L.C.B.O.T.S

having fulfilling relationships is never about 'convincing' someone to make time for you. it is about finding the people who will treat you in the ways that you want and need freely, because they already want to.

i wrote this post at age 37. i was in shitty relationships every year up until now. i tolerated a lot of mistreatment thinking that if i were only more patient, more giving, more understanding, more lovable then finally the people who treated me badly would decide to treat me well. instead what i had to do was actively find, pursue, and love on the people who actually wanna love on me and find it easy to do so.

Yeah, I also spent the first 30 years of my life socially isolated, convinced that I was intrinsically unloveable and unfuckable.

Got into my first serious relationship aged 31, with a wonderful woman who's still one of my closest friends, broke up at 34 and felt like my One Single Solitary Shot At Happiness had failed and I was gonna be alone again forever.

Decided fuck that shit, started putting myself out there more, actively asking people to do things with me and spend time with me. Got a bunch of amazing friends, had two threesomes and an orgy, and just this year I met the most wonderful woman in the world at a trans social and now I'm in a committed relationship with someone who's so clever and funny and beautiful and insanely good in bed that I can scarcely believe it.

For my 37th birthday, I spent a week with her, had the best sex of my life, and hosted a party where I got to spend an evening with a half-dozen people who are all so incredibly cool and witty and gorgeous that a part of me still feels confused they're hanging out with me.

a lot of people are giving examples in the notes of things they just find annoying like not using headphones in public, but OP is talking about actual literal scripts of things to say in awkward situations

if you have a date or two with someone and you don't see a relationship developing? most millennials / gen Zers just end up ghosting. but a social script that might have been taught and rehearsed in the past could be:

"I really appreciated getting dinner with you the other night and I enjoyed your company, but I'm afraid I didn't feel a spark. I wish you the best, and hope you find that special someone!"

Remember things about your friends! Ask people about their weekends, hobbies, holidays, studies, and jobs! Listen for the concerns people have and what they are working on! Draw connections between one person and another to get the ball rolling. "Oh, Maura, you just got your first cat! You should talk to Felix, he used to work at a rescue. Felix, please tell Maura all the new-cat-guardian pointers."

"Bill, Sheila, Xan, this is my friend Kale. Kale is really into Star Trek, Bill you and them should talk about it!"

If you're looking for a manual on these sorts of things; social etiquette, social scripts, how to handle difficult and/or awkward social situations, etc. then I highly recommend picking up any book by Miss Manners. Her books really are the gold standard for learning the types of skills this post is talking about. I should also mention that Miss Manners is witty and hilarious so her books are also fun to read.

The best book by Miss Manners to get started with would be Miss Manner's Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior. This one is probably the best starting point because it gives the best overview of all the basics.

Sorry @darlingdear but I couldn't let this stay in the tags.

I say this as someone who is neurodivergent had grew up very socially awkward, but recently I find the "screw small talk, I wanna get to know the REAL you" attitude to be pretentious as well as a demonstration of a lack of boundaries.

But also, I think a lot of people who have this attitude don't actually really know what does qualify as small talk. The definition of small talk is any topic that's of no real consequence and includes topics like food, pets, sports, music, whatever show you're currently streaming, whatever book you're currently reading, and yes, the weather. A lot of people who have this "I hate small talk / I don't do small talk" attitude probably think it's only reciting a bunch of secret scripts about the weather, and don't realize how much they engage in small talk whenever they talk about their pets or their favorite foods or the really cool show they're watching right now.

Small talk is a way of sounding out a person’s attitudes. It’s about finding out if they’re a rabid asshole or someone you want to spend more time with.

I had a professor who got angry at a group of (mostly women), from five countries, all of whom met yesterday, for talking about daytime TV. He basically insulted us and called us shallow.

A rare attempt at character design completed. A beast in the form of a bronze lion who tempts alchemists with the offer of secret knowledge, but mostly flexes his status as a "powerful demon" so he can mooch off of them. A capricious and lazy creature with a heart of gold--perhaps literally?

筋肉格差イメージ

[ID: photos of seven linoleum prints, all depicting animals in shield shapes printed in black ink. Animals are a squid, fish, panther, wolf, snake, moth, and songbird. end.]

Exercise. Writing. Drawing. Gardening. Anything that requires your physical effort is going to require discomfort in one way or another and you have to find a way to enjoy that discomfort, otherwise the best thing for you, and I’m gonna hold you hand when I say this, is to just give up.

Any creative can tell you that they’ve thought about quitting more often than not, but when you make it through that discomfort, when you work hard to figure out what you’re doing wrong/what you don’t know how to do, you start to anticipate discomfort because it you KNOW represents an opportunity to level up. It’s exciting to have a hard time with something, because it means you’re going to get really, really good at it as long as you persevere.

so what the fuck?? why are people trying to make them feel bad? this is supposed to be the part of making art where everyone loves you!