Re: rings

fergus <ferguscapewrath@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Some people have described their situation as being surrounded by a
ring of people attacking them and with no way out. Not a good
scenario.

At the moment my situation feels like being surrounded by a ring of
backsides. Everyone is facing away from me, being supportive to each
other and I have no way to turn. All I get is the fallout. And they
don't even notice.

People keep saying that "everyone needs other people". What I say is
"great, but how does it happen?".

I must be doing something wrong but I've no idea what it is.

Maybe don't _do_ anything. I think it's very hard for me
to take my own advice never mind anyone else, but without
wishing to sound full of *** I think the trick is more 'to
be' than 'to do'.

It seems like people get into these downward spirals where
the more they want a specific kind of social success, the
worse they become at getting it. Imagine some insecure poseur
guy that shows off all the time trying to impress, and everyone
thinks he's a prat, which makes him more insecure.

Myself I feel I was never unpopular with males at school, and
maybe consequently, popularity with males is not something I
care about, which maybe gives me confidence and stuff, sorta
an upward spiral. With attractive girls the opposite is the
case, my self esteem is currently strongly linked with how
much they seem to value me, which maybe stops me having any
kind of success in that aspect. The person I currently _am_
at the moment is a guy that isn't generally unpopular, but I'm
just not at this point in my life any kind of person that
attractive girls flock round like groupies. Believe it or not
I get suicidal about that, rather than feeling good about myself
for the positive aspects about the person I am. When depressed
I just feel the only stuff I'm really good at is geek stuff,
and thats a _negative_ not a positive when it comes to other
people - basically I'm completely worthless in other people's
eyes.

I think I can relate what your saying about your life to my
problem in life, I dunno whether you can relate to what I'm
saying in this post to yours.

My perceptions of you as a person aren't that bad Fergus, you're
not unlikeable or anything. You seem a reasonable guy, there
are people I dislike, or that I have contempt for etc, you're
not one of them. You've also acheived stuff. If someone asked
me to think of the coolest guy in the world, you wouldnt be that
person, but that doesn't mean you suck particularly (everyone
sucks).

Some psychologists talk about unconditional self esteem as being
the holy grail of human hapiness or something. They suggest
people with unconditional self esteem are liked/successfull/
popular socially etc. I not 100.0000% confident thats true, but
it's worth bearing in mind.

Another thing I think is that we think too much. I do not learn
to ice skate by thinking about it, it's not the intellectual
part of the brain that ice skates, it's the other side. I think
social relationships are maybe similar. With ice skating I've
learnt the more I can keep my thinking brain out of it, the better.

Nothing I'm sayin is of course any quick fix for the problems we
have, though.

-Arny

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