This is something I absolutely would not feel comfortable doing unless I was warmly encouraged to join in, that's how I've been turned into a social outcast in my youth. I know some people who for a fact feel the same way.

Maybe one solution is therapy, to help massage them out of their shell, to help them learn to be vulnerable and unafraid and friendly. But many of them refuse to go to therapy for whatever reason also.

These are things I will be running into as I try to resolve this. I have already encountered a young man named Daniel who remembered me, and told me that he was hospitalized, and that the thought of me and my sign helped him get through it. I'm dealing with people on all spectrums of mental health.

In fact, maybe that's kind of the point. I'm trying to reach out to people who refuse to go to therapy, who have internal thoughts berating them all day long, and I have the unique opportunity of helping them through the darkness and into the light of the truth, that they are valuable and lovable, if only people saw the true them, and trusted them to become that.

I am affected by extreme conscientiousness and would be described as a social outcast in my current state I'm sure.

I've always had a decent social network through proximity alone (neighborhood, education, etc.) and in this comfort, built a harsh prejudice against outgoing behavior. I'm not even sure why I held this perspective so deeply for so long, but I reviled the thought of intruding on others and only warranted intrusion on those I judged willful intruders. Most of my relationships are sufficiently available, but not very deep given my refusal to assert vulnerably (including against others vulnerabilities).

I was lucky to find Dostoevsky, Camus, and Hesse notably, which helped break some of my absurd dispositions. However, my entire social network was still rotten on a basis of inauthentic connection and intellectualizing this can only go so far. You must live the perspective and it is hard and vulnerable.

Thank you for these words, I find your mission deeply humane and I strive to live through a similar spirit.

Yep. I grew up in the era of ‘stranger danger’. We were explicitly taught as kids to fear strangers and socialising. We were taught “don’t be rude and butt in to conversations uninvited”, etc.

Still, something else is off. In the 90s, the Internet was a way to expand your social circle. So many friends made on IRC groups that moved into real life.

Nowadays yeah, commenting on Reddit and chatting to friends in message groups does feel like socialising, even though you might go two weeks without seeing anyone other than coworkers, cashiers (maybe) and Uber Eats delivery drivers.

> This is something I absolutely would not feel comfortable doing

Part of it I think is to endure the uncomfortable for a bit.

I felt really uncomfortable in social settings, and still do sometimes. But I forced myself to ignore those feelings. Now I'm at a point that if people think I'm weird or whatever then that's their problem.

I try not to be rude, be considerate and such thing, I'm not totally unhinged. But I am much more relaxed about just being me. Sometimes it doesn't work, but often it's all good.