It's easy to be philosophical/insightful here. IRL though, it'd be considered a crazy day if I spoke more than 10-20 seconds total to more than one or two other human beings.
Oh dear, I'm almost exactly the same as you, like I can talk a lot when I'm writing on a message board, but I go most days without any human contact and I don't verbally speak with anyone. Well maybe sometimes I'll get a call that lasts like 2 minutes, but that totally stresses me out and I can't wait do be done with it.
And I spent two years in a call center, first as a customer service representative and then I was a fraud detection analyst, and I'm ever so glad those days are behind me, I feel I've had enough phone conversations to last my lifetime, lol!
I'm really not sure about your claim you're not a super great person. I've been active here only a little while, but I picked up really quickly that you're a very friendly person and just from my little opinion I think you might bring more joy to peoples' lives than you realize, and just because you only communicate with people electronically doesn't mean they're not real and your impact on their lives aren't really (I really apologize if I'm sounding overly sentimental here, I'm just expressing my honest feelings, I'm a little saddened you feel this way about yourself which just seems totally unfair from everything I've read you posting here)
I remember Future Shops, those were one of my father's favorite stores, and honestly I think Best Buys are almost exactly the same, just maybe bluer and a little more polished and professional looking. When my father visits me I almost always take him to Best Buy just to look around at things, he likes looking at tablets and smart phones.
Oh I'm sorry, I guess I can kind of understand what you're saying about puberty being a switch for you. I sort of went through something similar when I had my first period, it's really quite scary at first and your life is never the same afterward. lol, oh dear I'm sorry, I just sort of think this is a teeny bit funny how I can sort of take your comment "awful pains every single day for a couple of months" and change just a couple words to make my experience "awful pains for a couple of days every single month," I hope you're not offended by me saying that. I can't imagine how strange that must've been for you for your voice to drop so suddenly, even so much your poor mother was startled. I'm really sorry you felt you had to change who you were to fit in, that must've been just awful for you. I feel exactly like you do, I've often considered especially my teenage years and thought exactly "if I had even my self confidence now how different my life would've been", it's such a difficult feeling, right?
I attempted suicide when I was a teenager, my issues came from a bit of gender dysphoria, I think from how I was treated by my father. His family were immigrants from Europe, and his family was extremely patriarchal. I was his oldest child, and literally he's the only male in his entire extended family whose first child was a girl, and I've felt all my life he resents me. He's barely had anything to do with me and never took any interest in me, even though he's always given a lot of attention to my sister (I feel in his mind it's not as bad because she was second born), and my mother told me my father really wanted a boy. Even though he and I had similar interests, like both he and I like science fiction and computer games, he just didn't seem to care, you know what I mean? Well I used to imagine if I'd been born a boy how my life would be different, I could have been an athlete and popular, and he'd respect me and be proud of me. I got rather depressed knowing that was never going to happen and things would never change, and I blamed most of my lack of popularity on myself and my own failings, and I had a very dark part of my life. I feel things eventually got better for me, when I came to realize his approval didn't matter to me and I recognized his failure as my father wasn't my fault, and it took me a long time but I finally came to be very comfortable with myself, but I feel my emotional development was really stunted.
Oh I hope you don't feel too alienated by your illness you suffered through, and even with that I don't feel you'd be unrelateable, I mean "normal" isn't even really a thing, right? I feel like we've all had so many weird things that affect us, you know?
I'm sorry you felt like being attractive made you a worse person, I guess I can sort of imagine how things like that can cause problems. I've never really experienced that much myself. And thank you very much for your kind comments, I guess my defects seem much larger looking through my eyes. I can't help constantly comparing myself to other women, and in my view most women I see have feet much prettier than mine, and my feet also feel very long (I wear side 8.5 shoes) and I don't have much of arches, I just feel unattractive most of the time, if I'm making sense?
I sort of started changing a lot when I was about 20, and my stutter kinda went away for the most part then. I sort of began "waking up" and realizing how toxic my home situation was, before that I feel I really probably showed many signs of being an abuse victim. My bruises were emotional and not physical, so I guess people didn't see, but I'd like to think maybe today teachers and such are more trained to pick up signs of emotional and mental abuse in children and can step in so not too many others will grow up like I did. Well when I was 20 and finishing up at college, I started doing things like I switched from eyeglasses to contact lenses, and I learned how to use makeup properly, and I began styling my hair, I just built up my self esteem and confidence, and I guess my stutter was really related to that. Well I still struggle with sounds, like I can't pronounced "Ms", and I've learned to choose my words carefully to avoid sounds my mouth just can't form properly, you know? I'm still very self conscious, and it doesn't help too my voice is rather squeaky and I feel I sound like I'm a child (I've had people calling for me asking me to speak to my mother). I was playing Civilization 6 with some people I met online at Steam, and I struggled to get Discord working with my blue tooth microphone, but I was able to chat briefly but I was still just too nervous and shy to interrupt a lot.
And thank you everyone for your encouragement about having children. I'm Catholic and I'll be waiting until after I get married next year, but I'm at a point in my life where I really do want to have a child and I plan to try right away after I'm married, and as much as I'm looking forward to everything I know I'll have struggles and worries, especially because I'm a little bit older than is ideal, but I know it's going to be worth it.
And we definitely weren't expecting to have a child, but after we spent the requisite 24 hour period of internal mortal terror when the test was positive, we couldn't imagine not being parents. And I say this as a person who was actively trying NOT to be a father. I got my wife pregnant past a copper IUD. I guess I can't miss. I could no more call my son an accident any more than I could call an aurora borealis or an emerald an accident. He just appeared because the conditions were exactly right. If I can impart the lessons I learned in my own sufferings and succeed where my father failed when he raised me, I'll be happy to die a pauper if it comes to that.
