I'm in my early 20s and don't have many hobbies that make me interesting...

It doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment to me. Thinking about it, it doesn't feel like I would find it satisfying. How could I meet people hiking alone?

It's not that I enjoy solitude, it's that I don't have a choice. I have to be alone because I don't have many friends. It's a Saturday night at 9:30 PM here in Australia and I'm by myself at home because my friends are busy doing other things so I don't have any options.

(sound of an overweight girl fucked in the background

new and politics are the worst things to have hobbies in because though important they cause heated arguments.
Play softball or some adult sport on your free time.

As I said, I don't like sports and I never have. I've tried to think of interpersonal activities that I would enjoy but I come up empty every time.

Hiking is a popular hobby. You meet people on the loneliest of trails.
And most people are overly pleasant because you’re all out there to survive. But anyways, you have a serious issue. You’re a bummer. That negative attitude and mood of how everything is a drag is a killer. I don’t know what advice you need, but consider therapy. By all accounts you should have everything going for you, but you’re a mopey cunt. Something is really wrong, get help.

I've tried therapy several times in different clinics with different people. None of it ever helped me, so I consider that to be a lost cause.

I really don't know what help I could get either. That's why I'm posting here. I've got no idea what else I can do.

Back to therapy. And try to get inspired. You said you like painting and piano, but you must be shit at it because you have no inspiration. You aren’t here for ideas, you’re here to prove to everyone how your the special snowflake that can’t be helped. Get over yourself, you sound like a teenager.

Therapy is not on the table. I don't trust psychologists, their field is a joke and I've seen that they can't help me. It's just not an option.

As I said, I'm shit because I don't practice and I don't practice because practicing makes me feel frustrated.

I am genuinely here because I want help. If I wanted to feel like a special snowflake I'd post on Tumblr or some bullshit.

Oh so you want the magical help that is perfect and require no work on your part, and does not go against your ideas of therapy. Okay so this thread is done. Good luck.

took over 8 therapists for me and turns out they all helped in different ways.

I'm not saying that I'm not willing to put in any effort, but I am saying that I'm unwilling to try for the 5th or 6th time something which I don't trust and have personally found to be unhelpful.

I can assure you that none of the ones I have seen before have helped me even slightly. The fact that I'm much better now than I used to be is due to nothing other than my own mental effort and trying to improve myself.

You mentioned playing the piano, which extends to playing instruments in general. Join a band then?

No, I can't actually play the piano; I have tried to learn but without very much success. As I said, I have difficulty practicing things because I find it frustrating.

Why do you find it frustrating? Are there no songs which you'd like to play? Or you don't feel any urge to make songs of your own?

did any of what the therapist say have anything to do with it? Therapists arent there to give you the answer they are there to help you figure it out. If you left and figured it out then it's possible they did something to help.

I'm not a very creative person, so I could never write music of my own. The process of learning to play a song is agonisingly slow and tedious, and I find it difficult to get the motivation to sit down at the piano day after day and feel frustrated. Eventually I just get sick of it and fall out of the habit.

Not at all, no. I can scarcely remember any of the things they said. All I remember is going there a lot and not feeling like I got a lot out of it. The most recent one gave me some medication which I didn't find helpful, so I stopped taking it. I also don't really consider the field of psychology to have a lot of merit to it; meta-analyses have shown that as much as 50% of their papers can't be replicated, making their findings worthless. It's also extremely expensive. [spoiler][/spoiler]

oh you didnt go to a therapist you went to a psychiatrist. Therapist have counsel sessions and dont prescribe medication.

I've been to both. I went to a psychiatrist this time because regular therapy wasn't helping so I figured I'd try medication. That didn't work either, so now I'm fairly confident that the whole thing doesn't work for me.

ok, at least you got yourself fixed. My medication changed my life for the better but still I struggle with the depression and need therapy.

I didn't though, that's what I'm saying. None of this psychology stuff works for me. I'm over trying and I'm over people suggesting it to me.

Why do you want to learn the piano exactly? Is it just to have something to do, or is there a deeper motivation?

I think people get caught up too much in appearing normal, which of course, includes a fairly active social life.

Do you think you want this social life as a good in itself, or is it really about your self-esteem, i.e. not thinking of yourself as a loser?

When you're alone, what exactly is stopping you from being happy in that moment?

>When you're alone, what exactly is stopping you from being happy in that moment?
Not OP but I can relate to him in some ways... for me, it's the lack of having somebody to share the wonder of what I'm experiencing with. It's complicated to describe the whole thing in just a few words though... when I'm alone listening to some really majestic obscure music album for example, first I wonder why isn't there more stuff like this, then I realize that it's because it has so little exposure and thus can't influence anyone on the account of sheer logistics alone. Thus I get this desire to share it with somebody, but it's a kind of music that's unaccessible and strange for a layman, so at the same time I'm apprehensive to do so. This is a pretty selfish motivation in itself, though deep inside I also want to make somebody else happy with it and wish to find somebody who would connect with it as much as I do so we can each discuss it and express how it makes us feel and well, connect around it... but finding the right mindset person is very difficult and going by trial-and-error is next to impossible because of how obnoxious you'd end up being that way and the inevitable social backlash that'd ostracize you for it. I used music to illustrate the case, but I feel in a similar way about a lot of other things. Thus I want to find the """right""" people to socialize with, rather than socialize for the sake of socializing... the latter is just my clumsy inexperienced way of trying to do that, since I don't feel like I know of a better approach.

I rhough you said you got over it by I thought you got better, did you ever talk about this stuff to therapists? One of the major reasons people stop going is because either the therapist asks you to try something you dont want to or so the patient isnt talking enough.

Do you think wanting to share this music with other people is enough to prevent you from being happy?

That's a bunch of bullshit dude. My therapist sent me to a psych ward when things werent working. Therapy itself is a joke I found more help watching an old man on youtube talk about his life and existence than therapy. In the worst case therapy is actually abusive to mentally ill people. And psychiatry is really bad. Some therapists mean well but the system is too fucked for them to be successful.

OP just let go od judgement and try joining a community. I joined a dog shelter and met some people but I am busy applying for jobs so I haven't been there as much but you have to just go out and talk to people and try to let go of judgement. Jow Forums is kind of shit because it is apologetic to the abusive traits of society so it is always YOUR fault for anything you do. In reality most of the hardest things in life aren't really your own fault. But you can still do something yourself and put in effort.

>How can I make more friends and be more social?
Are there any options in your firm with your co-workers? running-club or something?

You can exercise with others maybe. what do you exercise?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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There's more to it than that, but it involves a personal blog. I was supremely happy in my previous (and only) relationship that I've had, even despite the sacrifices that I had to make for it and the fact that our music tastes were completely different. It wasn't perfect, but I'd have been content with it lasting until death do us part if we settled on a few ultimately insignificant compromises.

But after three years she branch-swung on me, because I was in her words, "childish and clingy" and "we let the spark die between us", and it left me in turmoil. Then a cold war began between me and my parents (who behaved shittily towards her and I'm sure were part of the reason for the breakup). Now I feel powerless, that everything I want is beyond my strength to achieve despite any will that I might exert, and this feeling of being a permanent cuck to my desires I find to be extremely embarrassing and emasculating... which eventually led to my desire dulling down into an almost anhedonic state. At this point, I can barely recognize what I truly want anymore. I've been shipwrecked on this figurative island for so long that I don't recognize what my old life is back and can't judge whether I want to go back beyond a faint memory that "I felt the happiness which I don't now".

So the ultimate answer to your question is, you tell me. I don't really recognize what prevents me from being happy anymore. I've lost the plot. I don't feel the drive to approach things with enthusiasm and need to push and kick myself into every single activity just to do something. I've visited a psychiatrist who counseled me for a few months for depression and then discharged me that "I'm fine now".

Maybe you don't need to do any of those things you think you should do to be happy, is what I'm trying to get at.

I don't think it's something I *must* do to be happy, as a prerequisite. But it's something that *could* lead me there. I'm not happy and I don't have a clear direction, let alone a path to venture to go there. I feel like I need to move (both in life and literally), but my body tells me no. The reason to move for me is because my mind has dreams that are unfulfilled, and will stay so otherwise. The people around me appear so fluent and effortless in doing this, for me it's a neverending tug of war with my own procrastinatory attitude to do anything, including not only waking up on time and not missing doctor's appointments, but also activities that I actually enjoy doing such as music-related things. And thus I compare myself unfavorably to those people, and seek the need to emulate their behavior to get to their level.

Ultimately I think my prerequisite to be happy is to find a soulmate, somebody who can embrace me and my weird mannerisms, which preferably could but wouldn't necessarily have to be my future gf. Somebody that I can text with every night and talk this utterly insignificant internal monologue ping pong with, somebody who I can narrate my life and my ponderings to and they'll do the same back in exchange. I put on a mask when I talk to people, I've become adept at it, but for me it's suffering - it's stressful and tiring. I've been lonely up there inside my head for so long...

To illustrate a scenario from my life. My family got a dog, implied to be mine. I remember the sadness which it expressed when it was a puppy first detached from its mother. When the dog grew up, I found the idea of reuniting it with its mother wholesome (I know where those people live so it was a realistic goal) and something I wanted to do. But it required going there by car, and I couldn't drive, and my parents would never approve of such a stupid childish thing. So every weekend I pondered and postponed the thought, over and over, afraid to ask anyone for help... until the dog's mother died of old age. I've even managed to go there on foot once, but they weren't home that day. I still kick myself over this, although I know myself well enough that there was no way I could internally force myself to do it.

Do animals have enough memory span or something to recognize their own progeny after so many years?

Since we know basically nothing about how animals literally feel about their offspring, I don't know if the mother does, but the puppy could - it remembers habits that it's been taught at 6 months age by one-off traumatizing experiences, so considering how strong the parent-pup bond can be even in dogs, there's basis to it. But no matter whether effective or not, I could have given it a shot. But I didn't, except for one feeble attempt - and that's the part that truly gets me, that I've lost control over my own emotional drive and there are now others that have (at least potentially) suffered because of it. I'm literally feeling a lump in my throat as I write this.

bump

Not either of the above posters, but I'm just gunna go ahead and jump in here to say that therapy played a big part in helping me to manage my insecurities. There's definitely therapists out there who aren't reliable practitioners in their field, but you're doing yourself a disservice to broadly dismiss the industry as a whole.

Seeking a licensed therapist isn't always necessary for self-improvement, but it's a hell of a lot more reliable than skimming for self-help videos on the internet.

>I want to meet people and make friends, but I don't want to participate in activities that would lead me to meet new people.
>I am worried that I will try a new activity, but find it to be uninteresting.
>The things I want are beyond my reach.
>I have difficulty identifying what I specifically want, since I do not have any concrete passions or interests that motivate me.
>I have generally been pretty good right off the bat with most things that I pick up, so I've never had to push myself to practice or learn something new.

I'm curious why you're very hesitant to try some of the social activities that you've already identified, given that you've admitted that they would be viable ways of meeting new people.

OP isn't the guy in

OP here, went to bed because it was late

I like the sound of the piano and I like the idea of being able to play it. I feel that it would be mostly useful for playing to others, though. I like the idea of playing it for my friends or people at a party.

There is an element of appearing normal to it, but I don't think it's a large part. It's more that I want to feel socially connected and fulfilled, and currently I'm not getting that. It's not that I can never feel happy when I'm alone, it's just that I do pretty much everything alone, so when I want to feel an interpersonal connection but can't, it's painful.

I kinda understand where you're coming from. I feel that I'd really like someone to share my experiences with, and it would make the idea of trying new things more enjoyable. I'm the sort of person who talks to myself when I'm doing things, and I expect it makes me look like a weirdo, so having an actual person to talk to would help.

I am considerably better than I was, but I'm not completely fixed. I stopped going to the last one because they never scheduled any follow-up appointments and never called me about it.

I feel that I can't truly be friends with the people I work with. Don't shit where you eat and all that.

It's more that of the activities I want to try, most of them wouldn't involve meeting new people, as I see it. I also have a lot of difficulty transitioning the relationship from "new person I have met" to "friend".

yo nice furret

thanks, I stole it from this video which is adorable but I don't have anyone to share it with:
youtube.com/watch?v=xa1Zn6XrDlM

go to meetup.com and find yourself a hobby that others share. you don't have to commit to a group, you can just test the waters until you find something that works for you. you'll meet others who share your interests.