#but!!! im. overcoming my crippling fear of social interaction

[thesassytei]

When will a hot anime boy come sweep me off my peets

[incorrecttobideiquotes]

yo so i just found ur blog and noticed u said sasodeis dont interact do u mind me asking why? im just genuinely confused and curious, dont mean it in a rude way. is it bc of ship wars and stuff?

Main three reasons why:

One, three s*sodeis ruined my life. One of them hurt me to the point where I can no longer speak in public (it has been 8 years and I still have not been able to overcome this crippling fear) and refused to take responsibility, even going to far as to ridicule me for being insecure. Now, I live with social anxiety.

Two, I thought I came up with it. I am pretty attached to T/ObiDei because I thought I was pretty original to have come up with this ship (I sat in my room trying to come up with new couples to ship after having exhausted my enthusiasm for UlquiHime and NaruHina and came to this magical conclusion that men can be together - once this realization came to be, I immediately thought about Tobi and Deidara) and I thought I was the first one. Two seconds later, after having Googled TobiDei, it’s clear that I am not the only one and the existing artwork and fanfic have only enticed me to go further down the rabbit hole. After having exhausted all existing creations, I demanded more so I took it upon myself to create more for them. That was eight years ago - and in three months, it will be nine.

Three, (and yes,) ship wars. There were more s*sodeis than TobiDeis back then. I ran a deviantART ask account and I got a couple of s*sodeis and anti-TobiDeis making fun of me. I didn’t find many people to interact with me because of existing friendships and “relationships.” I took this as a sign that I must squash all these enemies and show them the greatness of TobiDei, which is far superior to any other ship, especially s*sodei*.

This also leads to a fourth, more driving reason for my personal vendetta against the other ship:

I identify with Tobi. A lot. He got me through my darkest years of secondary school and his name literally saved my life. My nickname IRL is still Tobi after all these years.

Over the years, after having shipped him with Deidara for so long, I developed this strange-ass crush on him. So, it turned into me (feeling as though I am, to some extent, Tobi) shipping myself with Deidara. This happened kind of rapidly, I think. It has to be within two years of first shipping T/ObiDei. (Of course, I did feel a sense of belonging with Tobi the moment he appeared on screen.) I didn’t think I liked Deidara that much back then but my belonging with Tobi kind of made most of the interactions between those Sasori DA ask accounts and Deidara DA ask accounts leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

Now, anything relating to s*sodei makes me feel horrible. Like cheating, you know? So, I’d rather not see that in my notifications. I made efforts to filter out the tags but many leave their s*sodeis untagged. There are also accounts that just have the name in their URL, which isn’t a word I like to read often, and it makes me upset. To some degree, if their account is just s*sodei posts (or blatantly said to be just filled with it), I block them. I like to look at the tags (if any) people put on reblogs and if their other posts are interesting, I might stalk them a bit. If I have to scroll through untagged posts, I’d rather I lose a follower/fan than have to hurt myself because I am too curious for my own good.

All in all, it’s just trauma and bad experiences. Nothing concrete but it makes me feel icky so I’d rather not see it. Make me seem like a bad person or whatever, I don’t care (I actually do!!! I’m all sad now if you think I’m horrible. I thought this was Tumblr where all feelings are valid!!), but understand that it just hurts a lot and I don’t like to feel hurt.

*This is extremely untrue and all ships are equal because most of them are fictional and would not come to be. Real ships that have really set-sailed are on another category.

P.S. Yes, I am aware that blocking is an extreme thing to do but it prevents me from being irrationally angry and it prevents them from being harassed by me if I ever lose control, so I’m protecting both myself and them. They’re not really missing out on much. They can live.

[ineedrelationshipadvice]

how do you get the courage to go out there and live life the way you want to? i have a lot of family pressures and am closeted, but my partner is a very adventurous and unapologetically himself and it makes me wish i could be like that too. i want to just go to another country for a long time but my partner tells me that running away wont solve my problems back home. im small and going alone most places is always potentially dangerous but i dont know how to overcome the fear of needed change

Firstly, I can say that your partner is right about running away to another country. Lots of people - myself included - can sometimes feel that if we just run very far away, where nobody knows us and nobody has any influence over us, we can start a whole new life. But the problem with that mentality is that is simply not how it works. Most people's problems are internal, and that means regardless of the geography, your problems are still going to be following you around. You're still going to feel closeted no matter where you are, and those family pressures aren't going anywhere; you're just putting more distance between them, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but thoughts of the way you were raised will always stick with you.

So what do you do? Firstly, courage is either a thing you're born with or a skill you have to learn. I'm a cautious individual; even though I've learned courage, I am generally the sort of person who is very risk-averse; I don't take a risk if it doesn't need to be taken. This means I miss out on a lot of "thrilling" activities, but it also means I miss out on common, every day things. Talking to people is really hard for me with some crippling issues of social anxiety! But dude, I'm an adult, I gotta figure that shit out or I can't survive.

How did I do it then? Honestly, I faked it until I made it. For me, talking to random people was horrifying. My whole body would seize up, I'd stutter like a buffoon, or get super bashful and freak out. But guess what? Most people didn't even notice I was acting that way, and even if they did, most didn't care. Turns out, you're not that important and people don't care about your weirdness most of the time. Once I learned that, it really allowed me to branch out and learn to talk to people. I taught myself, person by person, interaction by interaction, how to speak to people. I fucked up constantly, but that's the point. It's all like riding a bike: you WILL fall down and skin your knee. But if you go in with that mentality that this is going to hurt, but you'll eventually be able to ride your bike, JUST DO IT. Because the goal isn't the skinned knees; the goal is the bike, and riding it.

Your situation is likely different from mine, so your path to learning "courage" and dealing with your parent's baggage is going to take a different form and route from me. We're all individual. But like you described, your partner is "unapologetic" about his adventurousness. He does what he wants, and he doesn't care about the criticism. That doesn't mean he never receives criticism; he just doesn't take it to heart. That's the same sort of thing you're going to have to learn by experimenting and doing.

Start small, whatever you do. Let's use your examples of travel: you really want to travel somewhere, because that sparks your sense of adventure. But you're not stupid, because you're right, depending on where you travel, you might put yourself in danger just because of your physicality. That's okay, baby steps. First, travel with someone! Ideally your partner. Go on a trip with him, and just say, "show me how you travel." Then just watch! Paying attention to the way he treats himself, his tips and tricks, and his strategies that he operates under while traveling can help you see some potential mistakes you might make on your own journeys.

Once you feel comfortable doing that a few times, then you can consider trying it yourself! Do your own research. Pick safe places, in safe regions, to start off. Don't go to Venezuela to protest against Nicolas Maduro on your first try; try somewhere simple. I remember my first journeys away from home without family were down to the capital of my state, and then to a really big city. After about five times, I learned enough oopsies to know what not to do again (aka, do NOT go to the west side of Chicago).

Having these experiences, first slowly, and then building on top of them, will slowly build your confidence. Because that's all courage is: confidence to do things, and the inner strength to handle what's thrown at you. Again, I don't know your individual family issues, and what makes you closeted. But I can almost promise you that MOST PEOPLE are just like you, and we all need to learn how to function on our own eventually. But it's not a race; don't compare yourself to someone who already has it all figured out like your partner. He learned too, on his own, and now you have to learn, on your own! But hey, bonus points if you get some help along the way.