Hello! This is my first time posting so I hope I am doing everything right.
I wanted to share some of my experience and ask for recomendations or insights that anyone can give, they will be very much appreciated!
As the title says, after some self-inquiry I found that a big impediment for me in my self actualization and moving up the stages in spiral dynamics for example is the fact that my social life has always been a mess and I have always had difficulty establishing meaningful relationships with people.
I think this has it's roots since my childhood, first of all I was raised as a single kid, so I never experienced hanging out with brothers or sisters, also I sometimes stutter, this was inherited from my dad which also stutters, when I was a kid other people made fun of me because of my stuttering and I believe that this made me seek out less social interactions in general for fear of being made fun of.
I had some friends in primary school and in secondary school. Actually, I have a very good friend from secondary school which I have a meaningful relationship with and we frecuently hang out just the both of us, I think he is one of the few people which I have established a meaningful relationship so to speak.
When I entered High School, I was in a group of friends that I hanged out sometimes, but I think I never got around to establish a deep connection with them, as we hang out a few times a year only, but I can't say that I have made a deep connection with any particular friend of that group. Also, in high school I did make a pretty good friend that I consider one of my best friends, we had a really deep connection, but now he is in another city in another country so we haven't been able to communicate as much.
In university I had some group of friends for a little while but then something happened, maybe I went through a small depression while in university and then people didn't want to hang out with me at all, most of the last 3 semesters were spent in my room, working or playing videogames, and hanging out with my girlfriend, which I am grateful for because I have a really deep connection with her, and we love each other very much.
Then covid hit and I finished university, I have been living in my parents home over a year now, I have a sucessful carreer as a junior Software Developer, I have been working remotely and I have been working out and losing weight. But my trauma still persists and I sometimes experience physical pain when I think about it.
So enough of the rambling, here I list some of the causes that I think contributed to this situation:
Lack of social confidence due to fear of being made fun of.
Maybe not being social enough?
Maybe not being a good friend?
Talking about personal stuff too early in the friendship?
Maybe I am too boring to hang out with? Or there is some personal defect that lures people away from me?
Here are some things that I have been trying to do to improve the situation:
As I do with most things, I study them, so I have recently started a course on charisma and how to be more charismatic.
I have been trying to be more friendly to people in the gym.
I try to proactively seek out friends and ask them to hang out or try to talk to them via text.
I wanted to write this because I was wondering if anyone had any tips or suggestions with dealing with this "problem" of mine, I have been trying to cure or fix it myself but it still pains me to this day the lack in my social life.
Thanks to everyone
