>>33704
Very true. It's just hard not to think about it I guess. I just have to hold out hope that when I die I get isekai'd into a different fork in life. Or something altogether better, like the world of Monster Girl Quest.

>>33703

I can't remember which episode it was exactly, I have a feeling maybe the Neitzsche one, but part of what gets explored in this program had a very formative effect on how I look at my life, the kind of "what ifs" you mention here, and their relation to my satisfaction with how it's turned out over the years.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/philosophy-a-guide-to-happiness

The whole series is well worth a watch and even though it must have been at least fifteen years ago I watched it, I still find I am calling back to it in posts here all the time.

Personally I only really have one big "proper" regret, and it's over the girl I was with in the pre-covid before times. I only really had quite minor problems with her in retrospect, but I left because I was a fool who didn't realise how much of a diamond she was, and that in my youthful naivety, I didn't realise finding another like her might not ever even happen.

I've had a load of shit jobs in my life, I fucked up sixth form and college three times and didn't go to uni, but I don't really regret any of that, I've found my own way in life regardless. I've done alright for myself, and that's in no way a "cope", I wouldn't want it another way, because if it had been different then I wouldn't be me. The version of me who did stick his head down to revise for his A-levels and went to uni straight out of school would probably earn more money, but be much more naive, sheltered, and frankly probably a bit of a wet wipe. I wouldn't respect him.

And to circle back around that's the bit that has stuck with me through the years from that program, the way that everything you have been through over the years is what makes you who you are- And it's not so much about whether you would have enjoyed life more, but if you would still be the same person, and if you like who you are/would have been.

My therapist wants me to be more social and ask my colleague if she wants to hang out. I think she probably would, but the idea of being zeroed in as a big-freak-oddball is horrible. This isn't a romantic thing either, for the record. Honestly, it might be easier if it was, because I can live with the idea that someone doesn't want to shag me (it's a given), but it's way worse to have to think about why someone can't even stand talking to you. It would also help if there was literally anything to do around here.

Also, I took a chance on some watermelon chewing gum yesterday and it's rubbish.

>>33707
I don’t know your colleague and I don’t know what your relationship with her is like, but I think you have a better chance if you invite lots of your colleagues somewhere. If only she wants to come, then that’s perfect, but asking her that way might be better than just asking her. Also, if she says no, you might get to socialise with a different colleague instead.

>>33708
I have two colleagues.

>>33707
>My therapist wants me to be more social and ask my colleague if she wants to hang out

She means ask her if she wants to join you for lunch, right? I know I shouldn't argue with your therapist but I'm a little uncomfortable with this idea. If you want to make friends then consider a good hobby that gets you out meeting people.

>>33710
No, we both like "walking" (possibly because there's nothing else to do around here), and we do seem to have some things in common (horrible taste in podcasts, younger millenials in a state of arrested development, deep conspiracy knowledge without actually believing any of it). Anyway, this, and my only actual friend living very far away nowadays, is why my therapist thought I should ask her if she wants to meet up for a walk at some point. We don't actually work together very often either, so it's not as if we'd be spending twelve hours a day with each other or something mental like that. We can't go for lunch either, because at least one paid member of staff has to be in work and there's never more than two people working at the same time. Just for the record, I work in a shop, not the bunker from Lost. I realise it was starting to sound more mysterious than it is.

She's definitely gay by the way, so I'm not even worried about looking like a pervert. Well, no more than usual anyway.

Too late now. I should have texted her on Sunday; "weather looks nice on Wednesday, would you fancy meeting up for a walk?". Piece of piss, but texting someone at nine o'clock at night is, probably, illegal, so now I'll just have to get moaned at tomorrow by my therapist.

>a good hobby that gets you out meeting people
*tut* City slickers, you don't know you're born.

>>33711
Ask her tomorrow. You sound like you don't actually need fundamental help in speaking to other humans, so presumably your therapist is trying to help you for another reason, and that reason might be that you keep talking yourself out of things for no reason. Suggest it tomorrow. Say you want to go walking, and ask her if she wants to go too. It's that simple. If she says no, then not only is that fine, but also you don't even have to go for the walk yourself if you don't want to.

>>33711

>She's definitely gay by the way, so I'm not even worried about looking like a pervert.

Absolutely nothing to lose then is there. See, lesbian mates are great, because you can sort of banter with them the same way you would with a lass you're into (which frankly I actually find easier than actually having normal male mates at this point) without having to even worry about the potential for misunderstanding or awkward feelings stuff.

Sounds like a win win to me, and if she says no, no harm no foul.

I was doing some tidying up and found the love letter a 19 year old wrote to me in January. I feel sick. I just fucking ignored it, which is probably the worst way to have handled it, but I don't know, it's all fucked.

>>33714

And how old are you? How did that come about? You seem to be quite viscerally disgusted by it, presumably because this 19 year old is much younger than you, but I don't see how you should feel at all responsible for it, unless you somehow led them on.

Ignoring it is certainly a valid way to approach it anyway, I can't blame you; it avoids any unpredictable drama that might ensue from their reaction to a rejection. But I would probably at least have sent a straightforward "sorry, I'm flattered, but I really can't reciprocate this, I wish you all the best", you know?

>>33715
I'm thirty. It's not that I feel responsible or disgusted, I just feel guilty for ignoring the whole thing. As a spritely younger millenial I still recall how horrible basically anything and everything can feel at 19, so I see what I've done as having spared myself at her expense.

>>33716

It's never too late. Just apologise and say you felt awkward about it. Best way to stop things like this tormenting you is to address them.

Took me fifteen years to learn that. Make a habit of it, and bit by bit, you can tackle the general daily anxiety and just end up non-anxiously bored instead.

How do autistic people socialise.
I keep getting comments that I'm talking in riddles. I keep becoming overwhelmed with social experiences to the point that I kick up a fuss with increasingly disinhibited behaviours. Much of this is happening online being that I've come to avoid live social interaction. It absolutely happens in person too, only that the consequences are much more distressing.

I don't understand why people don't like the way I communicate. I can understand to a degree why people dislike rudeness, even if's prefaced with 'don't mind me I'm just an arsehole' - I am learning this by doing, mind.

Yes, I can talk fairly loose like a bro but it's largely ingenuine.

I gotta stop calling myself a retard and I don't want people to begrudgingly accommodate my eccentricities. Quietly excusing behaviours is incinsere when the pretense is friendship - you're not my fucking friends, we're unfortunately using each other for social engagement. I don't know if that's true as I simply won't explore the services intended for people like me.

I don't want to go to autistic support groups who play D&D because it's framed so unusually as a 'safe space for autistic people'. I don't want my fucking condition (if it's even that?) defining my being.

I'm having a bit of a moment, this disjointed conversation isn't my every day experience.

>>33718
I am friends with a bunch of people from pub quizzes who all met through some friend-making website, and several of them are utter turbo-spergs. So if you try one of those websites, you might well find like-minded people in a relatively normal context.

If people say you're talking in riddles, you're probably thinking a bunch of thoughts really quickly and then telling a story that feels relevant to you, but to them is completely unrelated to whatever they just said. I do this too, so I don't have much advice to offer on this one.

>I kick up a fuss with increasingly disinhibited behaviours.
This isn't especially helpful, but: just try not to do that. I have a friend who occasionally causes massive drama out of nowhere, and apparently he has some compulsion to do so. He hasn't done it for a while, so I'm sure it's possible to fight the urges. When you want to go loud, go quiet instead. I honestly doubt anyone will even notice, assuming you're in a group.

>>33719
>When you want to go loud, go quiet instead. I honestly doubt anyone will even notice
Is it ever apropriate to 'reach out' to someone privately to talk about what you're feeling, or is that entering a realm of intimacy beyond what you should expect from mates? I could occasionally pick out a person to lean on and 'develop relations with' but would regularly convince myself not to because it's weird to force familiarity on someone.

>If people say you're talking in riddles, you're probably thinking a bunch of thoughts really quickly and then telling a story that feels relevant to you
This is exactly what it feels like I'm doing, in hindsight. Stringing those thoughts together is often a challenge, even when they clearly have relevance to one another from my perspective.
It's often that I'll start typing a new sentence before concluding the previous - this even happens in verbal conversation too, to the point of multiple strings occuring beside one another (sometimes even varying in tone, it's very interesting to experience).
I keep recalling that a part of autism is presuming people know the same as you. There's that classic test in kids where a person hides an object from one location to another, then the observing autistic kid can't comprehend that a third person doesn't know the new location. I never had that problem specifically but it definitely happens in the way I communicate.

I have calmed down an awful lot now.

>>33720
>Is it ever apropriate to 'reach out' to someone privately to talk about what you're feeling, or is that entering a realm of intimacy beyond what you should expect from mates?
You can talk to some friends about this, but not others. And I don't think there's any way of knowing in advance which ones you can talk to and which ones you can't. However, I don't think I've ever had anyone turn against me or abuse me for wanting to talk about feelings, even if they don't care at all about what I have to say. If you can just say a little bit at a time, you should really be okay in almost every situation.

The husband of the woman who ran the Save A Fox animal rescue (2.43M Youtube subs) just released a video saying she killed herself. Apparently other animal rescues were trolling her online, and due to her BPD and autism and depression she couldn't take it. She had saved hundreds of foxes from fur farms. It's pretty sad.

It really upset me, more than I would like. I think one reason is it's sad that the foxes don't have their friend anymore. Another reason is that I struggle with suicidal thoughts a lot and did attempt suicide about a decade ago, and the husband crying made me think how sad my loved ones would be if I killed myself, and I felt bad for being suicidal and potentially putting them through a bad time. Then I thought how would I cope if my wife died, I reckon I'd be pretty sad.

Fucking foxes having me pondering mortality.

>>33732

That's genuinely awful. Bullying is the worst impulse of the human psyche. I hope those people live with deep and painful regret for the rest of their lives.

Fur farms are disgusting too. It's one thing to farm and animal for food, it's quite another to farm it just because you want to rip off its skin and wear it as a fashion accessory. The worst part is even the rescues can't be properly released or allowed to breed, because they would introduce severe genetic defects into the wild population. Knowing that gives me a very existential kind of sadness.

Humans are terrible.

>>33732

I think it is entirely normal to be sad to learn that this happened, and I hope you are well on your way to circumstances that lessen your own suicidal thoughts.

I can't help but wonder about this, though:
>Apparently other animal rescues were trolling her online

Excuse me? One would think that animal rescues would at the very least be too busy rescuing animals to engage in this, if not actively supporting one another. Was there some controversy?

I suppose the specifics don't matter, unless it's parlayed into a more productive conversation about how cruel, thick, and plain old careless people can be.

>>33734
It's never "single story", I don't mean to trigger anyone. I obviously don't know the story of the bullying, but usually suicide is at least a 4-5 part explosive after teen years. Interacting parts, sadly.

So mental issues plus criticism (for profit or method) gives us plenty of powder to set of en episodes, and the trouble with determinded episodes is it takes only one.

>>33733
Some of the Reddit trolls behind the online hate are now being targeted by Save A Fox fans, telling them to kill themselves. The Sharty has doxxed a trans autistic furry who spread a lot of slander against Save A Fox. Seems fucked up to try get someone to commit suicide as a response to them contributing to a suicide. Violence breeds violence.

>>33734
Animal rescues seem to be full of people who think the people who don't do things the same way as them are scum. Many of the domesticated fur farm foxes were rehomed with private owners, and some rescues see this as the pet trade and therefore bad. Another thing is that she had an OnlyFans (non-nude), the proceeds of which she put towards the rescue, but she caught flak for that.

I don't know what a happy fox looks like, these seem quite happy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZa5eSBnQgM

>>33736

>doxxed a trans autistic furry who spread a lot of slander

Furlad here, didn't want to say anything but I would have bet money on it. The dark triad traits are never far around the corner with those lot.

I suspect that for many of them, they are narcissist powder kegs first and foremost, and the trans/autism/furry etc stuff comes second as a way to blend into a "tolerant" community which has no mechanisms for countering their malicious behaviour.

I'm going to cave some skulls in.

>>33778
Whose, and why?

>>33779
Anyone who gives me hassle. Why? You'll have to ask them.

>>33778

And yet there's a reason you are posting this in /emo/.

If you are anything like me your anger is a sign of being hurt or upset by something, and most people are too short sighted to see that. Even when they do see it, they are too judgemental to cross the line into genuinely understanding, and consequently you frequently feel as though your feelings are often treated as invalid just because you can't express it in the socially approved ways. Which is, in turn, an extra sprinkle of that bitter injustice that adds to your mounting frustration.

So go on, tell us what's got you wound up.

>>33738
>>33781

Lads for the last fucking time. Every single other board, you can be a smarmy dickhead on. From /pol/ top /nom/ to /poof/, knock yourselves out. I encourage it, in fact. But on this one, specifically this one, be an adult.

>>33782
People won't leave me alone. so I'll now make them leave me alone, or ruin their day the same way they're trying to ruin mine. If you want to shout at me or laugh at me for whatever it is you don't like about me, fine, but I will, from now on, be carrying a hammer in a rucksack and I will use on any cunt who takes the piss.

>consequently you frequently feel as though your feelings are often treated as invalid just because you can't express it in the socially approved ways
Not really, I actually want horrible things to happen to people who go out of their way to make my life worse for no reason.

>>33784

That sounds like a good way to end up in jail, and very little else, honestly mate.

I know how you feel, but the issue is, the time for telling people to fuck off and leave you alone with physical violence was between year 3 and year 11 of school, and if you didn't do it then you sort of missed the chance. I wish somebody would have taught me it was actually the right thing to do then, because it undeniably was and my life would almost certainly have turned out better if I gave a couple of cunts in particular a good smack in the gob when I was a teenager; but it won't do any good now.

Do the people in question actually go out of their way, as in, contact you out of nowhere, visit your home, or contact you via phone etc with no provocation to? Or do you mean like, these are people you are forced to interact with as a part of daily life, who you find yourself at odds with?

>>33786
I've got nothing going on.

I walk down the street, I get shit. Fucking builders and fucking cunts in vans and fucking cars, they just give me shit. Was it my black t-shirt and beige jeans I was wearing that upset some cunt in a BMW today? Is there some kind of Man Burqa I should be wearing so as not to upset other blokes? Doesn't matter, the next time one of them does it, if I have the opportunity, I'll hit them over the head with a hammer. Because let's be honest here, if I square up them, what do you think they'd do to me? Say sorry for hurting my feelings and let me go on my way? No, they'd kick the shit out of me. I know this is true because the last time I did stand up for myself, some cunt almost did attack me, but stopped because his very young kids were in his car and started screaming "daddy!" at him. But I won't give them the option of beating me up, because I'll just hit them. Go ahead, try to intimidate me, but I hope your bitch mother remembers how to spoon feed you.

>physical violence was between year 3 and year 11 of school
Wrong, I've got Polish ancestry, which can easily be spun out into Jewish ancestry, and you know what that means: a one way ticket to chaos and genocide in the Gaza Strip, baby. But that's not really my scene, I'd rather just get a bit Niko Bellic on some slab brained twat.

>>33787

As you mentioned you have calmed down today, I hope you don't mind continuing to elaborate. So, your angry response was "I'm going to start caving these cunt's skulls in", but how is it you normally react? Do you react? Do you give them the finger and shout fuck off? Do you do that "you wot cunt" shoulder shrug and neck craning thing? Do you just try to ignore them?

The other week I was driving towards some traffic lights. This bellend was sauntering across the road, in the middle of three lanes, so I slowed down to a near stop, and motioned for him to carry on. He hesitated so I motioned again. He was eyeing me up as I eventually moved past, so I leaned to the window slightly and pulled next to him, and made that sort of "what?" gesture. He said "The fuck are ya doing ya tit" (he had a Teesside accent). And I instantly went "Letting you across, you prick" (I have a Beeston accent). He turned left without another word.

I have thought about it a bit because it seems unlike me. The "old me" normally got quite anxious at the slightest confrontation, but I didn't feel a thing, it just happened without me even thinking about it, and it seemed to head this guy off from what was otherwise a confrontational situation. But I feel almost certain if I had just ignored it like in the past, he would have followed up and tried to carry on giving me grief.

I dunno, I don't want to make it about me. Just sharing an example of a similar thing. I think the way you react matters a lot. Not that you should always "rise to it", definitely not. But I think these sort of folk do probe for targets to harass.

Is it normal to be gripped by a panic in the middle of the night as you get older. One where your mind almost forces you to deal with the fact that you're getting older and nothing has really worked out as it should have? Do men in any situation feel this?

I try to address the facts without judgement; that I'm middle aged and single, that my career has long plateaued and I've achieved nothing of note, that I'm in a period now where my physical and mental health will only decline. Then I try to treat it with some compassion, that I'm still doing better than most people, I have savings and I can still run a fun meeting even if I never cured cancer. But it doesn't stop my unconscious mind of racing.

Maybe this is how midlife crises start and as we're all about the same age things will get weird on here.

>>33790
Personally I was laid awake at 1am thinking about, if the only two Beatrix Potter books to be translated to Welsh in the previous century were titled "Hanes Meistres Tigi-Dwt" and "Hanes Benda Bynni", what the other titles would have been as opposed to the contemporary translations, which are quite different. I think what you're describing is a stress response that can be had at any time of life, but realising that your best years are behind you might be a common trigger for stress.

>>33790

I don't wake up in the night panicking about things like this, but I do sometimes have very downer low mood days where I do think that way about myself. It'll usually be triggered by a hangover or being ghosted on a dating app or something like that, and it'll send me into a bit of a paranoid thought spiral.

I think it's important to recognise that often, you are just being hard on yourself. There are probably plenty of things you have achieved. You have plenty of things you are good at. Even just the fact you have your own home and support yourself as a single man, that's a barrier seemingly half my generation can't overcome and they still moan about constantly. I mean, I am not trying to downplay how fucked up the property market is, but by the same token if you succeed in having your own place despite that, that is in itself a sign you are doing something right. It shows that you, for lack of a better term, "have your shit together", in a way that a huge chunk of supposedly adult people just don't.

Personally I've been trying to big myself up, in my own head, lately. Without letting it get to arrogance, just reminding myself that actually, I have plenty to be proud of. I might not have a stellar career, but I have never wanted one, work is just work to me. I have, on the other hand, succeeded in many creative pursuits that most ordinary people have never even attempted to apply themselves to. I'm fucking good at music and art, like legitimately fucking good, I can confidently say. And I fucking well should be, after 15 years at it. When I show people (not that I often do) they go "wow, YOU made that? It's really good!" and I'm like yeah, yeah I fucking did. I told you I'm fucking good at it. You thought I was just bullshitting like every other dick who bought a guitar during lockdown, but no, I am a fucking musician.

You have to remind yourself of your good qualities and not be shy about them.

I'm so shit at everything and I hate myself and everyone forever. I wish someone had helped me become a proper person instead of just idly staring at me like my waste of flesh parents. I'm too old to blame my parents, but they definitely didn't help, also I'm pissed off so I don't care.

The funeral suit I ordered didn't fit, so I ordered a replacement jacket, only it was "next day", even though I paid for it. So now the replacement jacket is arriving the day of, and I don't have a jacket. j,mnlknm That's me punching my keyboard.

So now I have to go to this funeral dressed like a cunt. Seeing all these fucking family members that I have met in more than ten years looking like a fucking cunt. I don't know what kind of cunt I'll look like like yet, but it's certain to be some kind of useless, failure, cunt.

I was looking at this really neat job opportunity. It's the kind of bollocks I could actually get. But I'd have to move all the way to Surrey, and I'm looking at rentals and it would be more than half my income to live in a tiny flat. Whatever, I couldn't afford a deposit anyway.

I can't recall a single thing my therapist has said to me in the past six months. She's off soon anyway. It genuinely troubles me to think how much time and money the NHS has wasted on me.

>>33789
>Do you give them the finger and shout fuck off?
Yeah.
>Do you just try to ignore them?
Sometimes.

>>33793

It's going to be too warm to wear a jacket anyway mate. Don't worry about it. You'll be reyt.

>>33792
What do you make?

What do you think about this, britfa.gs?
It seems to me as though 'therapy' as a concept is reletively modern, whereas humans have been working out their mental knots for generations. For better or worse, that's where we're at now.
Could it be that people should just exist and not think about existing?
There's the whole idea in Buddism or Taoism that knowing is not knowing, coupling with rhetoric of intuition.
It could be a problem if a persons intuitive behaviour is offensive, but that's not really going to happen for me, is it? I don't feel a pull to risk.

I've had a satyr on my shoulder for a couple of weeks now and am starting to think that maybe doing the thing is therapy, to a degree. I feel better and more engagable with life, save for my current exhaustion. To think all I needed since puberty was a deep massage.

/emo/ because there's a shadow of doubt - I'm unsure if it's legit or the sting of 20 years of supressed cuiosity and playfulness.

>>33796

Specific types of psychotherapy are valid, evidence-based treatments for some psychological disorders, particularly mood disorders. Doing some vague kind of "therapy" if you don't have a diagnosable disorder and don't have a specific treatment goal is a bit like taking random pills out of your dead nan's medicine cabinet on the off chance that they'll do you some good.

Several clinical trials on interventions designed to prevent mental illness in the general population (e.g. teaching coping skills or mindfulness in schools) showed that those interventions actively caused harm and increased rates of mental illness. We don't know exactly why this is the case, but it's plausible that these interventions encourage people to see normal ups-and-downs as the symptoms of disease, or to worry excessively about completely normal thoughts or changes in mood.

Behavioural change is a core goal of all good psychotherapy, arguably the core goal - the point isn't to sit there navel-gazing until you feel better, but to provide you with the encouragement and support you need to make real changes in how you live your life. You don't fix anxiety or depression just by sitting there and thinking, you fix it by facing your fears or doing things that give your life meaning.

If you're stuck in a miserable rut and don't know how to get out of it, then psychotherapy genuinely could change your life. If you've got a plan for improving your life and that plan seems to be working, then psychotherapy probably won't help you and might hold you back. A lot of the most enthusiastic advocates for what we might call "therapy culture" - the kinds of people who believe that everyone should be in therapy all the time - are generally using that belief as a defence against change. Their belief that "therapy" is an essential way for them to "work on themselves" is just an excuse to legitimise their self-obsession and their unwillingness to do the real work of being a better person.

You know what it is? I didn't survive the pandemic. I was a casualty.

My body might be here, I might have lingered on in the sense that I wake up on a morning, go to work, get home, make dinner, pay my bills, and that responsible adult stuff. If I were to just tuck away some of the more unsightly, self destructive habits, and take the selfie from the right angle, it would appear I'm a model citizen, in fact.

But that's just not true. Ever since the lockdowns, there was some kind of schism. It was supposed to be this temporary break that things would bounce back from, but it wasn't. Ever since then, it's all been slowly falling apart, like in a cartoon- You when they are driving a car, and they are still chugging along while all the doors and side panels all fall off around them, until they are left just holding a wheel? That's the perfect visual metaphor for how my life's been going.

I've lost contact with all my mates, I had a bad break up that I never picked myself up from and I've just been stuck single ever since, I've stopped caring about most of the hobbies and goals that I had before because why do they matter any more. I've got nobody to share anything with, so why bother doing anything other than just sit there watching YouTube, and having the occasional episode of binge drinking/substance abuse to take the edge of when it starts to feel a bit too lonely. I just feel extremely apathetic. I'm not suicidal, but if you were to tell me I have a brain tumour and I would die in two years time, I might a feel like it was something of a relief.

Now it feels like it should be obvious the solution, there. Knock the drink and drugs on the head, join a club, start to be more social again. But that is a lot, lot, lot easier said than fucking done, isn't it.

>>33798
>if you were to tell me I have a brain tumour and I would die in two years time, I might a feel like it was something of a relief.
I've been feeling something like that regarding health concerns, to be honest. Cancer of the arse or intestine, blacking out occasionally, etc. It's probably a fantasy that suddenly I'll have some energising secret in enjoying life, then go out quitely having inspired my family or some shit.

>join a club, start to be more social again. But that is a lot, lot, lot easier said than fucking done, isn't it.
I absolutely agree that it's easier said than done. There's a degree of me that simply doesn't want to 'join a social group' even when I feel socially desperate.

What has been interesting is that I've found an organisation that I probably want to volunteer with as it's relevant to an unexplored interest. With this group I could learn something more than just how to be around fellow losers.

I've also started to see charitable and social groups (like Men In Sheds) as a resource rather than a social group. I don't have space for many tools, they do. If I donate what I got they'll probably let me persue a project at their place, employ their skills and labour, help me source materials, etc. Sounds cynical maybe but it's mutually beneficial.

It's taking me a while to realise what 'join a social club' means - it's general, abstract, and must be applied to your lifestyle and interests.

>>33798
>Now it feels like it should be obvious the solution, there. Knock the drink and drugs on the head, join a club, start to be more social again. But that is a lot, lot, lot easier said than fucking done, isn't it.

Yeah pretty much. I'd start small with the low-hanging fruit that brings you joy and that in turn will help energise you and bring momentum to then tackle the bigger stuff.

I'm not talking about small like 'just go up and talk to her mate' I'm saying get a houseplant, go for a walk everyday, try reading a book instead of going on Youtube. If you're really struggling then changing your bedding and getting some new clothes might at least start to pull you out of the death spiral.

>>33799
I can report with that dick cancer scare I had a few years back that it doesn't magically change everything in your life. When I walked back from the doctors I wasn't skipping with joy and hearing the birdsong, my mind was racing about how I can build up a nest egg for my nephews because the thing about dying is that yeah, nothing matters but also yeah, nothing matters gg. Then as I waited for weeks because it's the NHS I gradually just forgot about it.

My mum had a different reaction when she had cancer of wanting to leave my dad because she found him boring but I think that was her being vulnerable with my auntie whispering in her ear and my dad trying to keep their finances under control but either way she wasn't having a great time either and that's without getting into her physical issues.

By the way your job or anything else doesn't give the slightest fuck when it comes down to it. Don't be under the illusion that you're anything by a cog in the machine and the moment you slip up the system takes a look at the defective part. Our value is what people can get out of us.

>>33799
>I've also started to see charitable and social groups (like Men In Sheds) as a resource rather than a social group. I don't have space for many tools, they do. If I donate what I got they'll probably let me persue a project at their place, employ their skills and labour, help me source materials, etc. Sounds cynical maybe but it's mutually beneficial.

Not cynical at all. You're talking about sharing resources for everyone's benefit. There's a difference between treating a relationship as entirely transactional and instigating a relationship by offering something - thinking about it, that might be a big hole in the rhetoric of dating and romance, too.

How do you deal with The Algorithm feeding you stuff you're not ready or willing to digest? I'm afraid to use it lest it show me somthing about myself I can't confront. Like Dorian Gray at his portrait or summat.

I recognise I'm being vague but the actual content of my concern isn't directly the issue, just irrelevant (It's probably not, right, but what).

>>33802

"The Algorithm" will serve me all sorts of bullshit I'm not interested in just because there happened to be a keyword on a page I clicked on once to see what it was before immediately closing it. If I accidentally click on an article about Labubu and it starts trying to direct me to a dozen Labubu forums and shops I'm not schizophrenic enough to interpret that as having some deeper meaning about my subconscious. It's just pareidolia, you're reading too much into it.

>>33804
I don't know, Amazons "Other people also looked at this" can be accurate, though my sample size is small.
If you keep the algorithm focused, ie minimal mistakes and misclicks, it would surely describe a character.

I find my youtube feed hideous. My youtube feed apparently believes my optimal watching habits are people who I turn off after 5 minuites because I realise they are wasting my time by making vague promises they are going to teach me something new that they padding the shit out of that i conclude if they had somethingto say they would have already told me. Its like a short form non fiction version of a thousand JJ Abrams. I guess I cannot blame the algorithm as these videos seem to some times to have millions of views despite being rubbish, so it's the fault of other people's non decerning nature that I am bombarded with aimless rants that purposefully delay delivering on their premise.

>>33805

Because I looked at a vacuum cleaner on amazon before buying one elsewhere it doesn't follow that I want to see vacuum cleaners for the next month but that's what the incomplete marketing data concludes.

Obviously there is associative information that can be inferred about a person some of it over presumptive some of it more general, it doesn't necessarily follow that I am a house proud middle-aged women who will buy anything associative with cleaning, but it would probably follow quite reasonably that I am both not a small child or homeless. I suspect the nature of the algorithms are that it is far too enthusiastic to assume the former rather than the latter because deranged housewives engage with it more than I do, and therefore give it positive feedback that those are the ways it should behave.

>"Other people also looked at this" can be accurate

Is it accurate or is it that you ignored the 1000 suggestions that were barely connected, and remember the time that it did the equivelent of when you bought a lamp it suggested a bulb.

>>33807

I've said this before, but you are in fact astonishingly likely to buy a vacuum cleaner immediately after buying a vacuum cleaner. About 17% of everything that gets bought online is returned for a refund within 14 days. Most people who return something will end up buying something similar shortly afterwards - they probably didn't change their mind about needing a new hoover, they just didn't like the first one they chose. Showing you adverts for a thing you've just bought seems completely stupid on the face of it, but it actually has an insanely high return on investment.

Likewise, a recommendations algorithm that keeps suggesting things that you hate but watch anyway is working exactly as intended; an algorithm that flatters you but delivers lower total watch time is a failure.

>>33805
Not in any particular detail. It's just trying to sell you things you might be tempted to buy, given that other people have bought the same things. It is not a psychic able to see into your soul.
Go on a clicking spree of random shit if you're worried. Build a gift list as though you're pregnant, then one as though you're about to go on a Vietnamese holiday. Throw stuff into the mix.