Right but you didn’t say that. You said “you voted for this”, as if Americans are some monolithic bloc with equal responsibility for the current state of affairs. If you tell me that I, an American, deserve the current administration because I voted for it, you are just completely, literally wrong. I, and 75 million other people, voted for Harris.

The other side of the coin is that it should be something that you do on a regular schedule with other people who you enjoy being around.

Fun and accountability are the keys.

Okay, now finally, let’s talk about where and how to push the boundaries of your social anxiety. I see there as being three social domains: family, community, and world.

World is the whole big wide world of strangers. In many ways, this is the easiest domain to push your social anxiety with, because you never have to meet any of these people again. A great hack here is travelling. Go to some other country and stay in the hostels. You are suddenly thrust into a situation where everyone wants to meet everyone including you. Literally all you have to do is show up and say yes when someone asks if you want to go somewhere or do something. This can also work going to festivals or conventions. Go to places where strangers want to meet each other and have fun - play life on easy mode! Go to these sorts of events and places regularly, and you’ll gradually find that it is easier and easier to introduce yourself to strangers and strike up a conversation. Then you can transfer this skill to, say, the grocery store or the park or your neighborhood street.

Next is community. This domain is where your social anxiety is related to your fear of damaging your reputation. For example, at work, in hobbyist clubs, in your neighborhood. Improving your “world” social anxiety can help a lot here, since once you know that you can meet people and strike up a conversation and make new friends, you have a much easier time taking risks in your community - after all, even if you literally burn down every community relationship you have, you know you can just move on to another community and start over, since you have the skill of introducing yourself and making friends, and you now have a lot of practice being authentically yourself around people where the stakes are low. The hack here is to try joining a bunch of different communities, and to try to be your authentic, honest self in each of them. Hobby groups are great for this - join a pickup soccer league, or a DnD group, or a cooking class. Anything where you are regularly interacting with the same group of people, where you can expect to get to know people over time. Your goal here is to overcome your anxiety to the point where you forget about it, and instead are completely engaged in being a good community member by helping the group. For example, if you are part of the pickup soccer group that meets in the park every Tuesday, you might wave to strangers who look at you curiously, and invite them to come play. Or if you are part of a DnD group, you might make pizza for everyone every week so that no one is hungry. By showing up consistently, regularly pushing yourself to be authentic and honest, and showing that you care about what you are doing, you will develop strong relationships with others in the group. As these relationships get stronger, you gain a support network of people who you feel care about you for you, and who you feel you can trust and rely on. This is what I would call your “family”.

So, finally, your family. I don’t necessarily mean blood relatives here, but rather, people with whom you have deep, lasting long term relationships. This is probably the hardest domain for you to tackle your social anxiety, since these are the people who know you best. You fear that if you are your authentic self around these people, that they will reject you, and that this rejection will be made with the full knowledge of who you are as a person. This is terrifying. But being able to speak authentically and honestly with the people closest to you is probably the most important thing you can do to be happy and successful in life. Note the catch 22 - at the beginning of this essay, I noted that one of the most important things you could do is recruit the people closest to you to support you in your struggle to overcome your social anxiety - but if you are terrified of talking to the people closest to you about your anxiety, then you can’t get their support, which you then can’t use it to overcome your anxiety about talking about your anxiety with them! Again, working in the broader community domain here is helpful, since if you have built up close relationships from your community before, you know you can do it again, and so it is easier to be vulnerable with the people who are close to you. In this domain, there is no real hack, other than to just do it. When you are spending time with a close friend or family member who you trust, just vomit out whatever is eating you up. Or fuck it, if that is hard, just send them a text about it. Give up on being perfect, just say whatever is on your mind and get the ball rolling. Then you can figure it out from there.

I should note that in all of these cases, you will be uncomfortable. Putting yourself out there and being vulnerable to others rejection is naturally terrifying. You will be terrified. But if you want to overcome your anxiety and more fully live your life, you need to recognize that growth happens when you face your fears and have the courage to act anyway.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got. Good luck!

As an American, I can say that I understand the feeling you are describing. The first thing I will say is that you aren’t introverted - you are probably a normal person who has a normal amount of desire to interact with other people. What you are describing is social anxiety. I highly recommend going to therapy to tackle this problem directly.

I will repeat: Find. A. Therapist.

Trying to tackle this issue on your own, with help from random strangers on the internet, is playing life on nightmare mode. If you ever progress at all, your progress will be agonizingly slow because you will procrastinate and work inefficiently because there is no one guiding you through the process or holding you accountable for doing the things you know you should do.

Going along with that, is there anyone in your life you feel comfortable talking to about your problems, like a friend or family member? If so, tell them how you are feeling, tell them how you hope to solve the problem, and ask them to hold you accountable. The more people you have supporting you, the easier it will be to take the necessary steps to overcome your anxieties.

Next, accept this: you are going to embarass yourself. A lot. In fact, in large part, embarrassing yourself is the whole point of doing things which challenge your social anxiety. Socially confident people do embarrassing things all the time - they accidentally rub someone the wrong way, or tell a joke that flops, or accidentally say something inappropriate, or get shot down when they ask someone out on a date. The difference is, they feel momentarily embarrassed, and then they let the feeling roll off of them and move on with their lives. They don’t see their embarrassment as representative of themselves as people, or think that their social faux pas will define them for the rest of their lives. The way you get there is by making mistakes, embarrassing yourself, and then noticing that you still have friends and people still want to talk to you. Your social anxiety is driven, in large part, by the fact that you never make mistakes, because you never actually say anything that might make you feel embarrassed. You are still hung up on the fact that that one time when you were 11, the other kids laughed at you when you didn’t know the capital of Argentina or whatever. All the socially confident people also had that experience, and then had a bunch more experiences like it, and now realize that momentary embarassment is no big deal. You’ve been avoiding being embarrassed, so now it is your job to make up that lost ground.

This leads us to an interesting question - what is the point of socializing at all? Because the goal you’ve been striving for all your life - to not be embarrassed; to never have anyone dislike you - is the exact opposite of how you overcome your social anxiety. So what should your new goal be? Well, it should be to express yourself honestly and authentically, and to have fun.

Two important points here.

First, being honest and authentic isn’t something you just do. It is something you gradually get better at over time. Your social anxiety is your habit of compulsively hiding your authentic self from others so that you can never be rejected - it takes time to break down that wall, and learn to express yourself in a way that truly and succinctly expresses who you are at that particular moment, so don’t beat yourself up if you feel like you “aren’t doing it right”. If you “can’t think of anything to say”, it is probably because your anxiety is telling you that your real, lived experience of the world is uninteresting to other people - that anytime you speak, you need to be blowing their minds with something beautiful or inspirational or hilarious. But this is not true at all. You can just say things that you notice. For example, you can tell the cashier at the grocery store “I love these things. I buy them all the time” when she finds up your favorite cookies. Or if you pass someone walking in the park, you can say “Hey, beautiful day, isn’t it?” Or “A bit dreary today…” An even better hack, though, is talking about how you feel, especially when you feel nervous. Are you meeting a new group of people for the first time? You can just say “I’m feeling nervous meeting all of you for the first time because I want to make a good impression.” This will simultaneously do a lot of good things - first it will make you feel better because you are no longer nervous about trying to hide your nervousness. Sharing how you feel will make the others you are speaking to relate to you better, because everyone knows what it is like to be nervous when meeting a new group of people. And it will likely mean that these people will go out of their way to make you feel more included in the group since now they know that this will help you. A good phrase to remember is “autistically honest” - that is your goal. STOP trying to be smooth - just blurt out whatever is in your head at that moment without regard for context or social acceptability, and see what happens. You can always explain yourself later if people are confused.

Second, if you are authentic and honest some people won’t like you. People might not like you for literally any reason at all, from your hobbies to your job to your political views to your view of the world to what you named your dog as a kid. They might not like you because you have social anxiety, because you are trying to work on your social anxiety, or because you are less socially anxious than they are. To overcome your social anxiety, you must accept this - if someone doesn’t like you for who you are, then that just means the two of you are a bad match for each other at this time. Who knows, maybe in a week or a month or a year, one or both of you will change and you’ll be best friends. But even if that doesn’t happen, there are 7 or 8 billion other people in the world, and you can go see if they like you for who you really are. This, of course, doesn’t mean you shouldnt be trying to improve yourself - if very few people want to spend time with you because you never shower and smell bad, you shouldn’t continue not showering because “this is who I really am and other people just need to accept that”. But if you love playing Sim City: Skylines, then you shouldn’t feel the need to hide this part of yourself, and if others don’t like it then that’s fine - you don’t need them in your life.

It is also important to recognize that as you practice being authentically honest with people more and more, you will be more at ease doing so. You will naturally pick up on social cues easier and adapt them into your behavior without thinking or noticing. You will naturally gain new interests and opinions which align with the people you most connect with. You will find that you will say fewer embarrassing things, people will accept your flubs more supportively, and more people will like you. You do get better at socializing. But it isn’t something you consciously practice, other than by reminding yourself to authentically and honestly express yourself. If you try to consciously practice being liked, you are only indulging your social anxiety, and are not making real progress. So if you find that you are embarrassing yourself and getting rejected a lot, take a deep breath and remind yourself that you are on the right track - feeling this pain is part of the process of becoming a socially confident person.

So: go to therapy; get support from friends and family as much as you can; accept that you are going to embarrass yourself; accept that some people won’t like you.

North Florida.

We had some short, no nonsense discussion of what sex was, the fact that stis were a thing, and that was about it. And then some health class in my high school made extremely graphic displays of what your genitals would look like if you got stis (and they weren’t treated for years) that were left up all year for some reason

Imo, this is most people with imposter syndrome. The reality is, you just aren’t very good at what you do.

Right. Also, the fact that you exist implies that your parents saw having children as a good goal to have. After all, they did it themselves. Given the fact that they think it is a good goal, you are far more likely to hear them encourage you to have kids.

I did not, lol?

Typo. Fixed.

LMFAOO wtf

This is indisputably true and not controversial.

This isn’t a map of ethnicities and breast size. It is a map of country and breast size. Pretty much all countries have multiple ethnicities. The fact that you bring up ethnicity at all is weird, since this is clearly just an obesity map with some random chaos mixed in.

If I were to guess the answer to your question, my guess would be obvious - black people, since being black corrolates with being poor, and being poor corrolates with being fat.

That place doesn’t exist

That’s because you are ignoring all the fat women.

I also assume that the OP graphic is running into serious issues in its data collection. Looks like it is basically an obesity map, with a sprinkling of pure random chaos thrown in.

Main factors in female breast size:

1. Being female
2. Being fat

As the infographic says, breast size often corrolates with being fat. Americans are fat. Hence the dark color of the US on the map.

But you know what is cheaper than building a bunch of new solar? Not building that solar and continuing to use the coal plant that already exists. Hence the need to price CO2eq so that the coal plant is paying out the ass and becomes non-viable.

The correct answer.

Yes, yes, fossil fuel companies have a lot of political influence and are actively hindering the adoption of clean technology. But also, the world uses a lot of energy, and it takes time to build the capacity in renewables to make headway. More money would make things faster, but there is no real monetary incentive right now.

1. Have hobbies, interests, or work that interests you, which can be done with other people.
2. Search for groups, spaces, or jobs in your area that do those things. If none exist, make a group/space and advertise it somehow.
3. Consistently attend regularly scheduled gatherings.
4. Talk about things other than the thing sometimes when you get together.
5. Do this for a while. You now have friends.

Note that this works best when the activity requires some kind of teamwork, group effort, communication, or shared work/suffering.

So, you have two goals: where to live and what to do.

For where to live - right now I live in Colorado. Colorado has one of the most sensible and competent state governments I’ve encountered. We have universal mail in ballots, decriminalized weed and mushrooms, and don’t waste tons of money building 20 lane highways (relative to other states). But importantly, the state of Colorado provides income-based assistance for purchasing health insurance. You plug in your anticipated income for the year into the state’s website, and it lists insurance plans you can buy at a state-subsidized rate. This year, I am paying $3 per month for health insurance. Plus, the Front Range has a very mild climate that is mostly comfortable most of the year, but you still get all 4 seasons, and we have beautiful mountains and no Mormons.

Wanting to buy a house makes things trickier. As a queer person, you probably want to live where you will feel comfortable and accepted. And as a not-rich person, you will want to live where you can get a job. These two requirements mean you will probably need to live in a metro area, which means owning your own space will be expensive. And the most queer-friendly places are often the most expensive places to live, since prosperity breeds liberalism. So, you probably need to make some money.

Your lack of ability to organize and plan will be a major hindrance here. I would suggest simply moving and picking up some straightforward dumb work to start off with. Just find somewhere you want to live, get any job, and start living a happier life first. I know around here it is easy to get work selling solar, setting up concerts (seasonal), logging (seasonal), or hanging Christmas lights (seasonal). The good thing about these jobs is that they fit your requirement: boss gives you a task, you do that task.

Mid term, I would highly suggest working through the issues you are describing directly. Executive function and people skills are probably the two biggest factors in getting higher pay in literally any field. If you can get those two things to an at least decent level, you could get a job developing software. Or else I have a friend who clears six figures tutoring college students in physics and math.

I think it’s a truism among professional gamblers that playing poker is a hard way to make an easy living.

So I’ve considered attending these sorts of things for a while. And honestly, I think I’d be a good fit, based on what I’ve read about the sort of people camps look for. I’m cooperative, easygoing, helpful, and I like contributing to common goals. I have more experience in nature/camping than 99% of people and am well versed in LNT. I have a fair bit of experience doing diy projects, and am at least somewhat competent with carpentry, electrical work, plumbing, welding, and building/deconstructing temporary structures. I’m a big wall climber and am rope access certified, and am good at solving problems of moving heavy things where I need them or using leverage and ropes to exert lots of force. And I have the sort of athleticism that lets me do manual labor in the hot sun all day. For all practical purposes, I think I’d be a great addition to most people’s camp.

you’re a participant, an integral part of the experience for everyone else

But this bit is honestly terrifying. Really, I never really “got” the appeal of festivals… you just show up at a place and… look at things? Talk to people? Based on pics and videos I’ve seen of these events, the art looks cool. And the people I’ve met who are burners are cool people. But I feel a kind of existential dread that once the work is done and it is time to “enjoy” the event, I’ll just end up walking around, looking at things, being like “that’s cool”, awkwardly talking to no one or having very shallow, surface level conversations, and being bored.

So I challenge you: convince me that going to one of these events will be a good time.