Tim_Finch

I have a friend exactly like this. And even if he doesn't know about something he will act like he does, and even though I might clearly prove him wrong in an argument, he'll claim that he was arguing something slightly different. For example, the other day, don't ask me how, he claims that a Chevy s10 is more closely related to a Ford Ranger than it is to a GMC Sonoma. After I explain to him that the Chevy and GMC are virtually identical vehicles manufactured by the same company, he tries to remain correct by claiming that he was arguing that the old Chevy's and Fords looked similar.

I guess it's the fact that in person I have to give answers in real time, and perhaps I just need time to formulate a response. Now that I think of it, that does sound like something that can be solved with practice. And I have all summer to practice.

Thanks a lot everyone, I really appreciate the help. I hope you're right, Zierro. I just hope things get easier for me by the time I get to college.

I do miss him, and I've also noticed that since he left I began to take more interest in the type of things he did. I feel like I could be trying to follow in his footsteps. I've always looked up not only to him, but to the way he lived his life, and I think subconsciously I want my life to be like his was. Unrealistic hopes I know, but I think I just need to step up and make my life the way I want it to be, whether it's modeled after him or not. The only thing is, I live out on a farm, and am interested in more outdoors-type activities. I only have 1 friend in my whole school who I know is into that stuff. I just really wish my brother was back for this. I'm only going to see him 1-2 times per year now. I guess I do have more friends than I think, I just almost never communicate with them outside of school. And you're right, whenever I think about it, I begin to think about how much more fun they must have than me, and how I just wouldn't be a fun person. And then there are a few days where I feel great about myself. I guess we can relate pretty well there. It's just that when I'm trying to talk to someone, my confidence immediately drops once I notice that I can't think of anything to say. I've even resorted to googling tips on making conversation, but nothing's worked so far. I really appreciate the advice though.

Alright, I probably haven't posted on these forums in about a year, let alone this topic. But you guys are the most helpful people I feel I can talk to, and I'm glad that I'm still a member of these forums. This isn't really a problem with relationships as you guys have been talking about for the past several pages. Hell, I could care less about hooking up with women right now, and I probably won't until I'm in college (unless of course I meet a women I just naturally connect with, and just let the relationship run its course). I guess I'm asking this here because it's about my relationship with everyone. My friends, my peers, family, and even myself. I could write a really long story which would give you some good background information, and might help somebody figure this out. But I'll just stick to the basics to avoid an overly-long post. I apologize in advance if this seems unorganized or difficult to follow; I haven't really planned this out, I'm just typing what rolls off my mind. I've been bottling this up for 2 years, and any opportunity I've found to squeeze off a little of the pressure has failed miserably, leading to depression until the next day. I used to be a fun and social person. I have no idea what happened or where it went. All I remember is that it began to happen at the beginning of my sophomore year. A simple fluke in my schedule perhaps, which conflicted with those of my friends. I don't know, but I became less interactive for that one semester. One would think that it shouldn't have much effect, but I found myself with lower self-esteem and confidence that made it difficult for me to communicate with others. I realized that I'm not having nearly as much fun as anybody else, and I began to spend all my time outside of school at home. I became afraid to go out. After a while of that, I guess everything else lost interest in me, because they thought I lost an interest in them. This might sound like typical social anxiety to any of you, but it's dug itself so deep into my life that it'll take more than a few encouraging words to get it out. It's seems as if it's affected my personality. I have trouble even speaking to people. I've discovered that this could be the basis of all my problems, but I don't know how to fix it. Let me explain. It seems that when I'm talking to nearly anyone, I literally can't think of what to say in a conversation. This results in me giving very few responses and eventually just "yup" or "mhmm", until the other person seems to lose interest and any communication stops there. I never recall having this problem in my earlier years, and I have no idea what to do about it. I feel that if I let this go unanswered it will cause me major problems for the rest of my life. I could have great interest in the person or what they're talking about, but it might not seem like it to them because I just can't come up with anything to say. Let me give you an example, that stems from one of the biggest regrets in my life. Mind you that this will be very difficult to describe without giving a very long background story. I have an older sister and two older brothers, all of whom I love dearly. My two oldest brothers are significantly older than me (5 and 7 years), so they got along best with each other growing up. They were like best friends. When my oldest brother left for the Air Force, the other stayed close to home, going to college. I have to be careful describing this next part, not to get it wrong. He became not just my older brother, but my brother. He's a very interesting and funny person, and I looked up to him greatly. He was gracious enough to take me along on some of his adventures, and i loved it, but because of that one simple problem I described above, it was like he was dragging me along against my will. I feel that he took it the wrong way and thought I wasn't interested in him. Now he left for the Air Force and I'm stuck with a lot of unresolved issues. This is one of many examples of what this has done to my life. I have a ton of other social issues as a result of this, but I truly believe that if I can find a way to solve this, I can begin working on myself. But I don't know how. It's such a simple problem, but I don't know what to do about it. That might have been a long read for what I'm trying to say, but I want to make sure I got my point across. How do I talk to people? When I'm in a conversation, how do I know what I should say next? I might know how I should respond, but I just don't what to say... How can I avoid awkward situations and have healthy communication with others? How can I avoid seeming invisible, so I can finally just go out and have a normal interesting life...

Satellite TV, not only won't it work in bad weather, it won't even work in the slightest rain :wall: All night it was flashing error messages and that crap. And to make it worse, we switched to Dish network, which means everything comes on satellite. At least with Direct TV we still got our local channels on antenna, which means we could still watch those in bad weather... I also hate it when people say things to you that you can't really respond to in any other way than "mhmm", making me look like an [wagon] who won't talk. It's like they say something and then answer it themselves, leaving nothing left for me. Both of those have been driving me ape [cabbage] lately..

Pretty strong stuff eh?

I can pop my pinky knuckles by squeezing any small cylindrical object, usually my thumb. And I can continuously pop it over and over, as fast as 3-4 times per second. Can't pop anything else voluntarily, though.

Both brothers and my sister-in-law went back home today. We played one last game of golf; I shot a 51, second best score next to a 48. Not the best, but I'm satisfied

When I said that I wanted to change myself, I was referring mainly to my social skills. I know my personality, and those close to me that know my personality will know that I'm generally a fun and great guy. The problem is, I lack many social skills to bring myself out. During this past school year I was very quiet and low key. Like many people have already said here, confidence is the key; I need to be more outgoing, accept more social invites, go do things with more people, etc. Even smaller social problems hold back my personality. I need to learn to initiate more conversations, maintain a conversation, be more talkative, and develop good conversation skills. The result of all this is that I've almost become a hermit in my home, whenever I'm not in school. I'm not sure I've interacted with my friends any more than a few times outside of school actually, and the more I keep to myself like this, the more invisible I feel I become. I've actually become depressed toward the end of the school year, realizing that if I continue this way I may miss the entire high school experience. I can't count how many times I regret missing opportunities due to this. Back to the topic at hand, I believe building confidence is the key to changing myself. To make myself a completely different person to other people doesn't involve changing my personality at all, it involves bringing it out. How to build more confidence is what I'm trying to work out now. One important thing for me to do is to initiate things, be it conversations, social events, or something bigger. I also need to accept any social invites. Before I always seemed to try to find some reason to avoid going out, even though deep down I knew that I had nothing else to do, and no reason stay home. I'm actually disgusted with myself looking back at how I handled these things. The main reason I'm like this is pretty much fear. Fear of various things that could go wrong, various ways I could end up humiliating myself, and always considering and focusing on the worst case scenario of any situation. I'd always assume that the worst would go wrong and I would humiliate myself, somehow. For God's sake, going out and having a good time shouldn't involve fear and anxiety! Look at everyone else, going out and being social is so casual and easy for them, while I might worry about screwing up a simple conversation, and wishing it would end. I need to build some damn confidence, and I took me until now to realize it. To sum it up- Problem: social skills; Solution: confidence I'm making progress.

My dog barks repeatedly at the front door. So it's especially annoying when they're barking at literally nothing.

Senior pranks eh... [hide=]-Spray every square inch of the hallway floors with cooking spray -Mix laxatives into the food -Dismantle the plumbing on the toilets -Disassemble the principal's car and put it back together in a classroom -Paint over every clock in the school -Glue the tables upside-down -I remember hearing about something involving a pig somewhere.. -Design a Rube Goldberg device that makes toast[/hide] I agree that a skip day is [developmentally delayed]ed, that's basically what summer is for.. Got 2 years til it's my turn, although I'm sure none of us will do anything like the above.

Same here. I'm planning to undergo a complete reformation of myself this summer. When my junior year comes round, I'll be a talkin', going places, seeing people, doing things. Much different than I've been this past year. Not exactly sure how I'll do it though. Have no plans for the summer, other than working, but I'll find a way. I also plan on eating monkey bread.

You press it, and a small red button appears on top of the desk. You see a small red button on top of the desk.

Not only that, but he ripped a god's head off and [cabbage] down its neck. he just doesnt tell anybody

If we're talking about video game characters now, I think Duke Nukem takes the cake.

I woke up this morning, and my finger problem persisted.. It was excruciatingly painful, and almost impossible to bend or straighten my finger. So I decided to look it up on the web. By the looks of it, I have trigger finger. http://www.eatonhand.com/hw/hw022.htm The pictures and animations on this page made me cringe :wall:

I'm not sure if this is really anti-humor, but my brother told me it and I laughed like hell. "knock knock" "who's there?" "moo" "moo who?" "mooo-let me in! It's [bleep]ing freezing out here!" I can't remember which knock knock joke the let me in part came from :wall: But yes, I love the jokes that make no sense at all.

Had a fun and awesome golf practice today, and went to a barbecue dinner at someone's house afterwards. Pretty fun day, but I gotta wake up early and work a lot tomorrow.

I have that EXACT same fear :o When I'm walking down the hallways I have to move towards the center of the hall when I near a poster. I'm extremely paranoid of papercuts in general. Don't really have many other physical fears, but I have a lot of social fears that bother me every day.

These are my favorite kind of jokes, they're so awesome. I love the 3rd and 5th ones :lol: I got a friend who has the perfect personality for these. This is my favorite one he told me: A man, woman, and a penguin are each driving down the highway, and there's a [bleep]e strip in the middle of the road. The man sees it, swerves, and he's okay. The penguin sees it, swerves, and he's okay. The woman, too distracted with make-up and all that crap, doesn't see it, hits it, spins out of control, crashes, and kills herself and her 3 children. Not sure if that came from somewhere or if he made it up, but he tells it so perfectly.

I have a very nicely crafted cane, has a spiral design running down the top. I used to have so much fun with it when I was younger. With an imagination and a stick, you can occupy yourself for hours.

No, I doubt it's a cramp. There's virtually no pain; it's mainly just that when I try to straighten it, it doesn't move until I use enough force, which then it pops out like... A spring. Pretty hard to describe, but I guess that's the best I can. It only lasts for a couple hours, and so far has only started in the night. This morning was the only time it stayed when I woke up.

Okay, so I woke up today with that same problem with my pinky finger that I described earlier. I didn't describe it correctly then, since it always happened in the middle of the night when I was half-awake. It takes slightly more muscle force to bend my pinky all the way, and when I do bend it, it sort of locks in place. I need to use significantly more force to bend it back out, and when I do so, it sort of pops out. It's like something is wrong with my muscle. Has anybody else had this or know what it is? I'm going to have to go through the day without bending my pinky at all, and doing that is quite difficult...