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by conroe64 4779 days ago
I'm in the same boat. I'm also have attracted a lot of, how to put this, people who use other people, since I'm not good at standing up for myself, so that, therefore, makes wary of people.

My belief is being social is a skill and I have to learn to get better at that skill in order to attract more normal people. I've been trying the following recently, although I haven't had enough time with any of it to know how well it will work, but just to give you some ideas:

lang-8.com - this site allows you to correct English of people trying to learn it. You can post a journal as well in another language you're trying to learn. My hope is that speaking another language might change the way I interact with people in my native language. But also, people there are very friendly, since you're helping them.

mmo games - trying to get into eve online. Maybe learn to establish relationships that way.

teamspeak - this has an online chat I've been using to practice smalltalk.

I tried a psychologist as well, but his philosophy of life and the way he related to me seemed so goofy that I quit. Also, it was quite expensive for what I got out of it.

2 comments

Being social in the real world is a different skill than being social online. You might want to practice both (although, from experience, I'm going to say being social in real life is more important.)

Try a different psychologist, maybe you got the wrong one. But be a little more open to different philosophies of life and goofiness.

I've found EVE to be a double-edged sword in that regard. The game is exponentially more fun when played socially. On the other hand it's easy to hide in it and avoid socializing at all.

EVE takes effort to play "the right way". Make sure you get in a nice corp.