I think everyone has grown up with the advice to "just be yourself" - but I only just recently felt like I understood it.

For the longest time I had a lot of trouble with self-confidence, thinking people were judging me, second guessing my decisions or always trying to figure out he right way to say something when talking to someone.

I've made a lot of changes in my life in the past year, some of which I can attribute to the subreddit - others not. But the main thing that I found has made me feel better is finding someone to confide in, and realizing that it's okay and normal to talk about how you're feeling with others, and how you feel about being in social situations.

It's completely okay to tell your friends that you aren't sure where your emotions are right now, that you're nervous about something, that you've been angry or sad lately, etc - It's what makes us human.

Since then, I've made it an effort to talk to people on a more emotional front lately, and I've had much better conversations with people.

With this - I've realized that I feel much more comfortable in my own body and okay with how I act around others. It's made me able to just "go for" certain things that I normally wouldn't because I would have sat there thinking if it'd be the right thing to do or not.

TLDR; You want to be yourself and be someone who actually seems "human" and not just another guy. The best way to be yourself is to make sure you're comfortable doing so - and to do that, you need to have close friends that you can confide in and be vulnerable with exposing your flaws.