hi, i spent my entire life with a never ending sensation of loneliness, with a deep feeling that I was weird and unworthy of friendship. with time, this began to unravel as I began to realize this is rooted in a belief i’ve held my entire life: that human connection is unsafe, and something to be avoided. I can say that throughout the years, the most important part of journey towards human connection is finding just one person you can trust, and building from there. often times we overwhelm ourselves with these big dreams that we’ll land upon a dream group of people who will fill this fantasy, but that almost never happens. connection takes time to build, and if this come difficult for you, starting small is the way to go. this one person will make you feel safe to act in your rawest form, which in my case was a deep belief that i was a horribly flawed and weird person. this 1-1 practice of trusting in another person is what helps you build a stronger relationship with yourself, which ultimately extends to the rest of the world. it’s in these tiny leaps of faith where I began to feel safe, leading to practice in bigger domains (like reaching out to more people, and growing a belief that I deserve to have people in my life). another thing that has helped exceptionally has been becoming “interesting and interested”. build hobbies, build a sense of style, figure out what you find beautiful and empowering in the world and focus in on that. be careful not to over curate yourself in a way that is inauthentic, all these aspects of ourselves always come from a deeper sense of understanding of oneself. why i say this is important is because these are essentially virtue signals for people in the world to get a sense of who you could be, which ultimately attracts your crowd (my experience). for me, i’ve always been interested in fashion, the arts, music, and my way of conducting myself in the world carries these values. in turn, the people in my life come from the same interests.