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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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've been sober since December, but I think I might start drinking once a week again in order to improve my social life. I've made some progress at sober socializing, but then I got to a plateau where I started losing interest/motivation. The people I meet IRL aren't interested in having deep conversations about the things I'm interested in, and navigating modern conversation norms is exhausting.
Can you prevent most of the long-term damage from alcohol by boosting glutathione to quickly break down the acetaldehyde?
How effective is this supplement stack at preventing the negative effects of alcohol?
Before drinking: emoxypine, milk thistle, S-Acetyl L-Glutathione
After drinking: Dihydromyricetin, Pyroglutamic Acid, Succinic Acid
"I gave up drinking, but I'm so smart I can't have conversations with the normies" isn't the vibe you want to give off, my guy.
Turn it into a game - learn how to do the normie conversation dance and get good enough at it you can lead them to having the "deeper" conversations you value. The major up front caveat here is that "deep" conversations can, and should, be about whatever topic BOTH parties are interested in. Don't be that guy who just steers conversation toward whatever your thing is. That's selfish. Everyone craves these "deep" conversations but a lot of people think "deep" only counts if its their preferred flavor of "deep."
But, let's go ahead and think of the bigger (deeper?) picture -
All conversation is valuable if you want it to be. Small talk is underappreciated and over-maligned. Small talk shows you can have easy, non-weighty conversation with all types of people and not DEMAND up front commitment to a three hour navel gazing session. In fact, conversation among close friends is 99% small talk but with shared references and values that make it highly enjoyable. If you really want to try to convince me you aren't guilty of slinging memes back and forth with your besties, I'll believe you on this holy internet forum of honesty - but will you believe yourself?
Small-talk is people trying to let you in for the deeper stuff while guarding themselves. If you can't tolerate that then they are absolutely right in not wanting to talk to you.
Finally, and I mean this charitably, take a second to decide if what you really want is to have a conversation with another unique human .... or to have an audience.
I can do small talk and sometimes even get a bit of enjoyment from it. The problem IRL is that many people's beliefs are so intertwined with their politics. If I talk about something completely unrelated to politics they might bring up progressive stack concepts as a way to discount a source.
I do talk about things they are interested in too, but they aren't interested my truth-seeking style of discussing the topic. I like to pull in a lot of data, consider all sides of an argument, and explore the topic in novel ways. Most IRL people seem to just want the social confirmation/validation of their deep thoughts instead of wanting to think in a scientist/rationalist adjacent style.
The thing is I've found online spaces where I can talk about deep things in a way all participants enjoy. We use our real names and do video conferencing. So some of this is specifically me being frustrated by IRL people because they are so different than my far away friends that I talk to virtually.
Sometimes I'll watch a podcast where 2 people get deep dialogue on a subject. I'd like to be participating in conversations like those without being on a podcast.
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