u/Training_Barber4543

So this is my second show, the last one was a few months ago but this one is a huge step forward, going from a 15min set to a 30-40min set. It's a last-minute booking so I only have a week to prepare. The thing is, I can only fill up about 25min with my current releases, one of which is a cover song, and transitions. I need at least one more song in my set to reach 30min, and I have two options:

- play another cover:

=> pros: a broader variety of songs to choose from, predictable response from singing them before, less practice needed

=> cons: less personal / takes away from my branding, exposes a limited catalog

- play the song I've been writing and rewriting for years, that I'm planning to finish and release in a few months:

=> pros: getting actual feedback for the parts I'm unsure about, give people something to look forward to, "exclusive" vibes

=> cons: need to rush an instrumental, more practice needed, audience might hate it, and the final product might be very different - no idea how bad that is

What do you suggest? Any input is appreciated!

I went to open mic nights as a soloist and got a gig with the same organizer, the response was great and they told me to come back whenever. But they only have them occasionally, and no other open call I applied to in the next 10 months has taken me... I live in Paris so there's a lot of opportunities but also a lot of competition. I sing in English and apparently that hurts your chances too.

I've been thinking of cold emailing places that I've seen my mutuals playing at but I'm still a newbie with a few hundred followers scattered across the globe, so I can't promise them an audience... haven't gotten back from the first one I cold emailed. A lot of them also seem to want a date from the get go, but like I live here, the date is whenever you want? Does that sound too desperate and hurt your chances too? Do I have to approach this like a corporate job and boast about my qualities or something before I can have experience?

I'm starting to think maybe I should give up asking other people to take me in and just go busking until I have more local followers...

I tried to post this to r/askpsychology, because the questions and answers in there seemed a lot closer to what I'm looking for (evidence-based answers), but it got auto-removed and told me to come here instead. If there is another sub better suited please let me know.

This is something I have so much trouble understanding, and I can't just brush it off because I keep seeing it and it sets me off every time. I'm pretty sensitive and I also might have moral OCD so bear with me. But I've never wanted to hurt someone's feelings, like genuinely ever. I understand hurting someone accidentally, through carelessness or ignorance. I also understand hurting someone when it's necessary to protect yourself. But I don't understand choosing to hurt them when it doesn't hurt you not to hurt them. These are the most common behaviors that baffle me:

- Minimizing or dismissing someone's feelings. Being told that your behavior is hurting them and not even trying to understand their POV and consider the possibility of a solution, but immediately just not caring.

- Revenge. Of course I've had fantasies of hurting someone who has done me wrong to relieve my frustration. But I've never actually done it. It makes you the offender and the other person a victim, and then they have a valid reason to be unkind to you, so feeling frustrated over it becomes illogical because you caused it yourself. It doesn't fix the issue at all. As a kid I once helped a friend get revenge on someone by ganging up on them and it immediately clicked that we were being stupid.

- Saying things you don't mean in an argument. I have trouble believing that that's possible. Why would they even come up in your mind if you didn't mean them? They might be a more intense version of what you actually think, but they can't just be something you completely disagree with, can they?

My theory is that people who don't face social consequences for hurting others in early childhood become used to doing it and lose the guilt that should come with it by convincing themselves that it's okay and internalizing that idea before they're old enough to question it. The reason for that theory is that I'm an only child who socialized a lot but always closely watched over, and the most pacific people I know are also people who were raised without siblings for a long time or had a respectful relationship with them. But there's also a bunch of people in that category who were unkind from a young age, so it's pretty fragile. I would love a more plausible explanation.