Hello Penguin (and Lauren)!

I am kind of the complete opposite of what you just described. I’m older as well, and probably from a different culture, so I am fully aware that I can not completely understand how you feel. In fact, I kind of don’t understand it at all, so there might be a mismatch in thinking and possibly also in communication. I hope that I could offer another kind of perspective.

If you’ve spent any time in Pinterest, you’ll know that nerdy is the new black 🙂 Granted, I’m not your age and in your culture, but preferring tea and books/movies/discussions to clubbing isn’t anything extraordinary anymore.

Also, you don’t have to be witty or funny to be pleasant company. We all take different roles in social situations, and we need all kinds of people to fulfil a specific role. A very charismatic and talkative person is nothing without a counterpart who enjoys someone else taking control of the social situation. The roles that we take come rather naturally, and there is no way that it would work if everyone would be terribly witty and funny all the time. There has to be a balance. So if you aren’t like that naturally, then that’s honestly no problem at all.

There’s this idea that in order to be confident, one should be really active and loud and assertive. That’s not true. Quiet confidence is very powerful, and even a bit scary and admirable to those who can’t stay quiet 🙂

So I think that you might not understand that you do have lots of value as a person. Regardless of what kind of personality you have. A person who can be authentic and is able to be present in the moment is very rare and valuable. But you don’t even have to be that to have friends and acquaintances.

I make fast friends all the time. Always have. It just comes naturally to me. If I would have to pinpoint what it is that makes it happen, then it’s just being friendly with a detachment. I think it creates a safe environment, and people are drawn to that. So for example, I’m standing in a line with people and I make a comment about something. That’s making a connection with the people in the same situation. In the same time I’m not attached to the outcome at all, and people sense that. People are more open to starting to talk with strangers if they feel that they’re not going to be stuck with that person. If making a comment is too much, then just smiling is OK as well. Simply making a connection whilst showing that you are a friendly person and not a threat. The reaction to that is pretty much the same everywhere. Whether those connections lead to anything is something that time will tell, but to adopt such mentality might help. Since it’s who I am, I don’t know if it’s something that goes totally against the personality of someone else, but I don’t think it should?

Of course you also need to spend time in places with a lot of people. Like attending a class 🙂 I don’t know how those work in your university, but I would assume it’s the same everywhere, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to sit close to other people and connect with them before, during and after. To be quite honest, being terribly nervous and over-thinking things and being a person on a mission to find a new friends aren’t going to help 🙂 So the detachment to the outcome is rather important. People want to be able to choose themselves who they want to be friends with and imposing will result in the opposite. It’s not that different from flirting and other mating games: showing availability and friendliness and that it’s OK to approach with certain cues like smiling and making comments. Even if it doesn’t always work and people don’t always pick up on it (or don’t feel like they want to discuss with strangers), it’s not a social faux pas and is generally seen as something very pleasant. It only becomes a faux pas if you force it.

You should build confidence (we all should), and that’s one of the things I’ve personally had to really work on. So you see, you can be a social person with no real confidence 🙂 Anyway, I’ve noticed that the more I’m OK with who I am, the more confident I become. When I know myself and who I am, I’m as prepared as I can be for what ever will come. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in a new situation (which is where confidence is needed), but if you know yourself, then you’re ahead of the game. Not only do you need to know yourself, you need to accept yourself. Right now you are assuming that being a tea drinking homebody is bad and unacceptable. Why would that be? Everyone does love confident people, because they make us feel safe, but like I said before, confidence is not the same as being social (and it’s definitely not the same as being a club-hopping social drinker). So your inferiority complex is based on an illusion, really.

To me, all this is really clear, but if it wasn’t, or you completely disagree, then please do comment 🙂

There’s not much magic to accepting a situation. You accept it. That’s it. What you are trying to do though, is to accept the future as well, which hasn’t happened yet. So you are trying to do the impossible: to accept what does not exist.

You call yourself ugly, which is your choice of words. You look a certain way right now, but the interpretation is yours. When you accept yourself as you are, it means to also accept what you look like, but the interpretation is completely based on learned behavior. I personally happen to see a lot of beauty in people who are kind, compassionate and funny, regardless of what they look like.

You’re in this mindset that you have no control over your life and you are worthless and non-existent. You believe it to be true and that it’s something that has been imposed upon you. While I do think that the events in your life have definitely contributed, you are the one who chooses to keep believing in that. As long as you believe that you are not worthy, what sort of relationship do you think you would have? Only with a person who also would think that your only worth would come through being with them. You knew when you were younger that you’d deserve something more, yet you don’t treat yourself in a way that would prove to yourself that you would deserve more.

The best practical advice I ever got was to stop all the negative self-talk. It doesn’t mean that you’d have to talk to yourself in a positive manner. I don’t think that would come naturally at this stage. Just stop listening to the voice that tells you that you’re not worthy of love. It’s not doing you any favors. When ever you notice yourself telling yourself that you’re ugly or worthless or non-existent, then just stop. Immediately, stop. Say “OK, yes, I’ve heard that before, but I’ll choose not to go through this again right now”. You might not realize how much power those words have. Words that you produce in your own mind, so you do have power over them.

If you honestly would be ready to give up on life, you wouldn’t have posted here. You can fight back and say that you’re this and that and nothing will ever change for you, but I’m sorry, I don’t believe that.

I think I need to reiterate my point so that it’s not misconstrued. I think you should just live your life as you are, without any walking on eggshells. If another person has a problem with you, then they will distance themselves from you automatically and if they don’t distance themselves, but choose to bring the problems to you, then it’s reasonable for you to distance yourself from them. You don’t observe closely to get a truth: the truth comes out itself.

Someone has labelled you as a potential threat. If you know that to be utter nonsense, then why would you even want to be involved with a person who makes these claims? If the claims are the product of a delusional person or someone who wants to hurt you, then what ever you say or do towards them will not change the situation to something better. They will find a way to use those actions against you, so it’s better to cut your losses and focus on something else.

After you’ve managed to get some distance to the situation (through time and space), you should probably take a long hard look at what exactly happened and why. Toxic relationships don’t just happen to us; we actively involve ourselves in them. We gravitate towards people who match our inner world and then try to change things through them. As an example, if we do not value ourselves, we gravitate towards people who also do not value us and then we try our hardest to make them like us. What we should do instead is to like ourselves and then gravitate towards people who also like us and then celebrate how great that is 🙂 That’s just an example, but the point is that we choose certain relationships for a reason and if those relationships end up being toxic, then it’s good to have a moment of self-reflection.

You say that distancing yourself completely would be taken as a hostile gesture, but is that an assumption or actual knowledge? If it is assumption, then you’re spending too much energy thinking about how other people might react to your actions, and that means that your actions are no longer genuine, but attempts to manipulate the surroundings. If it is knowledge, then the other person truly would be unfair, as it makes absolutely no sense to first claim that someone is potentially harassing them and then complain that to break ties would be a hostile act.

Honestly, it sounds like you are trying to control an uncontrollable situation in a way that’s only making things worse. The truth will always come out in the end, what ever it is, and then we accept it and we move on. Dancing around the situation will just prolong that resolution.

Hello!

I attended some Al-Anon meetings after a very painful break up (he suggested it). I didn’t want to go, but I’m really glad I did. It was very helpful to not only talk about your own journey, but to listen to others (and not be allowed to comment). It was easier to see the problems unfolding before you on other people, knowing that you did the same things they did. If there are meetings close to you, I wholly recommend trying it out. I’m undecided about the 12 steps myself, but I loved the atmosphere in the meetings. To me it was a place of healing in a group setting without anyone judging.

I recommend looking into Susan Anderson’s book Journey from Abandonment to Healing. It sheds some light on abandonment fears and though they may seem silly, they are understandable. It doesn’t have to be a huge trauma that may bring up this fear.

She has a workbook as well which is out of print, but can be obtained through a website which organizes some sort of workshops.

Anyway, look at the book on Amazon and see if it could be of interest for you.

It’s the same for me: when I have a gut feeling about something, it’s pretty much always right. Having said that, I have no problems discerning whether it’s a gut feeling or something else. I know, and these days I also trust that feeling and listen to it. So the fact that you are unsure either means that it’s your mind is playing tricks on you, or that you’re just not comfortable with your intuition. Now having said that, I’m under the impression that women in general have easier time sensing things and having that “sixth sense” about things. I don’t know if that’s true and if it is, is it an actual biological thing or social conditioning.

So, that wasn’t really helpful at all 🙂

I say that in general it would be a good idea to work on your self-esteem. I’m not saying that it’s too low, but that it’s never a bad idea to have more. When you respect yourself and care about yourself, you know what you are comfortable with and what is crossing a limit to you, and assert those boundaries. That’s also when insecurity, which causes jealousy, starts to disappear. So not only should you trust your gut more and be comfortable asserting yourself, you wouldn’t worry over something that’s actually nothing. I recommend Nathaniel Branden’s Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. It’s a classic and very good. Not a fluffy self-help book, but a solid understanding of the subject.