This is sort of long.

Physically I consider myself somewhat attractive. This is not my problem. My problem is my personality. Initially I am very shy and try to stay away from people, but as I get to know them I open up more. I feel this is my downfall in relationships.

I live a sort of double life. There is the me that a lot of people know, and then there is the me that the closer group knows. I use drugs and alcohol frequently, and am very opinionated about things. The inner group knows this and are my friends because of this. The outer group gradually realizes that I run around doing seriously crazy shit and being an asshole, and it turns them off.

I will not say that I outright lie, but I often mislead the outer group of peole into thinking I am not as 'bad' as I am. I am not out to impress people, I do not make up bullshit stories, but I do change the facts, only to make me seem less of a junkie/hippie.

Aside from my habits and asshole/meanness towards others, I am a nice responsible person. I treat most people with respect, and am very polite. Behind their backs I may rip them apart with my friends, but what they don't know shouldn't hurt them.

So how do I develop a more attractive personality? Personality is important to me, but how important is it to you? I think if people would accept me for who I was then there would be no problems. On the other hand, all the problems could be in my head. I think I have that condition called social anxiety disorder. People I am unfamiliar with scare me.

How do I become more confident with people. How does that work. How do I tell someone that I really like them, or that I fucking hate them?

An example of what I am talking about is blowing off a 'friend' from the outer group friday night because I dropped acid for the first time. Last night I got drunk and stoned and didn't answer my phone, becuase people just don't understand. Right now I'm drunk, and I'll be smoking weed later. I can not tell everyone about my habits, because they will try to distance themselves from me. But if I don't tell them then I feel like they do not know me.

Advice?

EDIT: Also, in regards to my being a druggie, I am not just some dumb stoner. I am quite intelligible, have a lot of knowledge about computers, maintain a 3.0 (first semester of college), and have had my job for almost a year.

[This message has been edited by graphite (edited 12-18-2006).]

Meh. I keep a lot of things hidden from people. But then again, I'm fucked in the head, so I dont't know how much you want to lsiten to me.

Nothing we can say will fix your self confidence. The ball's in your court for that.

quote:Originally posted by Sentinel:

Nothing we can say will fix your self confidence. The ball's in your court for that.

Goddammit.

quote:Originally posted by graphite:

So how do I develop a more attractive personality?

Do you want the easy answer, or the hard answer?

Well either way, the easy answer is to lie to yourself. Tell yourself that nothing matters. Make yourself truly believe that you're that personality that you want to be.

After enough time, you will become what you've lied and tried to be without thinking about it. It'll also, if you try and change yourself too often this way, make you have mental unstablity, bouts of personality fracture/multiplication, and sometimes even episodes of insanity.

You have been warned.

The harder way is to slowly figure out who YOU are, and who YOU will be. Don't change yourself beyond what you are, and learn to accept and love yourself.

quote:Originally posted by Gus:

The harder way is to slowly figure out who YOU are, and who YOU will be. Don't change yourself beyond what you are, and learn to accept and love yourself.

While I agree for the most part, I don't buy that we are born a certain person and that through the process of adolescence we "find out who we are". You don't need to find out who you are; you need to make yourself who you want to be.

-F☺rd

quote:Originally posted by graphite:

This is sort of long.

Physically I consider myself somewhat attractive. This is not my problem. My problem is my personality. Initially I am very shy and try to stay away from people, but as I get to know them I open up more. I feel this is my downfall in relationships.

I live a sort of double life. There is the me that a lot of people know, and then there is the me that the closer group knows. I use drugs and alcohol frequently, and am very opinionated about things. The inner group knows this and are my friends because of this. The outer group gradually realizes that I run around doing seriously crazy shit and being an asshole, and it turns them off.

I will not say that I outright lie, but I often mislead the outer group of peole into thinking I am not as 'bad' as I am. I am not out to impress people, I do not make up bullshit stories, but I do change the facts, only to make me seem less of a junkie/hippie.

Aside from my habits and asshole/meanness towards others, I am a nice responsible person. I treat most people with respect, and am very polite. Behind their backs I may rip them apart with my friends, but what they don't know shouldn't hurt them.

This is rather interesting, as I have a very close situation to you. I mean that in the sense that I can relate very strongly to the majority of things you are saying here. My core group of friends is just that - friends and they are there because of the person I am, yet "normal" people often don't find these same qualities interesting or even desirable in a person.

My suggestion, which isn't what you're looking for, would be to say "fuck them" and continue to wait until you discover a female with interests/personality traits similar to yours. Otherwise, what you retrieve may only be photorealistic and not physically real. In other words, temporary appreciation with long-term depreciation.

I've got a terrible problem with fear I just can't shake.

When you're raised in Kentucky, you tend to either absoulutely not give a damn or give a damn about how you walk, talk, and act. You're scared to do anything, always watching your back.

It's funny how I can talk about it and I can act somewhat normal but there's always that hesitant nagging about everything I do. I drastically need to open up. I usually tend to blow what others think off but the feeling is still there, repressed.

Gah, what to do.

It's possible to change the way you behave.

Try using "scripts". Daily, take situations that you experienced throughout the day and rewrite them according to a more desired outcome. The more you do it and work with similar situations, the more you train your mind how to respond to get better results.

Try it, and get back with me/us. I'd like to see how it works for you.

Btw, just keep in mind that you are entitled so a certain amount of privacy in your life. Your problem seems to be guilt-related/shame-related to me. I could be wrong...

[This message has been edited by oc6 (edited 12-18-2006).]