Comment on Are you using Lemmy / others to create noise in your life and to replace talking to people irl?
testfactor@lemmy.world 2 days agoI have friends with crippling social anxiety. It’s a lot of work, and they have their ups and downs for sure. But it’s something that they’re working on in therapy and making strides on. It is possible to improve and for things to get better.
I mean, it’s hard to say without knowing exactly what you’re talking about, but universally condemned likely seems strong. But regardless, you said that you don’t value the same people I do. Does that mean you can’t value someone with different beliefs than you?
You say that there aren’t any groups in your area that would interest you. What kind of group would interest you? What group, if you saw it was starting up in your area, would motivate you to go out and meet people?
chosensilence@pawb.social 2 days ago
oh sure, i don’t deny that. i have experienced a lot of positive growth over the years and hope it continues. but i am not financially stable enough to pursue psychiatric and psychological treatment, so… just kinda dealing with it the ways i can.
not necessarily. our differences cannot be significant. it does mean i am far more intolerable than most, though, but on a personal level… not as an outward participant in society. i am pleasant to everyone i meet, but developing a friendship comes with baggage for me. i am less willing to talk to people with the goal of friendship in mind because i largely encounter folks who, frankly, i am better than. and that’s pretty sad because i suck.
it is unlikely i would go because i am unable to attend events solo due to anxiety. if i don’t know anyone i have no security blanket. i am not in the right headspace to tackle this issue at the moment.
testfactor@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Fair enough on all counts.
I would point out that if everyone only made friends with people better than them, no one would have any friends. It’s important to pour into others as well as to get poured into. It’s how we make the world better. And just because someone is “worse” than you doesn’t mean they don’t have value. And it doesn’t mean there isn’t something you could gain from having them as a friend. I’ve had friends who are “better” than me and “worse” than me make positive change in my life.
And I know you say you’re not in a place to work on this, and I can respect that, but I would say that it’s never a bad time to continue leaning forward in a positive direction. And if this is something that’s negatively impacting your life, the sooner you work on it, the sooner you’ll be less impacted by it. No time like the present and all that.
chosensilence@pawb.social 1 day ago
very true. however, it does make me less willing to be friends with them. we can be mutually kind and supportive, but i don’t want to know them on a personal level. also, it’s all a spectrum anyway. there are greys between each side, so it’s not like i’m looking for carbon copies of myself. but the radius of my tolerance is low, lol.
i try to lean forward, i do. i am, to my own chagrin, romantically optimistic about humanity. but it isn’t unrealistic. i ground myself by keeping up on sociological and political trends. shit is bad. shit is worse than bad. shit is worse than worse than bad. it’s all impacted how i see others and their role in the world.
testfactor@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
It does sound like you’ve let doom scrolling negatively impact your life.
I won’t argue things are bad, but the reality is that most people are generally decent.
Sure, there’s a lot of dicks out there, but they’re very much the minority. They are just overrepresented in the Lemmy echo chamber (and other online platforms too of course).
Obviously it’s hard to say if you’re being “too picky” as it were without knowing exactly what lines you’re drawing, but it sounds like you might be projecting your negative expectations onto people as opposed to people actually not living up to those expectations.