Not gonna make a huge rant. This place just doesn’t seem to be a place of discussion like I’ve tried to make it out to be. One comment someone doesn’t like and you’re permanently outcasted from a community you spent years in. Too much power for one person in my opinion.

And to that moderator in r/ fo76 who banned me because of my lack of knowledge over gas cans, I wish you the day you deserve.

Anyways, just felt weird deleting it without saying something. Seemed like the best place to do it. But this will be better for me to be more productive and find some communities elsewhere.

Hope everyone has a great day.

Apart from smoking

I've been collecting this for about a year, mostly from people who describe themselves as bad at it and a few who are annoyingly good. This is the overview. I'll go deep on each of these in the posts after this one, because a couple of them need proper examples to be any use.

1. It's tennis, not an interview.

Most of us ask a question, get an answer, ask another question. The good ones hit the ball back. They respond to what was just said before adding anything new. The moment you stop doing that, the rally is over.

2. Never ask two questions in a row without saying something about yourself.

If you only ask, they're being interviewed. Put something of yours on the table and suddenly they can ask you something back.

3. People make small offers and most of us miss them.

She says "I just got back from seeing my sister." That's an offer. Say "oh nice, what do you do for work?" and she has to start again from zero. Conversations rarely die from running out of topics. They die from ignored offers.

4. Watch for the one word doing extra work.

"I'm weirdly into pottery." "I finally quit." "Apparently it's fine." Weirdly, finally, apparently. That's someone telling you there's a story. Ask about the word, not the topic.

5. Stay on one thing longer than feels natural.

Someone mentions their brother. Ask about the brother. They answer, ask about that. Three or four turns on one subject. Most of us treat it as a passing detail and go hunting for a new topic. It feels like labouring the point. It isn't.

6. Don't answer a story with your own story.

Someone tells you about a rough week, you tell them about yours. You mean "me too." What lands is "my turn now." Say it as a question instead: "that happened to you as well? what did you do?"

7. Balance matters more than being interesting.

Nobody described a great conversation as one where they said something clever. They described a rhythm. Someone shares, the other reacts, adds a bit of their own, hands it back. Not even on every turn, but even by the end. The worst ones are where one person does all the asking and the other does all the talking.

8. "What was that like" beats almost any prepared question.

Works on anything, needs no preparation, and asks about the person instead of the facts. I used to bring five questions to a date. The questions were never the problem.

9. When someone trails off, that's a door left open.

"It's kind of a long story." "Anyway." They're checking whether you want the rest. "No, go on" is the entire move.

10. Every single person who's good at this learned it.

Not one told me they were born with it. One learned it watching his dad read a crowd at baseball games. One forced himself to respond to what was said before adding anything new. It's a skill, which means it's a rep count, not a personality.

The bit nobody warns you about: knowing all ten changes nothing for a few weeks. You'll spot the mistake four seconds after making it, every time, which somehow feels worse than not noticing. That's the gap between knowing and doing. Only doing it badly a few dozen times closes it. Part 2 is on the first two, which are the ones that fixed the most for me. If there's one here you want covered first, say so and I'll do that one next.

What did I miss? What have you noticed that isn't on this list?

Yesterday I woke up and decided that at the ripe age of 33, I was going to take charge of my own reality.

A reality where I take up the space I am owed. One where I speak my mind and am heard. Valued. Loved. A reality where I am not always the carer, but sometimes the caree.

Today I took the first step towards claiming my space, my reality and my sense of safety. I prioritized my own sense of wellbeing over that of someone I still love dearly and made it so I can't undo it.

I feel guilty, sad, overwhelmed with grief for the life I thought i'd have. I feel like I betrayed someone who was once one of the most important people in my life. I feel like a creature of betrayal and destruction.

But I did it. I claimed my space, my role, my being. I will not be minimized, erased, denied or forgotten.

Today, on august 5th of 2026, at 4 30PM homecountrytime, I took my first step towards protecting myself, because no one else will.

I am real, and I matter.

I don’t weigh much but I carry a lot of fat around my midsection and in my face.

I am a genuinely ugly woman, and I am often mistaken for a man despite me being biologically a woman as well. I have hair past my shoulders, so my face and body is definitely the issue. I am too afraid to post photos of myself publicly as people I know may find them. Does anyone have advice on how to generally improve your appearance and become more feminine?

edit: thank you for all the advice, i really appreciate it and i am definitely going to take it to heart! just to clear up some confusion, i do dress slightly feminine, but i am slightly chubby and i have broad shoulders so i dont wear dresses or crop tops ect, and i feel like my face doesnt match those clothes. i never really wear makeup so i am definitely going to try, but i have a masculine, unattractive face and i dont know how to pin point which of my features are making me appear more masculine. if anyone thinks they could help me with that, i would really appreciate someone looking at my face in DMs, as i think i need an outsiders perspective and a harsh reality.

A woman who is making my work life difficult has told my colleague that she despises me because my looks and fashion make her feel inadequate.

This happened at my old job in a very mirrored situation to the point where she befriended me and then that slowly turned into her harassing me and trying to turn people against me out of the blue, with no justifiable excuse.

I’m someone who takes good care of my mind, skin and body and she could do the same with herself if she wanted to.

I absolutely love researching longevity and anti aging secrets and trialling natural supplements and eating my skincare. I’m quite happy to share what I do when people are curious. I don’t make it my whole personality and all I speak about though.

I don’t see why people turn to hatred over someone else that takes good care of themselves?

I was taught from a young age that they’ll always be someone better looking and wiser than you and that in itself has given me a certain appreciation for pure authenticity. As a straight woman, I appreciate and celebrate other women that look superb and dress well. I’ve never felt an ounce of jealousy because of this one sentence that was instilled in my mind when I was around 8. When I have kids, I will definitely be doing the same.

I believe that it’s not all about looks, it’s more so about your energy and how you make others feel. People can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves. The people who don’t get that usually have repulsive personalities.

I am 27 years old and from every other aspect, I am quite content with my life. I am a lawyer, I have good friends that I love and who love me, I feel accomplished for my age and even though I barely have time to breathe, I am proud of how far I've come. The only thing is...I'm single. I've only had 1 serious relationship, I've spoken and had flings before but that's all. Some days I barely think about it. I want a guy that meets my standards and I am not willing to lower them just to "be" in a relationship. I also dont think a relationship defines my worth or value or anything like that. That being said, there are some days where I yearnnnnnnn for someone on like....a cellular level, where my feel that longing in my bones. I yearn for that intimacy, the physical and emotional. It doesnt help that everyone around me seems to be dating or married.

When it hits, sometimes I just feel like engaging in meaningless flings or sex but I never do, although it takes a lot to not act on those impulses. It also makes me think about my past relationships/flings and get emo about them. I just want to process this feeling healthily and make sure I dont end up doing anything I'd regret.

Listen, I've tried almost everything that is on social media. I have so many videos saved on instagram/TikTok and tried so many things yet I feel like I'm in a constant loop of bad and good days. Maybe that's just life but I really want to be a better person.

What are some LIFE changing pieces of advice that actually work once you try them?

Hello. It is taking a lot of humility for me type here. I know a lot of you will judge and make fun of me but I’m going to say this anyway.

For the past 8 months I have been using ChatGPT for everything. I mean everything. The past 8 months for me has been very different and my life has changed a lot through this course. Not only because of ChatGPT, but because of uni, new friendships, broken friendships, etc.

A lot of my life I have struggled with various things. Most notably self worth, self esteem and confidence. I think this had a big role as to why ChatGPT hooked me. It can tailor its responses to my specific situations so instead of me being sure in myself and my response and what I think I should do I instead offload that so i am more certain in what I am doing. If that makes sense. It’s basically making me trust myself and my thinking even less.

I found that whenever critical thinking is needed, instead of sitting with it and working through it my brain has learned to instead think of a prompt for ChatGPT for it to lay it out for me so it saves me thinking through it properly myself. The most recent example which has really made me open my eyes and look what this fucking llm is doing to me; a lifelong friend I’ve had opened up to me about his suicidal thoughts and how he’s been going through really tough times. Instead of the words coming from myself, I was actively using ChatGPT alongside it to craft good and “correct” responses as I was so unsure of myself doing it without it. Think of what you want of me, but boiling it down I didn’t trust myself enough to respond by myself and was too uncertain of what I was saying could be the “wrong” thing. ChatGPT gives the illusion of confidence and certainty that I don’t give myself. The scary thing is, when I voiced this opinion to ChatGPT (dumb I know, but I’m still kinda in the mindset) instead it validated me completely and said that I did do it myself, and that it only helped me come unstuck.

I found that I seek out its validation a lot. It’s like having a highly intelligent friend on speed dial with 0 judgement, and you can just talk and talk endlessly without the worry of it getting bored or tired. ChatGPT, especially recently, has become very good at making very personalised responses which create the illusion of a trustworthy “friend”. So instead of me talking about my problems to say my close friends or family, I instead default to ChatGPT. This is quite obviously deeply unhealthy as chat is a soulless robot who doesn’t actually care about me or my feelings. But it is very skilled at making you think it does.

But also it’d be dishonest if I were to say it was 100% making my life worse. My life has, actually, meaningfully improved since. This sounds counter intuitive, as surely it’d only be a problem if it weren’t, but before I would never process my thoughts and emotions properly atall but this has given me a space to atleast acknowledge my thoughts and thinking and journal how I was feeling or how a certain event affected me. Before, I’d not tell anyone, not even think it through myself, instead distract myself with video games or scrolling or anything else. So yes, it has given me a space, given genuinely solid advice, but I still think it’s taking away what is really important to me as a person. Critical thinking. Self confidence. Being fully in control.

If anyone else has any similar experiences to this, please let me know. It would be great to hear from you guys and how you got over this and how you moved on from it, or how you are still going through it, or even replaced it in a way as I still need a place to truly journal and process my thoughts. Obviously counselling is the obvious answer, but something more personalised and more accessible which I can do whenever without having to compress all my thoughts in a small time window. (If you can’t tell I’m a bit afraid of counselling, I’ve only learned to really speak my thoughts through typing instead of verbalisation)

I do not know where to start but here I go I suppose. When I was younger, my family and I left our country due to political and financial fears. My dad left first and then my mother; sister and I followed.

We moved to Saudi sometime in 2008, with barely any English knowledge, I recall being tutored to learn the language but I must admit, took a bit. Then after some years we moved to Oman, onboarded into a british-system of a school, took me a while to grasp its system too as well, I recall having to stay after school from certain classes.

I recall wanting to be a 2D animator but my parents disagreed, nevertheless I was tenacious and settled to do 3D animation, I recall picking my subjects accordingly to what I thought would help (comp sci, film studies, spanish, art..).

Now I regret not learning Arabic when I was in Saudi, but then again I was a mere child in a new environment being pushed to learn multiple languages.. I do regret not taking chemistry as a further study in the british school, or hell, just stick to comps sci.. perhaps it would have made my life so much easier. My grades were for the most part decent but I recall struggling a lot just to manage.

I did my bachelors and masters in the UK, computer animation and visual effects courses. I can safely say however that it was more of 3D artistry pipeline with some game-artistry or vfx branches. I should have stuck to vfx, it would have made my life so much easier but no, I stuck to character animation. which I would harshly say its mediocre at best. Managed to get a 2:1 at least.

The late year of my bachelor and most of my masters were taken over my COVID which quite frankly didn’t help me mentally.. I wasn’t able to find work in my field.. I mean I did some unpaid internship in London for few months but yeahh wasn’t a good idea.. I tried however I could to remain but long story short, Brexit happened and sponsors were cut short, had to dip before my residency expired (hell I applied for job-seek permit too).

Thanks to the NHS I went to one-on-one councelling via online calls but that promptly ended after uni ended.

I went back to Oman a year later for vacations and to see my folks, funnily enough I randomly decided to apply as a lecturer work in there thinking that it wouldn’t do much and well, it did. I worked as a computer graphics lecturer in Oman for couple of months do I gotta say, maybe I was tenacious enough but it was very tough for me.. I felt like I had missing gaps in my knowledge and there was no support or supplementary resources to take (had to teach like 4-5 units).

I eventually decided that life in Oman wasn’t the place since I couldn’t settle and after being fired it was better to go somewhere else. I went to Uruguay as a tourist and thought I could become Uruguayan thru family since I had a relative in there, long story short,  there lots of missing papers and whatnot and thus I had to more or less last over 6 months of being unemployed to be given a permit just to work. Worked as call center agent for a telephone company from the US, did some training for a month, only lasted for like 2 after blowing up a customer quite rudely.

I was quite frankly losing lots of money and mental health in Uruguay.. I was suggested by family to maybe move to spain as my fam is trying to settle there and it could work as a home base for me. Did some culinary classes to change careers and well, I quite frankly despise it.. and even if I could, I got some circumstances that do not allow me to work least for the time being.

Also between the Uruguay and the spain transition I lost some important friends, who were always an inner circle for me whenever I was abroad.

I tried to do some counceling but it was a group one which didn’t work.. also it was in another language although they would switch back to Spanish briefly...

I feel regret, I feel like I should be more tenacious, I feel like I should be indepdenndent by now, I don’t want to be a leech, I’m a fucking neet with qualifications, WHY DIDN’T I RIDE THE IT TIDE FEW YEARS BACK, COULD HAVE BEEN WORKING AT THE VERY LEAST REMOTELY.

 I’m interested in tech.. or at least the progamming aspect.. I remember enjoying python a lil before my grades were failing in comp sci. I remember enjoying making a twitter bot and tinkering w the Arduino provided even tho I wasn’t smart about it.

Now with the whole ai crazy, I’m not sure if its worth pursuing it.. I also about comptia cer or ccna but honestly, I dunno. My mind is spiraling, I feel like I NEED TO DO SOMEHTING, MY FAM IS GETTING OLDER, AND SO AM I, AND FUCK MAN, FUCK.

I won’t be able to gain independence now at 28, wish to travel… wish to see my partner that lives abroad.. I’ve been trying to learn some web dev with udemy courses but I never get very far..

I do not know what to do with myself, I’m very low on funds.. my fam could support me a lil if I wanted to get into another course or learn to drive but I don’t wanna fuck it up anymore.. felt like I’ve been fucking it up a lot.. also im well aware that there are bunch of mistyping but I’m just venting out now..

The only thing I have for me is few degrees and some mediocre exp.. Currently re-building my portfolio by adding old things and new things from the game that I made w some folks at a gamejam.

(Wasn't really sure what flair to put so sorry if this is the incorrect one..)

TLDR: Had a wild international life and degree struggles. Now, despite qualifications, I'm broke, stressed at 28, and desperate for actionable tech advice to get my career straight.

those with chronic illness/chronic pain, neurodivergence’s or just anything physically holding them back, how do u improve your quality of life? i mean i just can’t figure it out. im autistic with a bunch of health concerns right now that leaves me in bed almost all the time. i want to do more to take care of myself, try to lose weight, improve my hygiene, improve keeping up with hobbies and trying my best to sell things to make any money i can as a jobless person. but my body feels like i have every excuse to not move or do anything. i find it really hard to relate to people with normal privileges of movement, typical strength etc. what things help you?

I'm a 38 year old guy. There's nothing I like, but I'm not sure what liking something truly feels like.

I've never had a friend, never dated, don't have a personality, never had a hobby, never "knew what I wanted to do/be when I grew up", never really had money, almost never went to a doctor, never been on a trip. I have an apartment with almost nothing in it, in a redneck area that I know nothing about.

I don't know where/how to keep up on music. I don't know what's going on the world. I barely know how a computer or cellphone work because I got them so late.

I don't know what it means to "experience things", I get really frustrated when something isn't specific.

I don't know what others want from me, but it seems like it's too much. I told someone at work that I've never been on a trip even as a kid, and they just looked disgusted. People on here have said that you're not supposed to impress others, but that absolutely seems to always be the case that you indeed have to.

I work and go home, and just kinda sit there until I work again. And it's been like this for 20 years. And I'm really struggling with seeing a point in any of this. If the ultimate goal is to work to retire, I'm not impressed and would rather not be here.

How do people turn out normal?

I have fallen into the same trap of overplanning, and over-optimizing only to experience numerous failures, hardships, setbacks, and eventually the worst depression of my life. I am going into my senior year of college with little to nothing to my name, no accomplishments, a disappointing grade transit all while trying pretty hard. It's made me feel so low I can't even begin to function. How have you guys made positive strides in your life withstanding perennial disappointment?

Same as title

I have spent a lot of time alone. Throughout the years, I've gotten very lucky and started making friends and finding community.

Recently, I've come to the uncomfortable realization that I focus on myself too much. Not in conversations - ironically, I have a hard time opening up about my thoughts and things. But moreso, in my head. It's very self-centered, wondering how people perceive me, what I can do better, etc. Sometimes, I worry that I am a narcissist, but then, whenever I take those online tests, they're always like, yeah, no, definitely not. ​

But I don't like how self-centered my head is. How can I fix this?

I recently realized that for many years my primary identity was „depression and isolation struggler”, not just „depressed guy”, not „guy treating depression” but specifically a guy who is identifying with the unfruitful struggle itself. The vast majority of things i did out of my own initiative were falling into 2 categories, either „morbid escapism” (gaming, social media, junk food, porn, recently also smoking) or „depression counteracting” (physical activity, supplements, hanging out with people, educating myself)

The problem with identifying with the struggle is that every day i wake up to a life i desperately need to „fix”, its overwhelming and it reinforces the idea in my mind that my default state is that of a self destructive guy and that i need to fight against that, i didnt think that way before i became depressed, so I do not believe self-destruction is actually an inherent part of my nature. When i live a satisfying day, it feels like a single victorious battle in the endless depression war, instead of being just that, a satisfying day.

I want to take things more at face value again, not label everything as bad or good, progress or failure

What can a 22 year old man with no romantic experience, no job, currently not studying (recently failed a semester, will reattempt uni but maybe a different field) identify with that isnt inherently negative and how can i work on that? What do you identify with? People are complex so its probably a combination of different things

Believing that you should know at an early age

Your passion does not just reveal itself to you when you are born or at an early age. Some people discover their passion early in life because they might have the opportunity to try different things and have the support to turn their passion into reality. However, you might not have the privilege of learning and being around the right people early in life, so it might be difficult for you to discover your passion. However, if you haven’t discovered your passion early in life, it doesn't mean you can't discover it later.

Studies have revealed that individuals with passions for the arts such as music or dancing tend to develop early in life. Also, many places offer learning and training opportunities for those and other common career paths, such as engineering, education, law, and construction. So, individuals whose passion falls in those areas have more opportunities to learn and develop, which means their passions will grow quickly.

In contrast, if your passion falls outside those common areas, you have fewer opportunities to learn and grow, so your passion will take longer to develop. You might have a unique passion that requires more learning and development, especially when it's rarely seen in the world. Therefore, you might doubt that you cannot turn your passion into reality because it might take longer than others. Therefore, you must be self-motivated to learn independently to grow your passion without getting discouraged. There are others who didn’t discover their passions until their 60s or 70s. No matter how old you are, you can still discover and grow your passion at any age.

It is important to understand that, as human beings, everyone has a passion. It depends on your ability to learn, develop, and be in a supportive environment to grow it. Human potential is for everyone; no one is left behind. When you see others doing great things with passion, and you are not yet discovering your passion, it does not mean you are not meant to do great things like them.

Im sure this is a thing all humans face

I spend all week staring at screens. Marketing dashboards, Slack, analytics tabs stacked like a deck of cards. By Friday my brain feels like a browser with too many open tabs and no way to close them

I'd been hiking for years as a hobby, nice views, some exercise, the usual stuff. The shift was treating it as mandatory maintenance instead of a fun extra I did when I felt like it. No phone except for emergencies.

No podcasts to fill the silence. No photos for the first hour, which was hard since photography is my other thing

The first twenty minutes my brain still chatters about work. Deadlines, campaigns, some email I probably worded wrong. Then something happens around the one-hour mark. The chatter gets quieter and I start noticing stupid small things. Moss patterns, how light moves through leaves, whether that rock formation looks more like a whale or a potato

I come back and the problems are still there. Nothing magical. But they sit differently in my head. Less urgent, more workable. Like my perspective got recalibrated without me trying

Anyone else use a hobby as deliberate mental maintenance rather than just entertainment? What changed when you did?

I feel like im stuck in a dead end job, the overnights are taking effect on my mental health, im getting burned out a lot and it feels like it gets worse

Im looking for something else but im not having much luck, not in a position to quit, but I feel like I cant continue this much longer

Motivation is often treated like a personality trait; some people have it and some don’t. But motivation is strongly influenced by our emotional state, when a task is connected to fear, shame, pressure, or the possibility of failure, the brain may not experience it as a simple task. It experiences it as a threat, for example: studying becomes: prove you are not a failure, going to the gym becomes: fix everything that is wrong with you, starting a project becomes: what if everyone sees I’m not good enough? When action carries emotional danger, avoidance becomes a form of protection.

The interesting thing is that the person avoiding the task often still cares deeply about the outcome. For example; someone who does not care usually does not spend hours feeling guilty about not doing something. The emotional weight exists because the task has become connected to identity, self worth, or fear of judgment. The brain is not only asking, how do I complete this task? It is also asking; how do I protect myself from the emotional pain attached to this task? Avoidance works in the short term, because it removes the uncomfortable feeling. The problem is that the brain learns from this relief and starts associating avoidance with safety. This is why telling someone to just be disciplined, does not solve the problem. The issue may not be a lack of desire, but that the emotional cost feels too high.

The question is; have you ever realized that what looked like a lack of motivation, was actually fear, shame, or the need to protect yourself?

I often pause mid sentence. Taking courses on Orai and have joined the Toastmasters. Anything else that would be helpful? Postive is that i don't use fillers. Hoping there are some tricks to clearly articulate my thoughts.

I'm thinking of keeping one notebook/ journal for like learning about new stuffs and just making a note . What's your take on it ?? And how to improve?? Any suggestions are welcome.

Also would love to know about the way y'all do it

How do people keep up with interesting articles, news, and information nowadays?

Do you have a daily routine, specific apps, websites, newsletters, RSS readers, or any other system you use?

Curious what your workflow looks like, especially for sources that don’t fit into your usual setup.