Omg my parents and my maternal grandma was like: (about my older brother’s marriage thing) “You have to see out more options (in the same timeframe) in case your first match fails” or something…
Marriage is like College to them, and their “searching for ‘candidates for marriage’” is like looking at colleges (or perhaps a college processing applications), looking at the person’s profiles, education level, wealth, looks, intelligence, occupation, etc…
So weird to be in the sphere of all this lol…
They be so busy mom doesn’t even really wanna talk to me…
(What the hell is life? Is this what being a human is? Be born, cant do anything for 6 years, then go through 8 hours of school every day till 18, then college, then work, marriage, taxes, children, then onto the graveyard. Yayyy.
Pls get me out of this simulation, I’m so bored and tired… 😩
Sorry I got another existential crisis…)
As someone who was exceptionally shy growing up, what helped me was acknowledging that I really would rather not try to meet new people or join some social setting because it would induce an anxiety response, jitters and all, but, then forcing myself to do it anyway.
It was very uncomfortable, just as I knew it would be, but slowly, as I forced myself to keep doing it; the jitters weren’t as bad, I didn’t have to take so many deep breaths before getting involved to calm myself, and I started joining into conversations more, cracking jokes, and feeling more relaxed as I began to realize that people didn’t seem to mind it if I made mistakes or stumbled over my words from nervousness, and didn’t look at me weird for being a bit silly (though this depends on the group you find, I fell in with some pretty odd/silly folk, so my own sillyness didn’t stick out too much).
It’s essentially exposure therapy, and it took me a while, but eventually I was able to build up some confidence in my ability to talk to others, and realized most other people are just winging things too. I think what helped me the most was really internalizing the idea that it’s genuinely okay to embarrass yourself, and that it can even be a great well of humor to draw from, which for me removed the fear of it potentially happening. That let me me more present and relaxed, which in turn made being social begin to feel fun, instead of a stressful thing I had to force myself to do.
I think a DnD group in particular is a good place to start, since that tends to attract oddballs that let you be silly, and weirdly it can be easier to be social if you act out a more confident character, which can almost trick your brain into not being so nervous, or at least it did for me :p
If there isn’t a DnD group you can reach locally, an online group would be good too, there’s a number of discord ones, including west-marches styles that can make scheduling sessions easier.
Sorry if this comes off as someone throwing unrequested advice at you, just thought I’d share some tips from one shy dude to another :)