And if you DO care, why do you think that's a bad thing?

If you cant handle me at my worst than you dont deserve me at my best

If you cant handle me at my worst than you dont deserve me at my best

relatable posts for teens, #735

it's a bad thing because social manifestations of GAD cripple my ability to handle a lot of situations on an emotionally stable level

That's unfortunate. I find that the opposite is true for my own anxiety. Caring about what others think enables me to tap into my social potential and act on it. If I didn't care, I would be spaghetti personified, because I do pretty much everything that I do for the sake of other people. Much of the anxiety comes from not living up to my own or others' expectations.

I'd imagine most people actually do care what others think. Even if some random user I've never interacted with insulted me, and it's not obviously a troll, I'd wonder what I said triggered that.

I have more important things to do than care about people who don't care about me.

I do care. If employers don't think of me positively I'll never get hired.



Or maybe I'll never be hired anyway.

Yes and no. Loved ones, the people I work for and clients? Very much so. Neighbors and people I associate with? A little. Strangers, and most people on line? Not at all

pretty much this.

Quote from: MyNameIsCharlie on June 28, 2017, 04:38:07 PM

Yes and no. Loved ones, the people I work for and clients? Very much so. Neighbors and people I associate with? A little. Strangers, and most people on line? Not at all

Always seemed like a pointless double standard to me.

Why is it a double standard? Strangers won't think twice about you, the others Charlie listed are people that will

i care a lot about how i present myself and what people think of me actually, unless i've concluded the person or people im presenting to are trash

Quote from: MyNameIsCharlie on June 28, 2017, 04:38:07 PM

Yes and no. Loved ones, the people I work for and clients? Very much so. Neighbors and people I associate with? A little. Strangers, and most people on line? Not at all

Always seemed like a pointless double standard to me.

Pointless to you. I only have so much to give. I spend what I have on those who mean the most to me. I don't go out of my way to be a dick, but I don't stop to think how someone else feels about me either.

I give to much of a shit.  Some user here find it funny to wind me up

I don't care at all what people think of me online, because I know it has no consequence whatsoever, and online interaction isn't real interaction. So it doesn't really matter what I say, I like to use speaking on the internet as a means of amusement, sometimes. Sometimes I post serious stuff, but I mostly do that on my blog. If you look at a forum like sep7agon, there's not really anything that provokes in depth thoughts, most of the threads on the front page are, frankly, garbage.

Offline, however, it's a different story. I absolutely loathe being around people outside of the internet. I always feel like I'm going to say something stupid, or do something awkward or whatever. For that reason I often feel really stiff. Like, today at art class, I felt so much tension just being around other people. It's because I don't feel like I can truly relax when I'm around others, I don't feel like I can just be spontaneous and just say whatever I want. It's too easy to say or do something which is awkward.

Sure, you could say that it's simply uncomfortable to be around others when the interaction feels awkward. I'm not sure where the root of this feeling lies though. Perhaps I can offer no better explanation than that human beings are a tribal animal by nature. It seems like no matter how much I try to intellectualize it in my brain, whenever I'm around other people it still goes back to that basic instinct of anxiety. I can try to tell myself that life itself is absurd, and the meaning we place on everything is absurd. It makes no difference in the shadow of human nature.

I suppose when you look parallel between my online and offline interaction it makes a lot of sense. Online, I say whatever I want, without any fear of the consequences (although I do usually avoid talking about literally killing people, or saying stuff like how I would love to kill donald trump, or how I think republicans in general should be killed; because then you actually run the risk of someone trying to be an asshole and actually calling the cops on you) because I guess it's like an escape from the pressure and paranoia of offline interaction for me.