A Dinos and Comics 4-panel comic strip #0896. The first panel shows a grey triceratops with purple spots on its flank and wearing a matching purple bag strapped to its waist, walking towards a cave entrance to which a sign reading “MAKING FRIENDS 101” is pointing. The second panel shows the grey triceratops sitting at a brown stump-like desk, looking back at a pink dilophosaurus with a yellow crest and green frills seated behind them smiling and saying “hi! my name’s stephen.” The third panel is a close-up of the scowling triceratops saying “shut up stephen.” The final panel is zoomed out once more, showing the triceratops has turned to face the front of the room and Stephen is looking deflated, his frills drooping and his smile gone, as the triceratops continues “i’m here to learn.”
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
While I’m not quite that blunt, I do tend to take a utilitarian approach to institutions. When I went to school, I went there to attend classes, learn, work, the like. When I went to a job, I went there to work. I don’t really know how to approach people; the few times I’ve tried I’ve only made people uncomfortable, and mostly I just sit on my own and focus on what I’m “supposed” to be doing.
This left me burning out with depression and failing out of university, unable to find a job and being some kind of unhirable that I don’t know why or how to fix as I’ve spent three years looking for anything that will hire me with no takers, and I have absolutely no friends. I’m a man in my thirties with almost no work experience, no marketable skills, no connections, living off the kindness of family, and just ever-growing gaps in an almost empty resume.
Don’t be like that triceratops. And for the love of fuck, don’t be like me!
You did well. Work on fluffing up. marketing skills even for things that may seem strange to talk about. Be more dramatic, but don’t lie. Don’t personalize. Instead, specialize yourself and stick with it. Don’t limit yourself to one job title or career path, and explore. Interview and ask questions. Learn to be curious, but don’t try to be an everything guy. Ask for help or try to offer help. See if you can start trading things or services, no matter how small, but get it in writing once it becomes large, expensive, or risky. Good luck
I have got to stop oversharing. I just deleted a three-paragraph explanation of shit you didn’t ask for. Sorry abut that. Anyway, it was a BS in Mathematics.
Career wise, I’d focus on something mathematics-adjacent. How were your grades? If they weren’t excellent, I’d think you could pivot into software engineering or data science. I make a fair amount of money WFH doing software engineering and it’s great for my mental health.
It sounds to me like you also need to work on your motivation, confidence, and mindset. You need some wins. Even small ones would probably help a lot.
What helped me climb out of my rut was hitting the gym regularly. I held myself to going once per week, and it became an addictive habit. The fact that I was able to hold myself to going three times a week for several months on end at some point really increased my motivation.
Hahaha! Uh, they weren’t great for a combination of factors, especially in my last year when I failed Real Analysis. Twice…
I’ve tried coding. Not very good at it. Scripting can be fun, but I’m just really, really crap at it. Took the 101/102 classes for CS as one of my science requirements. I actually took 101 twice because I had taken it in community college first and the credit didn’t transfer. Three CS classes, never finished a final project. I couldn’t ever get them close to working for some reason. Like, I got a C or better as a final grade without ever turning in a final project in each class, but still. My practical application of software engineering is, well, impractical.
As it is, a portfolio and networking (heh) tend to be the most important that I’ve heard from a lot of people when it comes to software engineering. I’ve tried to dabble, currently trying to battle my depression enough to actually work on making a point-and-click game in Adventure Games Studio. And my progress is just… Abysmal.
Look man, at the end of the day nobody can help you but yourself. You’ve got to make the decision to change your life. It doesn’t have to be anything dramatic at first— literally holding yourself to a good habit once a week may be enough to eventually create meaningful change in your life.
Idk how it is in the United States but I’m in Australia, and I got my first WFH job out of uni by making a clone of a compound interest calculator in React. If you struggle with a lot of the harder parts of coding, you could probably still eek out a good living as a front end developer.
I really regret being like that. I graduated high school with almost perfect grades, because I didn’t talk to anyone and I just concentrated on studying. Now I have no friends, not even one.
To be fair, it’s hard to keep up with high school friends after high school. People change, they go to college, get jobs, get married, have kids, move away, go to prison, and die. So don’t worry if you’re not friends with people you went to high school with, that’s not uncommon.
don’t stress about it - I used to talk to many people, yet didn’t keep any friends from high school and only one from undergrad, with who I make contact like twice a year.
It feels weird to keep in touch when you don’t have that thing in common anymore and live far away.
I was like that but weirdly I was ‘adopted’ into a group where everyone was a good student and it was uncool not to be. It was even the popular people in the class, full of very well-rounded people (they were social, also into sports or music, friends outside of school, etc).
I still stood up as a “nerd” for reasons that felt inexplicable at the time but later made sense as it turned out I’m autistic. I wasn’t as well-rounded as them. I’d hang out with them but I couldn’t wait to do things by myself like being at the library, learning languages and computer stuff and playing games.
I don’t think any of these people talk to each other anymore because all of us grew in separate directions. I have made good friends since. I like the hobbies I got by allowing myself to do what I wanted. I like the opportunities I got from my grades.
I don’t think high school is where you consolidate your friends for the rest of your life. Some people do it, but it’s not a requirement.
Add comment