Long time lurker on seddit, and gotta say that everything here is helping me out a lot with regards to my personal development.

I'm more writing this for myself, to begin a habit of focusing on the positives of my experiences, and maybe help along those who are/were experiencing major AA. Anyways, here's my quick story...

Personal Description: White, Tall, Shaven Head, athletic, GOOD LOOKING GOD DAMNIT (tired of my old shit inner voice saying otherwise), 22, last year in college as an engineer. Story time:

Been following seddit advice about hitting the gym, and it's a solid step in the right direction. Go about 6 times a week to the local 24 hour fitness, heavy lifting and swimming (go to r/fitness and look up 5 x 5 stronglifts if you want to know more). Most the times that I've been going, I noticed I'd plug in the headphones and turn up the Eminem and avoid contact with everyone around me. Sure, it helped with the workouts, but I knew I was doing that to avoid talking to everyone around me. At the pool, I'd act like I'd know what I was doing, and avoided conversations with anyone (that lurking feeling that the other person knows you're feeling awkward...such a bad feeling).

Fast forward to this week at the pool. Just started following the AA advice about talking to everyone. When I walked out to the lanes (only 3 available), I see a heavy set man with a couple tattoos limping in the shallow lane back and forth. Instead of avoiding eye contact and lifting my chin away, I decided to squat right in front of his lane when he was coming back, and ask him about the tattoos, as well as about why he was limping. Apparently he had JUST GONE THROUGH KNEE SURGERY AND GOT SCREWED OVER BY HIS INSURANCE COMPANY. It was a fascinating story, really. After that conversation, I warmed up in the big Jacuzzi, where a super fit big latino dude gets into it as well. He was tatted up to the limits, never seen that many, like a giant piece of artwork. Instead of avoiding the conversation and tricking myself into saying 'probably gang dude and wouldn't want to talk to me', I say 'Hey those are some sick tats on you, tell me about them.' He responds for a short while, AWESOME. Learned his name was Jon.

Then today I go back to the gym, and Jon was there finishing up at the pool as I was getting started. I asked how long he had been at the gym, turns out he's training for a bodybuilding competition coming up, and now he's willing to give me advice about working out!

After doing my usual swimming workout (used to swim in high school, 8 years back....), I took a break and just sat at the end of the pool, when suddenly a nice looking lady in the other lane asks me if I can help her with her form "because you make it seem so easy" (Note: I'm not a very good swimmer)....doesn't sound like much, but it's hard to explain how I had a feeling she wanted to get to know me. Anyone else experience that?

Anyways, I talked to her about swimming form, and then about my life, and her life, and just talked and talked and talked. Nothing major came of it, but reflecting on my day so far, I'm way happier forcing myself into the 3 second rule and facing my fears.

I'm just starting to feel that I'm on a path towards personal improvement that I like a lot, and that talking to people open's doors, outside of pickup.

Going to start forcing myself to talk to girls more now, because failure isn't that bad. If anything, an epic failure would be hilarious to talk about later on...

Thanks for reading. Good luck on things guys. r/nofap, r/fitness, r/seduction, r/bestof, r/getmotivated are just amazing.

TL:DR - Competely terrified of AA. Forced myself to talk to people. Result: Learned about healthcare system, found a solid workout buddy, and talked to lady in a pool about our lives and felt energized by her femininity (hope that makes sense). I'm dumbfounded that I didn't open my mouth earlier.