[Foggy]

Hey, thanks everyone for your responses... this is a great community, it's awesome that people here are so willing to dedicate their time to helping others and here I am obsessing over myself.

You're having trouble being funny because you're afraid you aren't. I have an experiment for you. Every time you are in a situation where you find yourself trying to force yourself to be funny, let them win. You're trying to use humor as a way to win at something, to be better than something or somebody, even if it's just yourself. Identify who you're trying to be better than, and let them win. Allow them their victory, and stop playing the game of trying to be more hilarious than they are. This won't make you more funny, but it will make you more relaxed because you don't have to try to meet some goal of humor all the time.

I was confused by this at first, but it's definitely relevant advice. Actually, I've already been doing this to a certain extent (not forcing myself to try and be funny)... that's what makes it so hard to develop humor. If you want to get stronger you develop a workout routine. If you want to become funnier, you can't do it by forcing yourself to be funny for a while everyday. Relaxing would be easier as long as I was confident that developing humor is possible and that I was making progress.

In your OP I noticed two things that came up over and over: You pretend a lot and you compare yourself to others a lot. Both of these are ways in which you self-sabotage.

First, don't pretend; just DON'T do it. Be yourself. If you don't know who that is, check this out.

What is The Work of Byron Katie?


Second, stop comparing yourself to others. There is always -- and I really mean ALWAYS -- somebody funnier, smarter, savvier, better looking, skinnier, shapelier, stronger, et cetera than you are. Embrace everyone around you for who they are.... and most importantly embrace yourself for who you are.

Learn to listen. Don't worry about what you're going to say next or what everybody is going to think after you say whatever you're going to say next. Do you see what you're doing when you do this? You're projecting several exchanges into the conversation and deciding way ahead of time that you're going to bomb and everybody is going to look down on you. Don't do it. Just flow with the conversation and most importantly, really listen, really absorb what the other person is saying and respond to that with genuine sincerity.

I don't know how much I pretend; maybe it's more apparent to others than to me. At the moment I think I know who I am, but maybe not? I'll check out that website sometime.

I love listening to people; I actually would rather listen to other peoples stories in conversations than tell my own, which I think is partly because I'm not confident in my own ability to be interesting. I'm not actually very good at turning around what people say and adding my own input though. Most of the time I'll think for a second and be like "I know what you mean" or whatever but no have anything to contribute. I'm the kind of person who if I'm not careful, I'll end up using the same words and phrases over and over again throughout an essay and in the same way I've developed a few ways to respond in conversation that I use repetitively. I understand the idea of not predetermining that I'm going to look stupid in a conversation and being genuine, but if I do that I also feel like I'm practicing being boring.

Reality is ruining your life? Well at least you're not being ruined by the Wizard of Oz in the 104th dimension. That's where it gets REALLY complicated.

That would certainly be a more interesting problem to try and work through though.

You are focusing on a lot of negative about yourself. A rule of thumb is "you are what you say you are." If these are your dominant beliefs then this is the reality you are creating.

You sound like you have a high awareness of self, everyone lies. There was a study and it was found that the average person lies about three times every ten minutes.

A good first step for you is to stop trying to impress everyone and just be yourself. Become your own best friend, once you do that and start to look at all your quirks as something wonderful you will attract people to you that will love you for you. Then you could be yourself.

You acknowledge the lies and the manipulation, now just stop lying about things, make it only your truth that leaves your lips. Then you could focus on a relationship where the person will fall in love for who you are.

Unconditional love does exist, do not compromise who you are and do not allow someone to compromise who they are for you. Do not expect things from them and just love them for who they are and do things for them without expecting any type of reaction.

The problem with majority of relationships is that we enter them lying to ourself and others and will jump through hoops to keep that person around. You end up doing things that are not in line with yourself and eventually resent that person when they do not meet your needs.

Go in with full honesty;a good example:

You say "I love you."

what you should say is "I am saying I love you, because I need to hear you say I love you back to me, because I need someone to show me love because I just can't love myself."

Just be honest with yourself, love yourself for the unique person you are. No one out there could be a better you than you. Stop trying to meet the worlds expectations of normal, there is no such thing... just be you.

You are perfect, you are amazing, you are great.

I'm actually a very honest person... except with girls, and then it's more manipulation, like what you were saying only to a greater extreme. I actually don't see anything wrong with being a bit manipulative in a relationship on a flirtatious level to create attraction, but what I'm doing is laced with a desire to protect my ego. Self love is conditional as well I'd say; people make it sound so easy, like suddenly you can accept yourself without having any external reinforcers, but I think at a certain point it's impossible to fully accept yourself until you start creating positive results around you through whatever whether it be noticeable self improvement, successful career, etc.