[Erax]

Taera,

When I was 11 I moved to a different part of the country with my family. My first two years at the new school were definitely the worst period of my life. Later on I made some friends, but I had no luck with dating until I got into college (too shy, I could never think of anything to say to a girl). Here's some activities that helped me along the way :

- Martial arts (for 2 years)
- High school theatre (4 years)
- Pen-and-paper RPGs (started 20 years ago, still haven't stopped)

None of these activities seemed interesting at first, but they gave me some badly needed self-confidence and allowed me to meet people and make some friends. Pretty soon I was enjoying myself, I was still shy but it wasn't terminal any more.

There is a very important epilogue to this story. There was this girl in my class who was very attractive, but we probaly spoke less than 50 words to each other during high school. When we had our 10-year high school class reunion she said something to the effect that she really admired me back in those days. So it's possible we never talked because she thought she had nothing interesting to say to me! Is that ironic or what ?

My advice is similar to everyone else's, try different activities which will make you get out and meet people, even if they don't seem too interesting at first.

Physical activity is especially important at your age because it will give you an overall feeling of well-being, which other people can sense so it will also improve your social life (I wish someone had explained this to me in these terms, my parents wanted me to practice sports but they never got beyond the 'do it because it's good for you' line).

Don't be too hard on yourself. Making mistakes at your age is practically expected (this is something else I wish I had known before).

Edit: Work on your personal life and think less about politics. My personal experience is that people, especially adults, will not listen to what you have to say about politics / economics / religion until you are 30, even if you have been saying the same things since you were 16.

[ May 22, 2003, 02:07: Message edited by: Erax ]