461–470 of 568 posts
Social awkwardness is like vertigo, it's somewhat normal (in our society) to have it, but it's best to ignore it as it's counter productive to pay attention to it rather than focusing & enjoying the moment
These comments make me feel like I'm getting old, which is weird to me. There are so many proactive comments that remind me of my 18 year old self. Social awkwardness, for me and for a lot of people I know, sort of just vanished with age. - The same kind of weird, unexplainable, vicious attitude that passes for cool among teenagers and some early adults fades for most people. The people who still adhere to that code…
I think having kids forces you out of your shell for their sake, you have to be able to speak your mind to strangers, etc. and it becomes easier talking to others to get things done.
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Yep! Good times.
Oh god, I can remember how awkward I was. You’d think the hits to the head in rugby and the drugs would erase some of those memories, but nope.
Sometimes people won’t want to help you. They may be in a busy, distracted, in a bad mood, or just a jerk. However, this should be pretty uncommon. If you find that everyone is disinterested then you need to look at the common factor, which is yourself.
Also, I hear really good things about Toastmasters. Practicing public speaking in a supportive environment may be helpful too.
These comments make me feel like I'm getting old, which is weird to me. There are so many proactive comments that remind me of my 18 year old self. Social awkwardness, for me and for a lot of people I know, sort of just vanished with age. - The same kind of weird, unexplainable, vicious attitude that passes for cool among teenagers and some early adults fades for most people. The people who still adhere to that code…
These comments make me feel like I'm getting old, which is weird to me. There are so many proactive comments that remind me of my 18 year old self. Social awkwardness, for me and for a lot of people I know, sort of just vanished with age. - The same kind of weird, unexplainable, vicious attitude that passes for cool among teenagers and some early adults fades for most people. The people who still adhere to that code…
I was watching Euphoria these days, and reading your comment reminded me of a thought I had watching that. School is like prison. People are forced to spend most of their living hours with one another for long periods of time. So like in prison, weird social dynamic develops itself. Once you're out of prison, everything is much smoother. You can simply exit any toxic situations.
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You say this like McDonalds food isn't already habit forming Heroin and other opiates need to be available over the counter at a store. This is the only way to remove the black market and the fentanyl tainted supply. If you just decriminalize, people still won't be able to get it and will have to go through a black market. The market doesn't need to be a free for all, we can choose to make advertising the compounds i…
re "Pretty much all drug problems are created by prohibition itself" Isn't the US opiod crisis (not heroin specifically) massively driven by the fact that it is fairly easy to get lavish subscription on legal pain killers? I mean I give it to you that suburbian moms on Vicodin won't roll up to a gas station with a semi-automatic, but they still OD, and that's still a drug problem.
The US opioid crisis has been caused by a multitude of factors, including endemic poverty in some communities combined with physicians being told by producers that the compounds they were prescribing were not addictive (that was a load of shit delivered to increase profits, obviously a bad thing and we need to train physicians better on basic pharmacology). On top of that, now that restrictions have been increased on prescribing people have shifted back to the black market where nothing is regulated and you might get fentanyl hotspots in your heroin which is definitely one of the big reasons for overdoses today. Overdoses were slightly lower when pill mills were operating because people knew exactly how much of what was in the pills they get from Walgreen's or whatever.
The issues I'm referring to are the ones that have been present for much longer. These issues include things such as lack of employment due to drug users having a record, discrimination against users in general stemming from the stigma and association with violent crime (even though 90%+ of users are nonviolent), stigma in treating addiction and mental illnesses, overdoses which almost always stem from a change in how the in regular d suppliers cut their products and change potency (people get used to a certain concentration of active and if that changes they may easily use too much), and the lack of drug education due to the "just say no" ideology which essentially lied to multiple generations about the dangers and mechanisms of psychoactive compounds.
When it comes to alcohol, there are socially learned ways of managing use of the drug (ethanol) in a responsible fashion. Only some small communities have learned how to use other drugs responsibly due to the stigma preventing spread of information.
We also don't have a lot of information on the intersection of these psychoactive compounds and mental illness. Its possible that there are people who have malfunction regulation of endogenous opioids (endorphins) or their receptors which a partial agonist could be used for therapy. There is literally not a single doctor who would prescribe an opiate agonist for mental health issues because the research on things like that is all but banned due to the DEA dragging their feet and refusing to give people licensing to study the compounds (MAPS has had to sue the DEA over this issue). Combine this with funding issues, where only studies looking at downsides of psychoactive get funded and now we have an extremely skewed/biased view.
There are even more issues than I've presented here, but these are the ones at the forefront of my mind when I consider the issues of drug use today. Almost all of these issues have their root in the prohibition of these substances. It would be far easier to not only study and understand drugs without prohibition, but people would also overdose less due to having a reliable, regulated, and affordable supply. The primary issue that feeds into this which isn't due to prohibition itself is poverty, and that's a whole 'nother thing.
So - socialize more, get older, and stop worrying about what others think of you, and you'll find it stops mattering. If you want, you can also turn yourself into a smooth talking politician/comedian/whatever through deliberate practice, to reduce any bumps of awkwardness. But I think this is only worth doing to achieve some personal goal.
I would say though that actual social anxiety is a different beast. I had severe social anxiety into my 30s, and the only thing that really helped with that was drugs and therapy.