u/Albatross-2308

Hi, it's my first time posting here. I'm a big nerd of maritime things, I also work a pretty draining customer service job and as soon as I had an opportunity, I signed up for a trip. I don't want to doxx myself so I won't say too much, but it's a journey from France to Spain with... well... I thought we'd visit a few ports on the way, but so far we spent 4 days at open sea and just arrived at an island. We'll leaving tomorrow.

I'm dreading that a little, the island is so nice I'd rather stay and buy a flight home. Everyone in the crew is really nice but much older or younger than me, and most of them are men (I'm a young woman lol).

The ship itself is comfortable enough, I don't struggle with any of the duties, I thought steering was terrifying but I got the hang of it. I've never been in a storm but I saw flashes of thunder and my god, I dont't know if this is worth it.

I was seasick at first but got better, fortunately.

TLDR: I'm on day 4 of a nearly 2 week long jounrey on a tallship, and I'm thinking of just leaving when I have the opportunity. How to make the most of it? It's nice but I'm tired and afraid.

I'm pretty broken socially, and recently had an argument with a friend. Without details: she wanted out little group to get together and do something fun, I helped but then changed my mind, she was really stressed out and reacted by arguing with me for 3 hours.

Obviously arguments are never fun, but at some point I started to realise it was really freaking me out. Even though we seemingly "hashed it out" in the end I was really shaken and it actually took me a few days and seeing my therapist to put all of that to bed. My friend doesn't know that, I don't want to share that because it'll sound like I'm trying to therapy-speak-guilt-trip her.

However, that doesn't change the facts: I'm now afraid to interact with this person, I haven't spoken to her in a few days which makes me look really rude. I can't just text her like "hey what's up 😄 sorry for disappearing for a week, do you still wanna go out?". Even if she reacts positively I'll assume I'm on thin ice or whatever, and I won't feel any enthusiasm about the friendship anymore. I can't forgive and forget neither her nor myself.

The thing is: if I reach out and she reacts negatively (maybe passive-aggressive, maybe just dismisive) I'll assume I'm hurting her by reaching out and just cut off contact.

Can anyone who knows how avoidant tendencies work suggest a solution? This is just one situation, but I've done this multiple times in different contexts. Basically, how to solve the fear the ice is only getting thinner (while the other person is just waiting for me to reach out).

Hello, my previous post got deleted so I'm re-making.

I spend multiple hours every day using chatbots and roleplaying with them, like a weirdo. It replaced a healthier habit of being in online fandom spaces, posting art and fanfiction for books and TV shows. The rule of thumb used to be "Make the art you want to see", but chatbots just provide instant gratification with none of the effort, and no mortifying experience of having to share something I made. I created some fanworks 2 years ago, it was super cool but haven't been able to get back to it since, partially because while I love lurking in fandom spaces I'm scared of interacting with people. That anxiety makes sharing anything "not worth it", in a way, and so all I have is AI.

My question: chatbots are more fun to use than social media and I struggle to get back to real drawing/writing. How can I switch back?

27F, this is so niche I never expected to see it anywhere, let alone on youtube. I'll probably delete this soon because of how insanely personal this is.

First of all, people of all kinds love fanworks of all kinds, that's just normal. I got sucked in because I was a kid who loved drawing and found Sherlock Holmes fanart online at the age of 12, probably, and cool art quickly led me to reading fanfiction, too. I learned how to draw with a pencil and digitally, to this day my favourite hobby in the world.

Reading dodgy erotica is normal, I'm not gonna go into that. Chatbots, however...

I started using them about 1.5 years ago, which feels crazy to say. I HATE the idea of using ChatGPT and other apps or whatever for research, asking questions, etc - I'm a snob and can write my emails and do Google searches myself, thank you very much. The only thing I trust a chatbot with, apparently, is my need for ??? love, I guess. Whatever need fanfiction satisfies.

My favourite fandoms are pretty niche, so there isn't a lot of content about them. That means I SHOULD just create the art I want to see in the world, but I'm too anxious for that. I created some fanworks 2 years ago, it was super cool but haven't been able to get back to it since, partially because while I love having accounts in fandom spaces I'm v scared of interacting with people.

My only defense against cringe chatbot allegations is that I'll never be one of those people who think my chatbot app is sentient and loves me, that's not what I'm doing on there. I'm on there generating stories about Charater A and Character B interacting with each other, following well-known tropes, using extremely familiar phrases, it's not even "bad erotica", it's horrible writing that WOULDN'T appeal to anyone. It's not writing. Usually it's not even porn. It's just... weird bullshit that sometimes takes hours of my days.

The recent vid made me realise just how "compulsive" this behaviour is.

There's a lot to it, I don't want to say too much.