Falcon
Well-known member
I made a post a while back about excessive negativity on the forum and received several PMs about it. After some contemplation, I come to you with this suggestion.
I think this forum is good for those looking for empathy (a very important part of the healing process is to know that others understand and experience similar problems). However I think the negativity on the forum is detrimental to those trying to solve their SP. I think the negativity is because a lot of us here lack self-confidence and emphasize self-pity. That's fine, and it can even be healthy to express these views.
However, it's not going to help us solve our SP.
I propose a new forum, called "Functional Help". It would,
* Be a place where "less shy" people go for aid in social situations. By "less shy" I mean people who can leave the house, hold a conversation, but are just really shy and anxious and maybe have few friends. I think people who are "more shy" frequently need different kinds of help that may include medication or therapy. "Less shy" people can often make progress with specific suggestions - they simply haven't learned to interact socially.
* Be a place that is aggressively moderated to edit negative or pitying replies. If someone desires this kind of empathy, they can post in the main forum. You can make me a mod of this forum if you're so inclined, or you could just moderate this forum differently or more aggressively.
* Be a place where specific "missions" and "schools" can be conducted to get people socializing off of the internet and in real life. For instance, maybe people sign up in a thread to start a conversation with 3 strangers this week. They could then reply and help each other out with progress reports and such.
* Be a place to exchange strategies on dealing with people and specific social situations. It could even be a place to exchange popular topics of conversation. "Where you're from" and "What you do" always come up when you're first meeting people, for instance. We can teach each other to have cool and interesting replies to questions such as this.
Again, I think this would need to be done in a new forum, because the attitude would be different. As I said I have nothing against this forum in fact it has helped me greatly. However, while I found a lot of sympathy and empathic people here, I did not find much functional help - I had to read and develop ways to help myself. I hope others can have better resources.
To be clear, I have made a lot of progress in my SP, but I have some way to go still.
Thank you for your consideration!!
I think this forum is good for those looking for empathy (a very important part of the healing process is to know that others understand and experience similar problems). However I think the negativity on the forum is detrimental to those trying to solve their SP. I think the negativity is because a lot of us here lack self-confidence and emphasize self-pity. That's fine, and it can even be healthy to express these views.
However, it's not going to help us solve our SP.
I propose a new forum, called "Functional Help". It would,
* Be a place where "less shy" people go for aid in social situations. By "less shy" I mean people who can leave the house, hold a conversation, but are just really shy and anxious and maybe have few friends. I think people who are "more shy" frequently need different kinds of help that may include medication or therapy. "Less shy" people can often make progress with specific suggestions - they simply haven't learned to interact socially.
* Be a place that is aggressively moderated to edit negative or pitying replies. If someone desires this kind of empathy, they can post in the main forum. You can make me a mod of this forum if you're so inclined, or you could just moderate this forum differently or more aggressively.
* Be a place where specific "missions" and "schools" can be conducted to get people socializing off of the internet and in real life. For instance, maybe people sign up in a thread to start a conversation with 3 strangers this week. They could then reply and help each other out with progress reports and such.
* Be a place to exchange strategies on dealing with people and specific social situations. It could even be a place to exchange popular topics of conversation. "Where you're from" and "What you do" always come up when you're first meeting people, for instance. We can teach each other to have cool and interesting replies to questions such as this.
Again, I think this would need to be done in a new forum, because the attitude would be different. As I said I have nothing against this forum in fact it has helped me greatly. However, while I found a lot of sympathy and empathic people here, I did not find much functional help - I had to read and develop ways to help myself. I hope others can have better resources.
To be clear, I have made a lot of progress in my SP, but I have some way to go still.
Thank you for your consideration!!
