(21m) so growing up, I was always taught to find the hood in others and whatnot, (even though this often promotes and allows toxic people to be in your life without you knowing) and up until 8th grade people had used that part of me as an insurance, they could be as mean as they want, and then just pretend to be nice and all was well.
In 8th grade I finally gained some genuine friends, finally became social, and I was a natural, sure I wasn’t getting girls really, but that wasn’t my goal, I was just open, and myself, and yet still kind when it came to most people that hadn’t given me a reason not to.
Then in mid 9th grade my parents moved me far away from their, many states away, and because we weren’t properly prepared, I spent a month without school in a hotel that we would live in for 3 years. And my social skills kinda went away, because I hadn’t been using them properly. Eventually I got back into school late 9th grade, but my social skills were slim, and I was either way too open, or way too closed.
It remained this way all the way to graduation, I had only gained a couple of friends who never got close enough to stay after we graduated, so I’ve kinda spent my life from 9th grade to present day, kind of alone, I’ve only gone out with a friend(s) a handful of time during this period.
Here I am present day, and I’m good enough to deal with small interactions at the store n stuff, but I have trouble trying to be like my old self, it was easier when I had made a group of friends in middle school because I knew I had them at the end of the day, so I never put extra thought into it. But now I struggle because I don’t have a group any more, and it’s hard to make a group when you have to go from scratch. Of course this has leaked into my relationship life and I can say I haven’t been successful in the slightest, I have had 4 “girlfriends” but not even those were things that lasted 2 weeks n ended quick, my last one (in 2017) was when I had my first kiss, and ever since then I’ve failed because I just don’t know how to handle socialization anymore, I want to really bad, it’s like being an extrovert trapped by introverted social skills. I keep trying to bring back that old charismatic personality, but I just can’t seem to find it
Anything?