u/shade_blade

I don't have any idea for what I would do to get friends nowadays? I can't really find much in the way of meetups and those are usually once a week and usually too far or at the wrong time for me to go to them too. I don't think something like that is going to go anywhere? High school clubs and stuff like that were also once a week but it always felt like when I wasn't there nobody ever cared that I wasn't there and nothing ever happened where they want to have anything to do with me outside of that very specific 1 or 2 hour period per week.

I don't know where I would go outside of meetups either, there's basically nothing in the way of places where people want random strangers talking to them so trying to get anywhere with them is impossible.

I've read somewhere that people only care about what value you have to them, but I have no value to other people at all? I'm not funny and don't have productive things to say, I'm not uplifting, insightful, interesting or any other possible positive quality a person could have and so there is just no reason for people to interact with me at all and I have no idea how to fix that? I've also heard that I actually have to be an above average person or else they will just immediately cut me out for that average person instead always?

I know the likely problem is that I have bad interests but I don't know how to force myself to like better and more interesting things? I don't think fake enthusiasm for other people's interests is going to go anywhere but if they're talking about something I'm not interested in then I have nothing to say to them? It's not really productive to just agree with them or repeat things they say but I don't really have any insightful opinions to talk about either, especially if they're talking about something I don't care about. It's probably a sign of extreme selfishness that I don't care but I don't know how to force myself to have those emotions to care about everything?

I have this vague feeling of wanting to make something, but it's just too hard to even do one tiny thing nowadays because everything feels like a waste of time. I feel like the big thing demotivating me is the discouragement I've gotten in the past for posting bad art?

I worked on the project I had for about a year before stopping completely as I just completely stopped improving at all. At an earlier point there was some motivation from making progress and the naive hope that people would care, but in reality it wasn't real progress because people didn't really care for very long if at all? And it also came with a lot of discouragement from people telling me to stop posting and give up and don't come back until I've made something good somehow. I don't know how I would be happy with making things that nobody likes and has no chance of getting better?

I feel like all my attempts were going nowhere because everything is always wrong? No matter what I would probably have to be doing several years of nonstop art to even make one small improvement and all the while I would be getting people calling me an idiot and terrible person for shoving slop down their throats and not actually taking the time to improve at all. But there's also the likely possibility that I spend that time and literally go nowhere at all and things only get worse in terms of people telling me how stupid I am for not improving in so long?

I don't know how I would push past this idea at all when everything in my experience just strengthens it even more? I can't really get motivated to write down another potential writing detail or try another character design idea because I know it's just useless and bad and wasting my time if I'm not doing it actually better and actually moving towards the real goal of making something people care about? It's completely pointless to make something only I care about because it might as well not exist, just like all the other random projects and things I made that fade into nothingness and nobody knows about them. They don't teach me anything, they don't bring me any happiness now that I know how pointless they all are and how much of my valuable time was lost with them.

I've tried to stop doing useless things in general, mostly stopped playing video games because they are not useful, but it kind of feels like I have nothing actually useful to do that isn't just going to work and going home and stuff like that. Looking at tutorials and such is not useful because they are all saying the same things and I don't really understand them well enough to implement what they're saying, trying more stuff isn't useful because everything I do is just completely terrible with no redeeming qualities and no improvement, even if I try to implement something from some tutorial or something from studying other art, it just doesn't work at all?

I've looked at meetups but there really isn't much that isn't far away? I don't want to go to bars since I don't want to drink, I also don't really want to go a gym since I have no interest in physical activity? But I don't really know where I could really go to meet people with interests similar to mine?

Maybe the problem is just that I have the wrong interests and need to get better ones? But I don't really know how to do that either, like I don't really know how to force myself to like sports and other things? I don't think I can really fake interest at all either, if I don't know more than basic stuff or ask more than basic questions then it's pretty obvious that I don't really care about whatever thing they're talking about. I don't really know how I would push myself into one of these circles since I don't have insightful things to say more than what they are already talking about so they wouldn't want me around anyway?

Another thing is the frequency of things, I feel like I should be around people for more than a few hours once a week, that's about the frequency of when I was in high school clubs but I feel like part of why they never went anywhere in terms of me making friends was that I wasn't really getting involved enough?

I also feel like I've never really had any close connections in any of the groups I've been in in high school or college, it kind of felt like when I'm not there they wouldn't think about me for even a moment, so I have to be going above and beyond somehow to get people who care? But I feel like if I'm the one asking personal questions or offering to do things for people then I'm just going to come off as really creepy and intrusive no matter what so I don't really know what to do there either.

I kind of feel stuck in a bad place but the things I need to do to have a way out of it feels too big of a task to do? I have a job but it's not really something that will make people think of me as an accomplished person or care about anything I do

I kind of feel like the problem is that what I want is just so big a task that it's easier to not do any of it? They feel completely irreducible, like I can't go out and meet people for 5 minutes because it takes longer than that to get somewhere that people interact with each other. I also shouldn't be talking with people I don't have anything they like to talk about which basically limits me to probably only going to some random meetups far away and even then those groups are probably pretty insular and wouldn't want some random guy intruding on them? I probably need to abandon all my old interests and pick up things that people actually care about like sports and working out but I just have zero interest at all in those and don't really have motivation or discipline to do them?

Another thing I've wanted to do is game dev but I haven't done anything in that regard for a while now because it also feels impossible to make even a tiny improvement in art? I can't expect anyone to care unless the art is actually good but I can't even make something even a tiny bit better anymore, and I can't expect people to help so I somehow have to understand it all on my own but I don't understand.

The common thing I see between these two things is that I can't just do them because then I'll do them wrong and make things worse on myself. If I mess up a social interaction they will think I'm awkward or a creep and then their opinion of me is permanently reduced. If I make bad art then I've wasted my time on something worthless and if I post it then I will rightfully get a lot of flak for not making it actually good. I don't really see practicing or trying and failing actually achieving anything positive before I end up at some point of no return with how bad things are

I've tried to cut back on things that won't help me but it's been hard since I have literally nothing else? So I've tried not to play video games so much, tried to stop adding on to ideas that never will turn into anything real or have nothing to do with the big important things I need to be doing, but it feels like I stop doing one unproductive thing and start doing another? It's been hard to stop doing unproductive things because of this.

I kind of feel like I come up with too many reasons not to do things or why advice I've been given doesn't work? I can't make bad art or fail at talking to people because there are actual consequences for doing things wrong that can only be avoided by doing things correctly. I know I'm not good enough because good enough art receives more support than just some randoms saying "it's good" and then not sticking around? I've already posted enough bad art to receive negative consequences because of it (people angry at me for spamming bad art and not improving enough)

(Not sure if this is the right place to post)

I feel like I'm stuck in a dead end in my life and need to go out and make changes but it's feeling hard to be motivated to do any of it? I feel like the problem is probably me being lazy and closed minded but I don't really know how to fix it?

It feels like any thing that I need to do or I should do there's always so many reasons not to do it? I feel like if I ever want any friends I have to force myself to go outside and do things I have no interest in, but there's always so many more reasons not to go than reasons to go? (Group doesn't like newcomers, group is too far away to travel, I have nothing positive to contribute to any conversation...). I don't really think "just go and see what happens" makes sense, it feels like going and things not going well is worse than not going, permanently reducing my reputation with various people by being awkward or not having anything to contribute is worse than being a complete unknown to them

I've basically abandoned game dev as a hobby since it got to a point where I was not improving at all and if I don't get better then there's just no point in keeping going. I don't see how I would have fulfillment creating something if most people hate it and nobody really likes it and it doesn't even look good to me and just doesn't work. It kind of goes back to trying and failing being worse than doing nothing because a lot of my failures are very visible to see and it definitely has been a negative to my reputation because I've seen people who were more harsh on me due to seeing me fail over and over and calling me stupid for trying to make something work when I can't ever make it work.

It feels hard to do anything substantial and goes anywhere nowadays (i.e. isn't just going to work, watching videos and playing video games). Even posting more stupid posts like this is kind of hard for me since it always feels like I can probably think of something to revise or think of how people won't help me because all I keep doing is posting posts like this and basically ignoring every reply. Maybe it's too late for me at this point? I feel like I'm always coming up with reasons not to do things I should be doing and I don't know how I would get out of it?

I feel like I should be going out and finding new interests to meet people and get friends? But it's feeling very hard to motivate myself to get out and do stuff because it feels like there's more and stronger reasons not to go and not to try things? Like most meetup groups I see are very far away and might be unwelcoming? I also feel like I have nothing really to say to people that will improve their lives usually, compliments and questions don't seem like they will do anything since compliments are things they already know about and questions I ask are probably very basic things that don't really mean anything.

I feel like I probably need better interests since the things I spend all my time on are not things that involve others or I'm not good enough to get people to care, I'm trying to cut back on all my hobbies but there's nothing to fill that time with so I feel like my time is just going to get filled by them again? I don't really have motivation to try things that aren't almost guaranteed to be fulfilling to me and outweigh the negatives, but hobbies where people make friends in are not the ones I already have? Like I have never liked physical activity at all at any point in my life so I don't want to go to the gym or join sports?

I haven't gone out and done anything that wasn't necessary (e.g. go to work, buy groceries) for a long while now. Obviously I'm not going to meet anyone that way so I need to become not lazy somehow? I feel like I'm very unmotivated and closed minded in general, if there isn't a definite good reason to do something new then I just don't do it? Maybe I need something that will push me to do something unfulfilling and that will somehow help me in the long term? Or I'm supposed to somehow force myself to become fulfilled by something that I'd normally see nothing fulfilling in?

I kind of feel like I just always gravitate towards being completely selfish? If I don't want to do something then I don't do it, but I hear that people often do things that make them unhappy to make someone else happy and they become happy somehow anyway? Like someone may hate doing physical activity but a friend likes it so they get into it anyway. However, I don't have the desire to do that at all? On the other hand I can't really expect people to care about my interests unless I care about their interests first?

I have no inherent curiosity or interest in other people, I don't really see a point in asking about their interests or why they do like what they do, it doesn't really mean anything to me?. But even if I did have some interest I have nothing to say because any comment I make is not useful information and any question I could ask is probably stupid and obvious too. I've heard somewhere that you have to be an above average person to be a part of a group or else you are bringing everyone down and will get pushed out. I think that kind of matches how I try not to say anything that isn't a below average comment or question since those only count against me, but that kind of means I barely say anything at all.

I don't really know how to force myself to have genuine interest in people? I've heard that faking interest doesn't really work but I have to be interested genuinely for people to care about me? I can't expect people to care about anything I do if I don't care about them even harder? I don't have anything to say to them that relates to their interests because I'm not in their interests so I can't give any actually valuable insights or questions, I would just be saying very surface level useless things or very uninformed wrong opinions.

Maybe the problem is that I just have had selfish hobbies? I guess creative stuff in general is pretty selfish since it's pretty much all "look at me" stuff to try to get people's attention, except I've basically failed at making anything good enough to get anything more than a few people's attention for a few moments, which is probably what I should expect since I'm not catering to their desires well enough. I don't really have a desire to seek out and support random other people's things so maybe getting nothing is what I deserve? Now I'm kind of trying to snuff out my desires to be creative since it's selfish and hypocritical to want people to help me but me not help anyone else as much at all but it keeps kind of creeping back in whenever I have an idea for something and it isn't really making me more motivated to try out things that people actually care about

I just don't care about other people pretty much at all? Like a normal person sees someone doing something and gets interested in it but if it isn't something inside my narrow interests then I don't care even a little bit. I don't really know how to force myself to care or how to find people who care about my interests, but that seems to be what is required to get anyone to care about me, I have to be the one who makes the bigger effort and do more, so I can't expect other people to be interested in things I'm interested in, I have to make myself interested somehow and stop being interested in things other people don't care about.

At the same time talking to people usually doesn't seem like a good idea because I don't really have much to say that isn't something they've already heard or something they don't care about or it's something stupid or unfunny. "If you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything" kind of means I never say anything because it isn't something that people want to hear about. It also feels like trying to join in any conversation feels like me intruding where I don't belong and me suggesting anything is me trying to make everything about myself and trying to pull whatever thing they're talking about into my vision of it instead of other people's visions of it. I also feel like I can't really critique people since I can't do better myself so how would my opinion possibly be correct?

I feel like I disagree too much with things other people say or tell me to do? I often see some kind of problem with what they want and talk about them, but that usually doesn't go very well and so it probably means I'm in the wrong? I can't usually ignore what the problem is, but am I supposed to do that anyway? Like I shouldn't be emailing a professor about losing 15% of my class grade for a mistake and I should've just dealt with the low grade anyway?

Even when things resolve in my favor it still feels like a negative result? But I don't really know how to be happy with things not going the way I want and dealing with the problems with whatever that resolution is? I also can't really agree in the moment and ignore them later, because the disagreement is usually either something they need to do or not do that affects me somehow or if its something they want me to do they will see me not doing it and get more mad later

I don't really voice agreement very much either because its not very useful to talk about, it doesn't tell them anything new or add to the conversation at all, I'm not supposed to be saying things people already said since its wasting time.

I also think another problem is that my interests are not other people's interests, I have to become interested in things other people are interested in but I don't really know how to force myself into that? I legitimately don't care about most things, there just is nothing that I care about in sports, music, tv shows, movies and various other things other people are interested in, there's just nothing for me to talk about or add there.

I've gone in circles for a long time trying to make appealing characters that will get a lot of attention, but I don't really understand how I would do that at all still.

I look at posts in other places and I can't really tell why some character design posts get a ton of attention while others don't? Sure it's sometimes obvious why some designs are bad but I can't usually tell between a mediocre design that gets only a few people interested and an amazing design that gets hundreds of upvotes, like I've seen popular posts with less elaborate designs than failed posts, I can't tell why some failed posts are bad designs at all.

Tutorials and such repeatedly hammer home the idea that it has to be instantly appealing and recognizable and unforgettable and nothing can save a design that doesn't do all those things (all those successful "bad art" designs still always hit this perfectly, I've seen zero examples of a successful thing with absolutely no appeal at all)

I've also tried making a bunch of random variations but every single thing I try just feels like a massive downgrade. I tried to give them exaggerated clothing and it looked stupid, I tried to give them smaller heads and that looked stupid, I tried to wildly exaggerate their silhouettes but their clothing looked really stupid, I removed most of the detail on their legs because something I've seen said that all the detail should be concentrated on the upper body, but that just looked dumb too, so its like everything I do is always the wrong answer.

I don't see how random practice is supposed to help me? I feel like I'm only getting faster at being completely wrong instead of actually getting better. All the things I've tried recently just look equally bad or worse. There have to be ways to make a good character but I don't think I can possibly find them by blind stumbling.

I don't know how I would get instant appeal partially because I've never even seen it work on me at all. Not once in my life have I seen advertising and then immediately went out to buy the thing. I don't find any elevator pitches more interesting than "slightly interesting". But "slightly interesting" is not "very interesting" so it doesn't work at all.

I've heard people say "ideas are useless, execution is all that matters". But to me execution is just a giant cluster of good ideas that you have to have together. It still also goes back to needing instant appeal because people's attention spans are very short nowadays. (Mainly in the sense that people see things that are instantly good so they don't want to spend any time looking at anything that takes any amount of time to be good). So I basically have to have a character where it's instantly obvious why I did everything and what their backstory is and why that is very interesting and not cliche or unoriginal at all.

I feel like I have to change my personality and interests to have any chance of anyone caring about me at all? I think I have a bad personality because I never know the right thing to say. It feels like whenever I say anything the conversation grinds to a screeching halt so I don't say anything. I don't have much to say because it would be wasting time to talk about something they already know but the things I care about are also things basically nobody else cares about so I can't talk about that either.

I kind of have very narrow interests (very specific games), so when other people are talking about things it's pretty much never something that I care about or can have any actually insightful input on. But at the same time I don't know how to force myself to become interested in more mainstream things? I probably can't expect people to care about anything I do if I don't care about things other people do so I probably have to change my interests instead of expecting people to be interested in things I'm interested in normally?

I kind of feel like I've slipped out of every possible social group I've been in and never made "real friends" (the kind that would care when I'm not at whatever event or club that we're in). I know it's my fault and I'm supposed to know exactly how to make friends but I just don't know. But "I don't know" is just an excuse and I should act like I know the answer anyway?? That doesn't make any sense to me because a wrong answer is a wrong answer and believing otherwise is not going to change that or make people give me any leeway for saying the wrong things

I also feel like my opportunities are really limited nowadays, there aren't a lot of places where people want to talk to random strangers. I don't want to go out to a bar since I don't want to drink alcohol or interact with drunk people?

I feel like tutorials and stuff just kind of go in one ear and out the other? I can talk about triadic color schemes and shape theory and how this random detail in this one character shows how and whatever but not really apply it to make a good character. I have been stuck on making appealing characters and coming up with amazing details that obviously convey their story for a long time. I've also tried to look into writing the story and writing compelling characters but it's the exact same problem where I don't know specifically how to make a good thing so I can't do anything. Even if I make a change it feels like it's just more of the same stuff and just equally bad

Practicing is doing nothing since it's always equally bad and it's teaching me nothing. Making a bunch of random designs has taught me nothing about what is a good character detail and how to make color choices that aren't garish, so it hasn't helped me make the characters I have actually better (and I know they are not good enough because people tell me they are not good enough and good enough characters get more than a small handful of people interested in them while the characters I have now obviously don't)

I've tried posting on some art subs but that hasn't really gone anywhere (got very little response or got instantly removed), and posting stuff in general is not something I'm supposed to do because it doesn't look good enough? I've gotten a lot of flak in the past for posting bad art and not improving so I don't know where to go?

I cannot proceed with bad art because it just isn't going to work. I feel like the games that succeed with "bad art" are all just good art in a weird style and the idea of "you don't need good art" only serves to create a lot of false confidence in game developers? (i.e. the classic "my game failed due to marketing" but 99% of the time when you look at the game it doesn't have good art which is the more obvious reason it failed)

I feel like I'm in an infinite cycle of asking the same questions and getting the same answers but not following them because there's problems that may or may not be real but I can't tell what problems are real anymore. I can't just ignore the problems because I can't just conjure up a million dollars to pay people like what some people tell me to do? I know this is probably the real problem but I don't know how to fix it either, I don't know how to brainwash myself into not seeing these problems and somehow not suffering the consequences of ignoring them? I can't force or convince people to not see these problems, that is not a thing that can be done. So I have to solve them or the things I make have obvious flaws that make them terrible

I'm basically a useless npc you walk past and never see again. Nobody out there ever wants me there over anyone else, anything I say basically stops the conversation dead so I don't say anything. "If you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all" as they say. (nothing "nice" as in nothing that's not a rehash of something someone else said and pointless or something that isn't just stupid or unfunny)

It feels like I'm pretty much a failure of a human being at this point. Sure I have a job but that's like the bare minimum to not become homeless. I'm not really good at anything that people actually wants to see. Programming is pretty much a useless skill for this and I'm pretty terrible at everything else. Can't write, can't make art, can't make music, can't do anything that people will see and actually get invested in for more than 5 seconds before leaving forever. I want to do game dev but I'm just so bad at it that literally nobody out there is invested in me enough to want me to succeed while there's plenty of people out there who want me to shut up forever so they never have to see my stupid worthless slop again.

I can't be proud of what I make if nobody else likes it, that is the pinnacle of egotism and narcissism. I have to put other people's opinions ahead of mine, the worst responses were always when I said "I don't think you're right". Disagreements never go my way so I'm always in the wrong for disagreeing or speaking up. Therefore the opposite opinion is the only correct one to follow, obviously it's better to make something other people like than something I like, but I don't really know what that is specifically enough to make it? People only want to see AMAZING art when anything I make is worse than things literal children can make.

I've pretty much burned all my bridges for getting better, there's nowhere I can post bad stuff that will get useful responses instead of lukewarm but unhelpful responses or stuff on the same level as "shut up you useless moron, stop filling this space with useless garbage slop that an AI could make better in seconds." Nobody wants to see bad art ever so I shouldn't be subjecting people to bad art I make, I have to somehow figure out everything myself but I don't know how?

I try to look at art tutorials but it all doesn't really make enough sense for me to work with? I try to incorporate things but it's still like unbaked ingredients instead of a delicious cake. Somehow I'm just missing the spark of talent that bring everything together? I'm basically a defective AI that can listen and approximate a correct response, but it's always wrong in some major way that makes it worthless garbage. Trying to make more stuff never works because everything is equally garbage and there is zero real improvement in any way.

I don't have money to get anyone to help because it's just so bad. Actual professionals of any kind cost $100k+ per year to work on any game which is not even money I have in my salary. I don't even really have the time or money to really talk to a therapist or whoever, I can't really get anywhere before 8 pm on any weekday because of work and so any therapist with hours like that are super expensive and if I'm paying $800-1000+ for that I don't have any money to pay to get my actual game dev stuff completed

I can't go out and get friends because like where would I go, what would I even say that would make them immediately think I'm a likeable person and not some creep loser with no redeeming qualities?

I'm having problems looking for someone to commission a story / character outline for, is this not something that can be commissioned? I have an outline for story and characters but it is very bad so I can't just give to someone to follow perfectly? I don't want to post it here because it is bad and very long. It definitely needs a lot of reworking and changing and there's only insignificant details that are things I don't want to change (its in an elemental world and there's some general worldbuilding stuff that shouldn't be changed and the main characters are two rabbit siblings with certain personalities and some basic backstory stuff, but there's so many contrived nonsense details I need someone to fix)

What I'm looking for is a few thousand words (~5000-10000 words because that is the word count of the notes I have) of an outline of important plot events and character details and events

I also don't have more than a few thousands of dollars for this, so that might be another thing making this impossible, I just don't have more than like $1500-$2000 for this (but I don't really want to pay 1000 and then get nothing so I don't really want to pay so much up front). But pretty much any form of professional work requires that level of pay even for just a few days of work

I've heard that commissions are only for things you know every single detail perfectly but this isn't something I can do that for? I have to be 100% sure of my outline and the people I hire will not help in any way to change it in any way? I can't give them the bad outline because a badly structured story can't possibly be good no matter how good rest of the writing is. I know for a fact that the outline I have right now will not make a good story which is why I just want to find someone to make it better.

The big thing keeping me from working on anything is the ever pervasive idea of "Nobody will ever play this, no amount of polish will make this good enough for even one person to give a single penny to it". I feel like any effort on something nobody will care about is pointless, like the world would be the exact same without it (or even better off that I'm not polluting the world with more slop). I've heard somewhere that if you make a game for yourself then you have failed to make a game so I can't do that

It feels like the negative or nonexistent responses always significantly outweigh any positive attention I've ever gotten for any game I've made. On one hand there's a small handful of people saying "its good" while the other side has people telling me that nothing I could possibly do can make this a good game, people willing to find my discord specifically to write several pages detailing how bad all of my decisions were, people telling me that showing my game is actively depressing people. Even with a very small amount of people saying positive things more than "it's good" none of them really stick around and it also still feels like a majority is against me and I have to listen? Maybe it's not right for me to keep trying to make something if it makes more people feel more negative than anything positive?

This kind of feeling stops me from doing anything. Maybe I think of one new character detail but I don't know how good it is, just that it isn't going to fix the problems and therefore it's worthless. I know what would happen if I posted it for anyone to see, which is nothing good (if I show people something I know has problems that is wasting their time because I should only ever show people something once I see no more problems). Paying for help is also pretty much blocked off because commissioning for character design and story improvement is not really a thing? (Commissioning people is very much an exact instructions with zero room for interpretation kind of thing?) I also don't have the kind of money required to get someone to make a hundred different variations of a character or slowly iterate through designs, I simply don't have that money? (Am I supposed to be taking out 5 figure loans to make a game good???)

I feel like I have to be making something good or else I have no value as a person, like there is nothing significant I've accomplished that anyone else cares about. So I can't be happy with a bad game nobody will ever play, I have to only make good games and not make bad games. I've read somewhere that results are the only thing that matters, nobody cares about effort or cost or time invested, a bad game is worthless no matter what