<p>Talking about emotions on the internet is not what I mean… It should be a part of your personality. When you keep emotions inside, you seem like an emotionless, boring person. I’m non-confrontational, so I never express my discontentment. I’m also shy, so I never express excitement. Part of it has to do with being modest (a product of low self-confidence), and the other part is feeling like people wouldn’t care (a product of low self-esteem). One thing I’ve observed about the popular people with friends is that they are free about expressing themselves.</p>
<p>BUT this is not easy to do when you’re in a rut of depression. I don’t care about some sports team losing, because my depression dominates my thoughts. So it’s something I plan to start doing after I resolve my bigger issues, “once things get better.”</p>
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SSRIs are based on the same chemical that makes you happy from ecstasy (serotonin), but not on anywhere near the same level. I guess that’s why one is called ecstasy and the other is just called anti-depressant. Keep in mind, I’m not an expert on this :P. I’ve researched them both, but since I’m not a credible source, it will benefit you more to do the research yourself ;).</p>
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I would say I have historically never been a good verbal communicator myself. Obviously, we both have no trouble conveying our messages in written form, and chemical happiness is a temporary solution for me, so I’m going to stick to my low self-confidence/esteem hypothesis :).</p>
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Have you thought about seeing a psychologist? Even if you distrust his/her advice, it could stimulate critical thinking that really does help you. I can’t give you any advice if you’re set on the social skills/intelligence hypothesis ;).</p>
<p>I can tell you about an evil book that I do NOT recommend, called “The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women into Bed.” It isn’t the most scientific book, and it probably inaccurately justifies most of its claims, but it does work. The show “The Pickup Artist” is based off of that book. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though… If you want to turn socializing into a game, where you make calculated moves, and where you think eye contact is a display of dominance, maybe that book is for you. If you want to actually work on maturing into a person who naturally achieves social success, who could care less about dominance and eye contact, avoid the book at all costs, and don’t take advice from anyone who tells you it worked for them. That was a mistake I made that took me months to recover from, just to get back to square one. I brought the book up because one might consider those “social skills,” but they aren’t any skills I want to have…</p>