Honesty, after all these lockdowns and all that's been going on I have really started to hate people to a degree. Every time I meet someone new it's only a matter of time before I see them with a mask stuffed on their face.

I broke contact with everyone who I know that fell for the hoax and only keep a circle of pure blood red pilled White Nationalist friends.

Nope. Too hard to keep my power level in check with most normal people.

I probably don't even see more than 10 different people a week unless I get fuel or groceries. That's about 7 more than I want to see. Won't answer the phone unless they're in my contacts.

4th option: Fuck You!

only if i must - current forum notwithstanding.

I like my dog

NO. People are stupid.

It's really hit or miss with me. Sometimes I enjoy it, sometimes I don't want to talk to anyone. I had terrible acne as a teenager and it really fucked me up for a long time. I had a few friends but outside of that small group I rarely talked to anyone, which set back my social skills by a lot. I spent my 20's in a 7yr long codependent relationship with a victim of abuse who never said she loved me until she realized I was breaking up with her, and even then it was only once. The only friends I had then were her friends, and again I was only included because I was with her. I spent the next decade living alone and seeing noone at all, just spending my time on the river, listening to music and playing vidya. I was despondent and became hedonic.My social anxiety hit critical mass one night when I was up late randomly surfing the internet. I happened upon a gore page, full of industrial accidents, and I still remember the exact photo that caused a complete breakdown. The shock of that image broke me, and I was overcome by a slow progressing seizure, the only seizure I've ever had in my life.
I had researched seizures before and was aware of what was happening, it's an electrical storm in your brain that passes through various sections at a time. As it encounters responsible for sensory inputs those senses are disabled. I was drinking at the time and I couldn't taste my beer. My sense of smell was probably already gone.
When I became deaf I panicked and rushed outside and called a friend. Before I could explain what was happening I blacked out entirely. I lived on the second floor of a building and had sat down on the top step of the stairs leading down. I came to lying down thinking I was late for work, then wondered why my pillow was so cold. I had body surfed head first down the stairs yet somehow protected my head and neck. I was bruised everywhere but alive. I heard my friends voice frantically speaking from the phone, which was nearby. I grabbed it and told them "I think I just fell down the stairs". It was the lowest point of my life and I knew it.
After that, worked on cultivating friendships, and slowly built out my circle of friends, gaining confidence for the first time in ages. After a few years I was hosting parties and dating again. The girls never stuck around though, because I was still a loser in many ways. The newfound popularity fueled my hedonism because these friends were all subsistence living, drug taking partiers and the conversations were rarely deep. I was quietly red pilling during that time and began to look at my situation as in need of improvement, but it was very relaxing in a way to have friends and not be so fucking alone for once. I decided to go out on a limb and adopt the worst of my friends as a best friend. I was feeling confident and generous and my hedonistic streak wanted the ego boost of bringing someone up. This guy had a great spirit and heart, but was also dumb as fuck and trying to recover from fentanyl addiction. We hung out a few times, sharing music and stories but inevitably he would get shit faced somehow, even though we didn't drink too much. Looking back he was probably smacking fent still and trying to cover it up. I tried to throw him a party, made a flyer, called everyone I knew, we were gonna sell drinks and have a DJ party but he kept flaking on the date and after a few weeks I gave up on the plan when he bought a bad sack and ended up in the hospital. The final straw came when he snapped on me in text saying I was a bad friend for not getting the party off the ground.
I had spent hundreds of dollars on this guy, I cooked him fucking oysters on the river, introduced him to new friends, took him out to breakfast, and talked with him for hours on end and the dude was still a suicidal wreck. I cut him out completely, but I still catch sight of him maybe once a year, so I might have helped, idk

Shortly after all that shit the covid hysteria picked up and I lost faith in society. Such an utter shock and horror to see all these people I knew suddenly become a threat to my existence, because I knew it was a scam from the start.To the best of my knowledge, it was a genetically modified flu virus developed in Ukraine and intentionally released in Iran and China. By the time it came to my part of the U.S. in January 2020 it was a little stronger than usual but not life threatening. One by one, people in my town came down with a 1-3 day flu. I remeber the day it hit me, I woke up with the alarm at 5 am, felt actually diseased and infectious and called out from work for the first time in years. By the afternoon I felt bad for calling out because I was fine and bought a six pack. No one was worried at all, just the usual, "there's a bad flu going around" no headlines in the news about deaths from illness. The next month, Feb 2022, the covid scare went national and people here were waiting fearfully for it's arrival.... I cut off most of my friends at that point, and focused on the few that seemed aware, or at least skeptical of the situation, and stopped seeing anyone again. In a lot of ways, the scamdemic set me back again from social advancement. Now I have this massive inflation shit to deal with, I'm not interested in spending money and hanging out with people who don't take the hints, so yea my answer is basically fuck no, the folks I talk with now get it, but we don't hang out, just share links and ask how things are going when we meet. There's a sense of purpose now, that I can lean on. I always remain skeptical though, because the last thing I need is another crutch. Thanks you Poal for being who you are. I apologize for this being such a long post, but it's free therapy. Roast me in the replies if you want

Seems like most everyone suffers from cognitive dissonance.

Oddly enough I do enjoy a good conversation and I have a tendency to talk a lot.

Sometimes, depends. I prefer to do things on my schedule. It's kind of a bad habit, not healthy for friendships. I need be alone sometimes to cool down and then hype myself up before doing anything involving friends/people. Wish it came more naturally. I only want people to see my at my best but life has thrown some heavy shit at me recently so that's basically impossible.