Right, right, "improvements" like taking up drinking and going out to bars with people he hates?

Yes, but apart from religious people (and 23 of all people gives a strong case as to why that might be a bad idea - they are likely to be involved in activities he finds less interesting, like bible studies), what places have you suggested?

What are those areas? I haven't seen any.

You can literally make friends anywhere. Go for a walk. Go to a park, go to a festival, theme park, anywhere really.. Only thing thats going to stop you from really meeting people is trying to hard, or not trying hard enough... Like me, I'm too chicken

It's perfectly OK to chose not to smoke yourself, but it's not OK to impose your will on others - even if in the long run, it would benefit them (eg. reducing their chances of getting cancer) - if you do, they will think of you as a facist. By facist, I mean you are imposing your will onto someone else - even if your will will be better to their health than their own will. This is because you are interfering with their choices that they are making for themselves.

But I can see where you're coming from. Buying cigarette papers (and cigarettes) for others is a compromise you'll have to make if you want to be more sociable. Whether or not you smoke them yourself is a choice that you make, and there, there is no compromise. Sometimes, a few friends have asked me to get them cigarettes. Internally, I felt an inner disgust at supporting a habit I don't approve of and felt uncomfortable in getting the cigarettes, but I ended up getting them anyway and not showing my inner disgust. Not getting them would just not be right. After all, these people are your friends and you're doing them a favour. If you decided to tell them you were doing them a favour by not giving them the means to damage their health, they just won't see it at the time. However, if the person who asked you to go to the shop refuses to get stuff for you whanever they go to the shop, then you have good grounds for not getting them things (unless this is in retaliation to you not getting them their cigarette papers).

Oh, I see. That's why you think it's responsible to refuse to get a mobile phone. You're worried about it's earpiece frying your brains. I myself consider my mobile phone a tool, and not an accessory or habit. Personally, I use my mobile mostly for text-messaging and hardly ever talk with it, so I don't fry my brains. I use a land-line for my long nattering sessions. I wouldn't say that not getting a mobile phone is responsible - it's about getting one with an earpiece that has low emissions of whatever it is that earpieces emit and how often you use the earpiece. But yeah, I agree with you that not drinking or not smoking is a responsible thing to do (although I do drink myself).

OK. Here's how not to be a stiff....

The secret to not being a stiff is to let others do their own thing. They will let you do your thing. You do what you want. Others do what they want. Don't let others make you do something you don't want to do. Likewise, don't criticise others. Just be laid back about the situation, and just be relaxed. How relaxed you feel you are makes the difference between feeling nervous (where they see you as 'stiff') and relaxed (where they see you as 'chilled out').

If you feel confident that you're capable of enjoying yourself and letting yourself go without any alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs and you can show that to the others around you, then they won't see you as being a stiff anymore. In fact, even coming out of your shell might be enough on it's own to convince people that you're out to have a good time.

One way to let yourself go is not to worry about what other people are doing to their health (and of course not to worry about what others are thinking of you). If you do, you become a bit anxious, and if you start telling them that what they are doing is bad for them, you're creating a conflict that wouldn't exist otherwise.

There is a difference between being a stiff and having a strong character. A strong character means you aren't easily influenced by others. A stiff means you're getting your nose into other people's affairs for seemingly trivial reasons.

So you see, it's all part of the great adventure of life. There is an ongoing battle between good and evil in the spiritual plane that manifests itself in this world in the form of a maze of ideas. It is your task as an Urban Warrior to navigate this maze of ideas to get to your goal. An example would mean that if you want to hang out with a group of people because you like some of them and they are your friends, you still hang out even if the group also contains people you hate. If getting close to the people you like is your goal, then hanging out with the other people in the group you hate is an obstacle in this maze of ideas. If you don't know what the flying duck I'm going on about here, you might want to read "Barefoot Doctor's Handbook for the Urban Warrior: a Spiritual Survival Guide" (I also mentioned it here).

I have a saying in life: You have to be mad in order to survive in a mad world.

Just one more piece of advice. If after all I've said you still refuse to compromise, then you'd probably have to end up looking for friennds on the Internet (unless you're lucky enough to bump into likeminded people locally purely by chance). The Internet is the only place you get to choose which people you meet.

Take care,

AE.

That's buggery. Ben shouldn't have to sacrifice his principles, and anyone who asks him to is imposing their will on him, not vice versa. He's refusing to buy their smokes for them; he's not preventing them from buying smokes through some other means.

Find people who stand for the same thing? I thought you couldn't find friends because you were a "pathetic b@stard"; that's not a terribly moral thing to stand for

I heavily disagree. I have friends (ie, coworkers) that smoke, and I would never buy them cigarettes. Why? Because I think smoking is a horrible addicition and I do not support that action. My friends know that, and they do not think less of me because of it. Instead, I can respect them, because they respect me. (ie, They wouldn't smoke in my car if I was giving them a ride, etc.)

If a friend of mine left their cigarettes on the table, I wouldn't flush them down the toilet. That, to me, would be stepping over the line and imposing my will on them.

It needs to go both ways. The friend on the other side needs to realize that you do not support smoking, and should not ask you to compromise your beliefs.

Of course, we are talking about smoking, but the topic could be any number of things. If you refuse to do something for what you feel is the better of your friend, then that friend should respect you - even if they do not agree.

I know what you mean, I used to be alot like that (I guess I still am a bit). When I was younger I used to be overly shy with people I hadn't really met before, and I got pretty nervous around larger groups of people... Recently I started working at the local supermarket on the checkout - not my idea of fun, but it forced me to try and learn how to get along with people better. Slowly I've been noticing changes about the way I act around others, and I feel alot more confident in making new friends and talking with people I don't know.

The point is, like a few others have said, you need to go and do something to make a change. Theres plenty of good advice I've read here, just take a chance and follow it - who knows what will happen

Maybe you could join a musical group? Or find people who live close to you that you can make a computer game with? Do any people you met at Cambridge live in Buxton or Cheddar? Maybe you like playing a sport and can join a team of some sort? Meh. Finding people with the same interests as you is difficult.

There are 200 people in my grade in high school; about 4 of those people are into some aspect of gamedev, and only one of them is tolerable. The others are weirdos. And I'm only in contact with this tolerable guy because we both happen to be in the French immersion group at our school.

So, this one guy is the only one who has remotely similar interests to me, and he's on the art side of gamedev, and when I tried to collaborate on a project with him he gave up in defeat after trying to draw a grass tile (the rest of his stuff was actually good, but... yeah). So, that's one out of 200 that share my main interest. And those people are hard to find. "The moral is, never try," as Homer Simpson would say.

About half of my friends like to drink and stuff. I don't refrain from hanging around these people altogether, I just don't go out with them when they're doing these things I disapprove of. Otherwise, they're generally good people.

Well, sorry, this post is a bit pointless. Good luck in your search, "Bruce".

Enough to count as alcoholic in my book.

That's not my book.

First, sorry for my bad spelling/vocabulary. (I'm french!)

1. Talking from a more philosophic point a view, I think I know why people may dislike you. Actually, you are not what you are (!) but you are what you do!

To be more specific, if the only contacts to any people are not friendly* they won't be nice either.

• = (don't ask me to develop the term 'friedly'; it's quite difficult in fact...)

That is to say, even if you can be nice (with some other people, ...) some guys will only know you as what you did. And if you were watching a DVD until they came, i don't think this kind of attitude (i'm not criticising) will grow your popularity...

2. Of course, i don't ask you to use hypocrisy... Do what you like, don't change your hobbies. BUT, why not taking a look to what others' do? (just for looking) And maybe, (exept for drinking) this may show you some other thing you didn't imagine...

3. Note that for many people, the first impression you give to someone is very important. And so, it's very difficult to change your image. And even if you are trying to do this, some people won't recognize you (and you may shock people that don't know you).
Therefore : don't drink if you don't want to, and if you never want to.

4. To finish with, these guys are probably making fun of you (even more true if they never come alone to you). So in this case why not making fun of them too? Not in a brutal view (threatening eyes, bad verbal, ...) but rather in a clever view:
- not doing what they intended to
- surprise them. i.e, do the contrary that you would probaly do.
- always be verbally nice to calm down atmosphere

I hope this help...