[I’m always focused on the wrong things in life.]

I’ve been focusing on the wrong things all the time in my life. I’m always worried about having fun, gaming, and friends. I’m 20 now and I literally missed college classes due to this. As soon as classes were about to start, I realized that I never got my financial aid or I never payed for them. But now it’s too late. The classes have waitlists and they have just begun. I’ve had fun all my life and now I can’t focus on doing things to keep me busy. Even my job, I’m barely focusing there and I’ve been on training for a while now. I keep worrying about not having friends or anyone to talk to which makes it hard to focus on work and school. Even my mom is getting tired of this. She’s been feeling upset and emotional because it really makes her sad to see me this way, and I don’t blame her. I can’t take this anymore either. What should I do to stop worrying about gaming, not having friends, and having fun, and start focusing on things that will benefit me in my life?

[I relapsed a while ago but I am quitting once again.]

So I decided to quit gaming a few weeks ago and I did. But I failed recently by watching gameplay videos and then went back to playing games. I've been feeling like a failure in life, hopeless, depressed, lonely, doubtful and bored all the time. I always feel like all my friends are fake due to my overthinking and always assuming the worst. I'm 19 years old with mild high functioning autism. I also spend so much time on social media which makes me more negative. I feel like I know nothing in life due to me gaming and being on social media. I can't talk to anyone properly due to my poor social skills like I almost have zero friends. This all started when I was only 2 years old. What are some good new activities I should try everyday? I feel that I do the same things all day everyday.

[I spent my whole life playing videogames and using my phone and now my social skills are terrible. What can I do about this?]

On 8/12/2020 at 6:43 AM, creationlist said:

At least? So you think they are boring?
That's the point you need to learn to express yourselve. Our world is not created by rules, people are different. You need to learn empathy.
What will be a normal conversation to you, may offend someone else.
Like I wrote, people make mistakes and thats not a problem to anyone. But it gets a problem if you make them over and over again.

It's me who's boring you know, they don't want to talk to me because I keep talking about myself, I never realized it was wrong until now but I'm still working on it.

[I spent my whole life playing videogames and using my phone and now my social skills are terrible. What can I do about this?]

I just hope I change soon. I hate this lifestyle it's awful...

[I spent my whole life playing videogames and using my phone and now my social skills are terrible. What can I do about this?]

1 hour ago, Some Yahoo said:

like any skill, social skills must be learned the hard way.  Get in there.  Make mistakes.  Try to make a note of what you did that freaked someone out and figure out how not to do that next time.

In video game general chat, we are all anonymous, so people tend to blurt out whatever is on their minds.  But in real life, everything you say has consequences.  So hang back a bit, watch what other people are doing, listen to what they are saying before you join in.

Some other handy facts:

1. No one is thinking about what a dork you are.  
2. Most everyone is thinking about themselves, and wondering what everyone else is thinking about them.
3. People do not care if you embarrass yourself.  They care of you embarrass them.

Two things I did that helped a little.

1. Ask someone for something.  Ask the checker at 7:11 what time it is, or if they have jujubees.  Just talk to someone you don't know.
2. Try to learn someone's name every day.  Say, "Hey, I've seen you around but I don't know you.  What's your name?"
   1. Then LISTEN.  It's amazingly good to listen to people.  Let them talk.  Associate their name with their face and whatever they are going through at the moment.
   2. When they tell you their name, look at their face and make a game out of their name.  Like my name is Bryan Valencia.  Look at my face and think BeeVee, or BryVal.

There is a great book my Dad read back in the day that he swears by.  It's called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.  Try that.  I have not read it, but my Dad says it's amazing, and he spent a lot of years with a good circle of friends.  In fact I just bought it on Kindle.  Maybe it'll help me too.

 

I hope any of this helps.

You have a point, I need to listen more, and wow I am listening to that audiobook now and I’m not done so I will continue the rest, thanks for the advice!

[I spent my whole life playing videogames and using my phone and now my social skills are terrible. What can I do about this?]

2 hours ago, Stanly Kwok said:

Believe it or not, I was in a similar position as you are when I was 19. I am 24 now. I dedicated my life fully for 2 years in learning martial arts, and it helped me a lot in gaining confidence, and most importantly: proving other people wrong. People wouldn't want to hang out with me and they would think I am a creep, or I couldn't achieve anything. My best advice to you is to prove other people wrong by doing whatever you think you have to do. In my case it was martial arts.

Wow, I started doing that recently but I need to be patient because it won’t work right away. Thanks.

[I spent my whole life playing videogames and using my phone and now my social skills are terrible. What can I do about this?]

So as a child I loved videogames, which I still do now but not as much as before, I actually just recently quit them. I'm 19 now and for the past couple of years I've been putting myself down because of how I can't ever make good friends because of this. I never know what to talk about that interests them because of the videogames and phone isolating me from everyone. Everyone thinks I'm weird, especially girls, I can't even be trusted with the most smallest things like following them on social media, it's unbelievable. Once this girl who knew me was throwing an open invite party, but she would start making excuses and at the end it turned out she just did not want me coming even though almost the whole school was invited. I asked a couple people to hang, they said yes but haven't gotten back to me in over a month but always post them with their friends, it's like why do people have to lie to me?

What can I do to fix this? I want to be interested in more things or at least what they're interested in. Whenever I text people most of the time they just give one word or not even any response at all. I also have trouble with talking to girls, I creep them out unintentionally a lot because I don't know what I am doing most of the time. Sometimes when someone is so nice to me, I start to obsess over them and get attached to them too quickly. Nervousness and anxiety are also a big problem. Whenever I talk to people I'm always talking loud and fast due to my overexcitement. Any advice on how to increase my social skills?