or do something you regret later.

  • Emotions feel much stronger and it becomes harder to regulate emotionally driven behavior. (I have a very chill personality so I never got into a fight or anything).

  • Sober people find your behavior off-putting and distance themselves from you. I care less and less about trying to fit in even when I’m 100% sober. I avoid sober interactions even more because they are dull and boring compared to my fun Phenibut interactions.

The Phenibut + alcohol protocol made me feel extreme social confidence (but you definitely appear intoxicated), euphoria, a desire to socialize, music sounds amazing, a calm/relaxed feeling that lasts for about 24 hours, near zero social anxiety, and a minimal hangover. In an order to use the protocol to improve my sober life I further developed an exposure therapy protocol while intoxicated. I would go to the bars to ‘esoteric dance’. To my surprise many people would appreciate my weird behavior and would say things like I gave off good vibe or they wanted to try the ‘esoteric dance’ with me. I then internalized many lessons that made sober socializing much easier:

  • Socializing can be fun

  • Being polarizing can be fun, the social limits are often way further than where you think they are

  • Most people aren’t judging you as harshly as you judge yourself

  • Bad reactions can easily be rationalized away (such as: that guy was just jealous of the attention I was getting)

  • If people don’t like you then just avoid them and find someone who does like you

When I sober up my social anxiety is permanently decreased from baseline, but I still overthink things and struggle with social interactions. I just now care far less about other people’s opinion of me and a social interaction gone bad doesn’t really even bother me anymore. I don’t think I’ve gotten much better at sober interactions though as most of the social skills don’t translate into sober environments. I also haven’t been able to leverage my new social skills to get a girlfriend. The problem is girls like me when I’m intoxicated but I’m only like that 1 day a week max. My personality is completely different when I’m sober.

On the other hand I feel much better now that I figured out how to connect with people and feel desired. It is kind of depressing that people like me so much better when I’m intoxicated than sober though.

I feel like I need to do more work and self-improvement to fix the issues in my life. I need to deal with the trauma of living life so long with undiagnosed autism, and to develop better social skills when sober. Continuing to use Phenibut and alcohol with exposure therapy can’t fix the remaining problems.

I don’t think regular therapy is the answer because I think I need psychoactive substances to access and modify subconscious beliefs. My rational defenses are too strong for traditional therapy. I don’t trust the medical establishment because:

  1. Psychoactive psychotherapy is illegal despite all the research showing that it is effective.

  2. US medical professionals don’t understand much about Phenibut and the one time I mentioned it to a doctor they are just like you should quit using it. My vitals/bloodwork are all in healthy ranges.

  3. I have asymmetric hearing loss and I was told I’m not a hearing aid candidate. I don’t have much hope that the medical establishment can fix my issues.

I also get very frustrated that psychedelics are illegal because I think if I could legally take them under the guidance of a therapist I could fix a lot of my issues without the dangerous alcohol and Phenibut combination. I’m too distrusting of people and bad at social interactions to try to find someone from the psychedelic underground.

Anyway, I just feel kind of stuck in life and I don’t see any good options on how I can fix the major problems in my life. Any ideas/feedback would be appreciated.

I don't know if 'autism' is really the right word for this, so much as it's a combination of high conscientousness/low extroversion that doesn't quite amount to avoidant or schizotypal personality disorder, but still impairs your ability to form relationships and engage socially. And I think this kind of thing is actually very common, just not really talked about that much because so much of our society and media and culture is dominated by better-functioning people.

I feel like I could have written this, especially the parts about being much more likeable and fun when intoxicated. Granted good old alcohol on its own usually does the trick for me, but the Phenibut sounds interesting.

I don’t have any good advice for you. I’ve been dealing with social anxiousness my whole life. I have a few close friends, my parents, two of my brothers, and a girlfriend who I all love, but I absolutely feel socially isolated. I haven’t made a new close connection in years, and it’s caused me significant agitation and anxiety. I’ve always wondered whether I’m actually on the spectrum or if my social confidence has been harmed from rejection and isolation over the years. Hard to say.

I’ve tried many things to help fix this: sports, theater, improv, therapy, antidepressants, but at the end of the day, I just generally do not feel comfortable around new people. Clearly I want/need people around me, but I struggle to actually feel comfortable. All I can say is that it sucks big time. I’m thankful for my intelligence, but sometimes I’d rather be a moron with social skills than an intelligent loner.

I’m too distrusting of people and bad at social interactions to try to find someone from the psychedelic underground.

I would recommend Burning Man regional events and otherwise becoming involved in the burner community. There are a lot of autists there and a lot of psychedelics. It might take you a couple of years, but you could probably find an underground psychedelic therapist. You might also make lasting friendships. You simply need to be helpful and not incompetent at car camping in the woods/desert. Alternately, you could go to Oregon and look there for different types of alternative healers that practice with psychedelics; it's decriminalized there. IIRC it's also legal in the Netherlands, or at least tolerated the same way they're OK with pot and head shops.

Unfortunately, none of this is going to be cheap or easy. It will cost you thousands. Good luck.

feel kind of stuck in life and I don’t see any good options on how I can fix the major problems in my life.

Stuck how? How do you feel your life would be different if you weren't stuck?

What are the major problems?

Do you have any goals you're currently working towards?

I’m stuck not having the social life I want. Other than my 1 close friend I’ve gotten worse at making and maintaining friendships. I just have too many disappointing experiences with sober social interactions that I’ve learned it is just hopeless to continue trying to cultivate friendships.

If psychedelics were legal I feel like I could get my life unstuck. I could make friends with people that explore psychedelics because they would be more open to being friends with a neurodiverse person. When I’m knowledgeable and/or passionate about a topic it becomes much easier for me to make friends. It just doesn’t work with psychedelics because it is not something I feel comfortable openly discussing due to the legal status. At the very least I could use psychedelics to change my perspective on life and feel more appreciative about things instead of focusing on what I missed out due to being on the autism spectrum.

I would say the major problem is that I don’t have the level of social connection that I desire (especially a girlfriend, even though I have a low sex drive). I also can’t openly discuss/explore psychedelics which has become a major passion of mine. The other things I’m interested in are mostly solitary and don’t lead to social connection.

I go to the gym and bicycle a lot, but I don’t really consider a goal because it is just a routine I’ve been doing for so long. I do have a goal to read a lot more this year. I already have a bunch of books selected, but I’ve been spending my reading time on Reddit instead of getting to the books. I also started a new job this year so my goal is to continue making a good impression and improving processes.

A lot of what you wrote in your OP resonated with me and I could see my younger self in much of it. My middle son, has an autism diagnoses . Many of areas where he struggles I also struggle(d).

I have work friends, and a few local friends, but I'd describe my wife as my best friend. When I was younger and single I had 'friends' to go out to pubs or clubs / dinner with, but none I'd describe as deep friendships and most involved some amount of alcohol.

16 - 26 was sort of a lost decade for me. Too much drinking, in spite of some negative consequences. Often drinking more than I wanted or had planned. Too much time in my own head. Lots of short 'relationships' that I seemed to stumble into and out of. Some sexual confusion, we called it expirementation at the time. There were periods of couch surfing. My family situation was unhelpful.

Following a series of professional setbacks (.com bust / airlines tanking after 9/11) I decided I needed a major change. I moved to Eastern Europe to teach English as a foreign language. Made an effort to drink less, spend more time outside and less in my head. Set short term goals, sometimes small ones, that would move me in the direction of long term goals. I tried to view the 'now' as an opportunity to setup future AvocadoPanic for success or failure. The chief long-term goal I set during this time was to be married before I was 30. While drinking less my libido returned, which while at times was uncomfortable, made it easier to identify women I was attracted to. I made an effort to meet women. I would become a regular places that women in the target cohort frequented. I did my best to be friendly an affable. Trying to be a good listener meant I had to talk less. If eye contact was too much I would look at their mouths or the center of their foreheads, I still worried at times if I was making too much or not enough 'eye contact'. I also tended to select locations that were dimmly lit or had pronounced shadows. Once I started viewing this as practice / developing a sociability skill set, the failures didn't bother me, it was all low stakes. I did initially struggle expressing my desire, most women still expected men to make the first move. Eventually one of these women I'd met in a pub, I encountered again at a birthday party. We married a bit less than 3 years later, 7 months before I turned 30.

Making friends seems to increase with difficulty as you age, especially for men. The most successful I've been has been through fraternal service organizations, Rotary, Lions Club, etc. I find the scheduled routine helpful. Meetings occur regularly, there's some structure, and there are opportunities for commitment / service. I find the routine easier to maintain if I feel slightly obligated to attend. Not all the local clubs will be the same, there were Rotary clubs I liked and some I didn't. Most of these traditional clubs welcome visitors and you can visit several to see if there's one you'd like. They're everywhere too, which if you move or relocate is very helpful.

Having children has also helped me meet people as there are lots of children's activities and parties where I can meet other dads.

We've also recently started attending church. Our local church aligns reasonably well our politics, there are no BLM, pride or Ukraine flags. I enjoy the fellowship and it's nice to meet similarly minded people from our town.

Professionally my work is uninspiring, but it allows me to support my family (just) in a mostly middle class lifestyle if we're careful and for my wife to be a homemaker. The work / life balance also allows me to be present nearly as much as I want for my wife and children. I could perhaps increase my income if I were will to adjust that balance. The 'politics' at work I still find confusing and somewhat difficult to navigate. I've found The Gervais Principle to be an accurate description of most of the larger organizations I've worked in. I don't believe that the guys adept at office politics or making more money are significantly happier or have better lives than I do.

You've mentioned the illegality of psychedelics several times, why do you see this as an impediment? Psychedelic mushrooms are easy to grow. There are jurisdictions where some psychedelics are permitted.

I typically prefer weed (cannabis) to alcohol now. Though I'm glad I didn't start as a teen. I don't think it would have been good for me.

Other than the gym and bicycling, what activities do you do regularly? Are there any that you particularly enjoy or have a talent for? Have you considered a cycle club?

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response.

There actually is something like a fraternal service organization near me that I’ve started exploring. I was recently thinking about how I might try to become more involved with it.

Every once in a while I’ll cycle with a friend, but I prefer cycling alone. I’ve come to be very content and at peace with being alone. I find social interactions too frustrating; the effort does not seem to be worth the reward anymore. I’ve only come to feel this way as I’ve hit my 30’s. When I was younger I was much more hopeful that my social skills would improve and that I could meet a girlfriend and add some close friends to my social circle. ‘System 2’ thinking now tells me just give up on improving social skills and focus more on being content with everything else in my life. However, there is still a ‘System 1’ desire for more social connection in my life. The ‘System 1’ desire is mostly buried when I’m sober.

I used to volunteer with dogs before the pandemic and I enjoyed that, but I never made any lasting connections from it (because I had a specific shift and you always interacted with the same handful of people). Sometimes I’ll get really interested/focused on the stock market, but I no longer try to actively invest – it caused too much anxiety and was a distraction to think about during work hours.

The thing with psychedelics is that there is a non-zero chance of something bad happening from breaking the law. I could lose my job or go to jail if I trusted the wrong person. Granted, this is very unlikely to happen especially because I live in a place where the enforcement of psychedelic laws is pretty lax. I still have anxiety about it though because I lack the social skills to navigate interactions about illegal activities. Additionally, I want to be able to openly talk about psychedelics with family/friends and I don’t feel comfortable doing that when they are illegal. It would just be another part of me that I have to keep quiet about around most people.

I understand you prefer cycling alone. I often prefer my own company. Throughout my life I've never felt lonely when alone. Participation in occasional group activities does not preclude preferred activities alone.

In a reply to another post you acknowledge when under the influence you can see that

my routines and patterns of behavior may not be optimal

This may be one of those patterns. I've found women, when evaluating a potential partner, like to see that he has friends. Also a larger social group, even fairly shallow attachments, are very helpful when looking for a spouse.

Participation in these groups may feel unnatural and unrewarding. I would encourage you to persist and try more / different groups and settings. Any Irish pubs near you that have a regular music session?

That makes sense, but I think the ‘crux’ of the issue something different.

To use an analogy: I would like to buy a house, but I don’t want to pay the current market price. If I buy a house I’ve made commitment that makes me more dependent on my job and that is a feeling that don’t like.

I want to be desired and liked by other people, but I don’t want to pay the cost of having to conform to the social rules. Then I have a lot of internal conflict because I have two competing desires: the desire not play ‘dumb’ social games and the desire to be liked. I can either be unhappy because I’m not desired by other people, or I can be unhappy because I’m playing ‘dumb’ social games.

I’m actually a well-known regular at some of the local bars. Lots of people chat with me (including women I find attractive) and I have fun social experiences. However, the people that like me at the bar like me because of my ‘clownish’ entertaining antics. I want to be desired because I’m a thoughtful, analytic, ‘nice’, and reliable person. But in order to ‘turn-on’ my social mode I have to be intoxicated to a level where I’m no longer very thoughtful or analytical. I can think of many ‘clownish’ ways to get attention that cause other people to like me. But I don’t want to be liked/desired for ‘clownish’ behavior. And I can’t figure out how to be socially successful without being ‘clownish’. The people I meet at bars want the fun guy that knows how to party, not the thoughtful/analytical guy that I’m the other 90% of the time.

It's been my experience that people like me, or find me attractive for reasons I don't or didn't expect. Frequently for reasons I didn't value or see in myself.

Having to be 'on' when out can be tiring.

I was fortunate, while being out and on, I found a thoughtful analytical woman. We enjoyed staying in, being quiet, thoughtful and analytical together.

Is it your perception that you're only liked when clowinsh?

Have you told any of the women that you've met that you're looking for a wife and mother of your children? Even if it's only in general and not her specifically?

It can help you by getting this larger social group that already likes you, even if your perception is that they only like the clown, to help you find the partner you want.

The universe is unlikely to send you a thoughtful, analytical, fertile women in a meet cute scenario. You need to actively look, and be upfront with what you want.

Telling women early you want a wife and children may scare some off. That's ok, they're not who your looking for. If you tell them and they stay, they're candidates. Don't take them to the places / times where you need to be on. Go places you can walk and talk and be thoughtful.

The advice for online dating, is to move to IRL as soon as possible. For me I needed to move to where I wasn't 'on' as soon as possible. Women that were looking for a light, easy goodtime would loose interest. Women that wanted a husband and father for their children may think, still waters run deep, and enjoy getting to know this truer self you reveal to her.

Do you have any proxies to help identify the sort of woman you want? For me, women in science, specifically lab sciences where she is or was doing bench work. I found many to be of a temperament that suited me. People often talk more about their work, than their personalities or desires in a partner. I've also found that how people talk about their work can be more revealing than their (mis)perceptions about themselves.

Also if there's anywhere you can go to be thoughtful and analytical that there are also women; public lectures / talks etc. These are good places to take women on 'dates', gives you something to discuss / argue about over a meal later.

Is it your perception that you're only liked when clowinsh?

It is my observation that I get a lot of attention and good reception when I’m intoxicated and clownish. I’ll talk to a double-digit number of strangers in the night and feel great about 90%+ of the interactions.

When sober I’m too shy to talk to strangers unless there is some shared purpose (such as needing to meet with an employee to discuss something for work). I’m also pretty sure I’m unknowingly giving off closed-off body language verbally so interactions quickly run out of steam and most people don’t initiate interactions with me.

Have you told any of the women that you've met that you're looking for a wife and mother of your children? Even if it's only in general and not her specifically?

I’m only looking for a long-term monogamous relationship but not marriage. Going through the breakup of a long-term relationship was one of my most emotionally devasting experiences in life. I can’t risk going through a divorce. I know the odds are stacked against me for having a successful marriage.

I have no interest in kids. I have too much trouble with social interactions and I would have trouble raising a kid. I don’t really like interacting with other people’s kids either. A kid would have higher risk of being on the autism spectrum.

It can help you by getting this larger social group that already likes you

I agree with you here. I should appreciate the attention that I get for being clownish and potentially people may also come to like my other qualities. Even the clownish behavior has an interesting backstory and does showcase some good qualities (like cleverness, confidence, and not being too uptight).

Do you have any proxies to help identify the sort of woman you want?

I feel like any of these could have potential:

  • Science background – proxy for interest in truth and not being too caught up in tribal politics.

  • Healthcare worker – Honest signal of selflessness (devoting yourself to tough career that isn’t all the financially rewarding compared to the alternatives).

  • Background in using/researching psychedelics – proxy for open-mindedness and having compassion for people with mental illness.

More comments

If you want to get psychedelics without dealing with anyone in person, the dark web is the way to go.

But I also want to use them and do integration sessions under the supervision of a medical professional (or an experienced user at minimum).

Even with Phenibut I hit a vulnerable state on the comedown where I become aware of beliefs that I don’t notice when I’m sober. I become very open to admitting that my routines and patterns of behavior may not be optimal and I become very open to the idea of making changes. For instance, I’ll tell myself that I should connect more with people and make an effort to call people or message people more often. But then I sober up and my rational defenses return – I don’t like making phone calls and messaging people usually leads to pointless small talk so I avoid it. When I’m in the vulnerable state it would be great to have someone to talk through these things with so that I have a higher chance of following up when sober, or so that they can optimize the plan so it is more is more palatable to my sober self.

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