amanda092913 said 9 years, 3 months ago:

is it bad that I even feel socially awkward on here? like earlier I went on the listening chat and tried to help someone but they seemed to get frustrated and leave..like i wasn’t doing it right or something. That really made me feel like I am a failure. I know logically that something probably happened with the connection or maybe she just had to go or something, but I can’t help but feel like it was something I did or didn’t do. Also I don’t really have many friends and the ones I do have are either socially awkward as well, or they seem to like me, but not really want to hang out with me. I am a very caring person, but I never know what to say and end up having a lot of awkward pauses and end up using my problems as something to talk about which I guess makes people uncomfortable or something. I mean I have so much going on in my life that it always ends up going back to that. I just wish that I could wake up one day with something to talk about that isn’t depressing. I recently got engaged to my fiance and that is something positive to talk about, but I am pretty sure that people are tired of hearing about that so I am left with nothing else to talk about but my problems. I do listen to other people, but when it comes to me, I end up being depressing to people. I just wish that I wasn’t so depressing to people..

rinseandrep said 9 years, 3 months ago:

No, listening is a tricky activity, check the listener’s group, you could dig up some resources shared months ago to get you in the right tempo, but, overall, if you look for gratification, and a sense of a job well done, that’s something that can come out once in ten chats. But if you keep at it, you improve your skills, and get a sense of having done what you could, and if you manage to get someone to thank you, good, while if they disconnect or complain you aren’t satisfying enough, well, amen.