This may sound a little self deprecating but i just can’t stop the habit.
i’ve always put myself down because i can’t seem to make new friends as easily as people close to me and i compare myself to my own friends so i’ve struggled with the way i express myself publicly. i feel as though my friends have an easier time making friends cause they’re able to keep up that social energy forever.
weirdly enough, jenna ortega, a celebrity, is someone who’ve i’ve related most to regarding the way she presents herself, not crazy amounts of energy, just monotone speaking but still interesting if you stick around for long enough.
i’ve always tried to keep up my energy but i’m afraid i come off as “fake” when the energy is gone about half way through an interaction and then it feels like the other person doesn’t really want to talk to me anymore. in my head, this thought is appearing as soon as i notice any sort of facial expressing that might indicate boredom on the other person and i immediately push myself further down, unintentionally telling myself that i’m uninteresting.
i also have this strange ideology that all of my friends will eventually leave me and only the people who continue to talk to me will stick around. maybe i need to make more effort towards others? sometimes it’s like i forget how to speak to people by being self deprecating and thinking no one wants to actually be friends with me as much as i do with them.
how should i practice to stop this negative habit? it’s definitley something i think is hurting me and my social life.
3 comments
I totally understand how you feel because I’m just like you too. I learn to control myself and stop assuming things that don’t even happen. It isn’t easy but as long as you’re being yourself, that’s what really matters. Don’t let your negative thoughts consume your mind and ruin your mood. Let everything flow naturally
i am currently going through the same thing. It is very unnerving. I moved in with my toxic parents in 2020 and then moved out and moved into a shitty situation with toxic roommates and now i live elsewhere and can take a breather…kind of. I feel like I could dabble with my social skills prior to the pandemic but now I feel like after all of that, I forgot how to talk to people. It’s like all of the knowledge of how to interact and connect with other humans just vanished into thin air. It bums me out seeing everyone around me have fun and enjoy themselves with others and I can’t seem to grasp the concept of how to do that.
Nowadays, I have lower self esteem and assume people hate me. I have friends but feel very lonely. I feel like, I like people more than they like me. I feel like im the most boring and uninteresting person on Earth.
I’m strongly considering therapy because I feel like I’m gonna lose it any day now but as for practicing stopping the habit: What I’ve been doing is reminding myself to stop being to cruel and harsh to myself. I feel my social skills getting worse as the days go by and I feel very empty and lonely inside.
Easier said than done. I feel like I have to gaslight myself into loving myself. But for me personally, I think therapy is my best bet. I don’t have an emotional support system in real life and I’m hoping with some therapy I will heal.
unless you did something bad to them, they probably just don’t notice/think about you at all, and have no opinion on you, but if you seem hyper aware of this- you put pressure on people to make you feel liked which will make them feel uncomfortable. the opposite of love is apathy, not hate. but what’s great about this (if they don’t care) is the bar is low. it’s always even more impressive when someone who is the loner or the outsider in the group out of nowhere cracks a hilarious joke, or you get into a random drunken heart to heart with them and they turn out to be a gem and you’re like WOW WTF. it makes you really notice how cool they are if it’s out of nowhere. AND even more so, because you’re so cool and this whole time never felt the need to show off or be the center of attention. you’ll just look really secure in yourself, and it will make you come off as really mature too.
but people won’t like you if you don’t show up and act like you like them. do you know how many guys became my boyfriend because they liked me first? (not a great way to pick a boyfriend lmao), but the way that you get people to like you is to like them. don’t be overzealous and weird, but the more that you lift other people up and give them spotlight and attention they will think you’re the coolest. ask them questions, basically be the friend you want to them. note how i didn’t say try to befriend them or make them your friend, but just when you’re around people, make them feel seen or cool to everyone else in the group- or just them. everyone who is out in social situations go out to be validated on some level. when you satisfy that urge, they will have bandwidth to turn attention outwards- so every time you speak up, you don’t feel like you have to make an elevator pitch for why people should hear you out. i think this pressure is making you feel like no one likes you. because you’re trying to captivate attention, and subconsciously picking up the results as not being worth the attention. but people really just want to feel liked and cool- just like you. but it’s give and take. you can’t be so focused on you that you don’t notice people. even if you’re focused on bad things you think about you- it’s still self absorbed. beware of wanting to be liked so badly that you never like anybody else. i didn’t even realize i used to do this. but i fixed it and it changed everything.
if you let them get what’s on their mind off, or give them the validation or attention they want, they will be calm to listen to you. say someone is talking about going to art school and mention a photography class they took earlier in the convo. when they’re done talking, say something like “woah- can i ask you something? okay so you said earlier in your conversation you took a photography class that you could do anything but use photography as a medium for your assignments? can you tell me more about that? what did you learn about photography from that? that’s so interesting- i’ve never heard about something like that” and they will go on and on and then walk away like woah so and so is cool, or because of the law of reciprocity, want to ask you about yourself and have an opportunity to make you feel good about yourself too. works every time. every time someone mentions something about their life, it’s an opportunity to make them feel cool and get to know more about them. no one mentions anything off handedly that they didn’t want to talk about or be asked about. good or bad. once you go out with “i want to make people feel liked” you will be too busy to think about if people like you or not, and it will give you the authority to feel like you can speak up, because you came with a mission. if it doesn’t go well, it won’t be internalized as something wrong with you- because you didn’t speak up to be liked. you spoke up to like someone else!