Focus: Drop weight and keep it off. Story of my life. Alt. focus: More tolerant, less judgmental. It's a slow process.
Focus: My face is pretty badly scarred from teenage acne. It's not really that apparent unless you look close up, but my cheeks are pockmarked. I still have a few zits that are hanging out. Fuckers. I also don't like my eyebrows. Alt-focus: I need to get self-confidence. I've spent the last seven years with some really bad depression, and it's a struggle to get out of that mindset. It's hard to tell myself that people actually want to hang out with me, that I can be funny, that I can actually be a good friend, that I can actually (gasp) be attractive to women. I go between thinking that the "good" part is the real part and the depressed part is a mask and vice versa depending on how my day's going. I get the feeling that it'll just click eventually, but I don't know when that's going to happen. In the meantime I go running and do pull-ups.
Focus: Broader shoulders / chest. I can't really do anything about it except work out, but even then I have an extremely narrow frame. Antifocus: I focus on the negatives of things when talking in conversation with tiny quips and jokes, and I always don't think about what I'm saying until directly after I've said it. This has bitten me in the ass more times than I can count, and it only gets worse when I'm a little drunk. When I talk with my friends I always think they can get that I am messing around, but sometimes they'll take more offense to something than they should. I also have this tendency to do this around people who I have only met a couple of times and aren't good buddies with, which I am sure is offputting to some. Basically, I'm an unintentional asshole, an asshole with good intentions. I found out that this doesn't apply to girls that I am hitting on, that or girls tend to like assholes. (More the latter than the former, from what I've seen.)
FOCUS: Lose some weight. I have a gym membership and was doing good with it. Now, I have a job that is moderately to very physically demanding so I have stopped going to the gym until late fall when the shipping season ends for the winter. ALT FOCUS: I'd like to be more outgoing. I am a big time introvert and it has a tendency to be a problem when it comes to needing to talk to people I don't know or meeting women. I wouldn't call it shyness, I just have a hard time getting to know someone. Most of the time I have no desire to get to know them.
Focus: What would you change about your physical appearance? Why? How do you address it? I had random health shit, and stacked on weight. Then I had more random health shit and stacked on more weight. Over the course of a couple of years, I went from 185lbs to almost 350lbs. I've dropped down to about 290lbs in the last couple of months. The agenda is over the next year to get down under 220lbs and ideally to get back to 185lbs. Working that around rehabbing shoulder and neck problems is a bit interesting, and getting my nutrition right around my current social schedule is taking more willpower than I usually have. But I think I can hit the 220 mark by Christmas and still be healthy about the whole thing. Even when I'm in good shape, my arms are smaller than I'd like. Bad shoulders run in my family and have translated to poor upper body strength my whole life. After the weight loss, the big agenda is to move my upper body strength up to a point where it's not actively embarassing and hope that translates to bigger arms. If it doesn't - I might think about moving from functional strength workouts to vanity workouts or something - but fuck I hope that never actually seems like a good idea. I have a crippling phobia of dentists, which translates to mildly bad teeth. I think most people would never notice it - but I'm massively self conscious of it. Will hopefully find a dentist sometime in the next few months and start correcting a few minor things. If I can find a doctor who'll give me valium or something. I started going bald at 16. I just gave up and started shaving my head about 6 years ago - and it looks better than thinning hair ever did, but I'd love to be able to grow a proper mohawk. I don't see myself ever actually caring enough to pursue that idea. Alt. Focus: What would you change about yourself as far as behavior? What are you doing to improve yourself? I suck at follow through. Even medicated for serious ADD - I suck at actually finishing things. I wish I could fix that - I'd make a bunch more money. Or at least make enough money from doing things that are vastly more satisfying than the things I currently do for a job. I could have been so much further in my plans to ditch corporate IT for something interesting if I actually followed through on some stuff. I half close my eyes whenever I'm aware of someone pointing a camera at me. It looks fucking terrible and it's just some kind of habit that I'm really fucking struggling to break. I'm fucking awful with money. My finances are a shitfuck and while I'm working through bringing it back to a managable state - I'm honestly doing a pretty fucking piss poor job of it.
What would you change about your physical appearance? My hands. I have always wanted long, elegant piano-playing fingers. When I used to play the oboe, my instructor never believed that I couldn't reach all the keys, but I literally could not. My hands are fucking small, and my fingers are smaller. I wear children's gloves. Size M. Not even a child's large, but a child's medium. I hate it. What would you change about yourself as far as behavior? What are you doing to improve yourself? I need to set more realistic goals for myself. I am constantly dreaming and have my head in the clouds, and that translates into thinking I can do whatever I want, when that is obviously not true. If I could set more tangible goals, then I would have an easier time getting ahead, I think.
Focus: I have a big nose and no chin so I look pretty goofy, but I don't think it'd be worth it to change them. I'd rather have better teeth. Courtesy of my family I have naturally crooked and stained looking teeth. Braces got the teeth straight and fixed the overbite but I have yet to get them whiter. It's the one thing I can still feel self conscious about, and the solution is pretty easy (and solves some other problems too): I just keep my mouth shut. Anti-focus: I've been trying to be less high strung and a worrisome perfectionist at work. Its easy for me to get really caught up and just go overboard on shit and I'm getting better at saying "fuck it, it's not the end of the world."
Focus: What would you change about your physical appearance? Why? How do you address it? I'd like to be acne-free, taller, and more in shape. The acne thing is self-explanatory, but for the other two, simply for a size increase. I bike to and from work, use acne treatments, and occasionally hand from a tree with a few hundred pounds around my ankles. Well, not so much on the last. What would you change about yourself as far as behavior? What are you doing to improve yourself? I overthink everything, expect myself to be near-perfect at work (and with a tendency to expect the same of others), and have no social skills. For the most part, it's just about not getting caught up in a moment - once I take a few seconds to stop, clear my head, and proceed rationally and calmly, I'm okay. As far as the social skills, it's just practice - engaging with people even if I would rather be quiet, showing interest in others' lives, and so on.
Focus: What would you change about your physical appearance? Why? How do you address it? I’m going bald and could lose about 5-10kgs. I can’t do much about the baldness except keep my hair short and shave it all off once it gets bad but if I had the choice I would like a full head of hair. The weight doesn’t bother me too much, I hit the gym regularly and have always had a solid build so I carry it pretty well but if I put in the effort and lost a bit I would look better with a shirt off at the beach. I need to do more cardio but I am a bit lazy… Alt. Focus: What would you change about yourself as far as behavior? What are you doing to improve yourself? Social paranoia and doing things to excess. If I don’t keep myself in check, I think that everything I do is being closely examined and discussed behind my back or I am an outsider and everyone else is in on some big secret. It’s a bit hard to explain and I have no idea why I am this way. I generally get along with new people well, I have good friends who always call me to go out and include me but deep down I don’t really feel accepted and always feel I’m on the outer, even when there is a lot of evidence to the contrary. I just don’t think about it and carry on, seems to work fine so far. I am sure if I focused in on it, it could really freak me out. I also do things to excess. Doesn’t matter what it is, if I focus my attention on it I will overdo it. Drinking, working out, work, hobbies etc. I need to keep changing my focus otherwise I can go a bit too far.
Focus: What would you change about your physical appearance? Why? How do you address it? I was born without a chin. It might as well just be skin over some gum there's hardly any bone, looks like a bad underbite. The only genes I got from my mom were small wrists, greasy Italian face, and no chin. Thanks, ass. To compensate I wear some kind of beard. Even if I had it fixed, I'd probably still scruff it out for a couple weeks. So save the money on plastic surgery and shaving cream. Fudge it. Looks wise I'm not doing bad otherwise; no worries. Come back to me in 5 years when the booze turns my face into a sad basset hound's. Alt. Focus: What would you change about yourself as far as behavior? What are you doing to improve yourself? Follow-through. Christ, I am criminally unmotivated. Just need the concentration and mind set to sit down and get some substantial work down. Once the ball gets rolling it's easy to ride the wave. That initial push is a bitch. Caffeine apparently helps get the energy going. Don't touch the stuff otherwise. Yes, instead of working on personality flaws, I've decided to self-medicate. GO AMERICA! WOOO!
Focus: What would you change about your physical appearance? Why? How do you address it? My skin. I had pretty bad acne growing up, which Accutane (the "nuke" of acne drugs) took care of, but the area on either side of my nose over to my cheeks will randomly redden, despite my trying several different skin care regimes. It's not a big source of anxiety for me, but it's still something I would change. Being a guy I don't really consider makeup an option, but luckily I tan and it becomes far less noticeable in the summer. Alt. Focus: What would you change about yourself as far as behavior? What are you doing to improve yourself? I have a tendency to over-analyze decisions, even after I have thought through my possible options and decided on a course of action. It's problematic when I'm going to start a task, then sap my motivation by questioning whether I decided correctly. I try to recognize when it's for a good reason and when I'm just being lazy, then in the latter case give my head a shake.
Alt. Focus: What would you change about yourself as far as behavior? What are you doing to improve yourself? 1. Making new friends. I grew up chubby and smart and socially isolated. Without understanding that I was doing it, I spent my time and energy building an identity I could live with, in opposition to the way other people were constructing me. I'm explaining this poorly, but essentially I was struggling to be 'the smart guy with the quick comebacks' rather than 'the fat kid with his head in a book', at least in my own eyes. Anyway, I never looked for similarities with people, and I was always quick to judge worth, especially on the basis of intelligence. I've always had a fairly small circle of friends, and rarely made new ones. It was only through backpacking through various countries (and at an embarrassingly late age) that I realized it makes much more sense to focus on commonalities and shared experiences than on defining yourself against other people. I was shocked at how easily I could make new friends and integrate with people when I wasn't cataloging the shortcomings I perceived in their opinions. Now, as Eat Pray Love as it sounds, I try to look for common ground with people I meet - and it's remarkable how many end up becoming friends. 2. This is related to the above, and it's a problem that I'm getting much better at dealing with as the years go by, but misogyny. I had a ludicrous number of unfortunate experiences with women in my formative years (see chubby, smart, and socially isolated), and I didn't realize at the time that me and my friends were self-selecting a certain subset of women. When all of us were only dating and meeting women with the same set of personality issues, I internalized the idea that all women were vapid, irrational, controlling nutjobs. (On reflection, spending as much time as I did on the TMMB circa 2003/2004 might not have been ideal). Only when I met one particular girl did I realize that actually, there are smart, pretty, genuinely kind-hearted and sane women out there that won't fuck you over for their own convenience. Through her I met a couple of her worthwhile friends, and gradually came to understand selection bias, and the dangers of drawing conclusions from too small a sample size. Since that fateful day, I meet a far greater number of women who aren't 'crazy whores'. Still, when I hang out with the wrong crowd of women for too long, I find myself slipping back into bad thought patterns. I'm devoting considerable time and energy these days to making and maintaining friendships with as many women that I respect as I can.
Focus: If I could only change one thing, it would be my hands, for sure. They're actually pretty nice hands, if I do say so myself, they're just way too small. It's embarrassing. That's really the only thing I'm somewhat insecure about. I'd take another two inches on my height or dick (or both), but I seem to be doing alright with what I have in those departments. I like to think so, anyway. I'm also super pale, but for some reason I don't care about that at all. Anti-Focus: I'm shy... but I don't even know if shy is the right word. I'm in social situations, I know I'm being awkward, I can rationally think "hey, I should be talking now," but I legitimately don't know what to say. It's stupid. I'm a funny, cool guy to be around if I know you, but sometimes I get uncomfortable for whatever reason and just sort of seize of. I'm trying to just power through it and force myself to meet people and be social, but I don't think I'll ever totally get over it. Whatever, at least I have my tiny hands to break the ice...
Focus: I have skin issues, like many others. Most of my acne is gone, but a combination of small pores and thick hairs causes issues which I'd really love to get rid of. Plus, I hate how much I sweat. I think, in amongst my other health issues, my internal thermostat is fucked up and I will tend to sweat unless I'm sitting still and it's cool. I'm constantly towelling off at training and trying not to sweat on people, especially while grappling. Alt. Focus: I have terrible self confidence, and constantly second guess myself. This has been getting better over the years and now mainly manifests in interpersonal communication at work or with women I'm interested in. In the former, I worry that I'm not going to have the right answer for people and be ridiculed. In the latter, I just worry that she's going to ridicule me. Work wise, I can mostly get through it. With women, I'm hopeless and will tend to avoid the situation.
Focus: What would you change about your appearance? Easy, my balding head would grow hair again. Failing that, then enough hair growing on my upper lip. I'd be more willing to go the shaved head route if I could actually rock a killer 'stache and/or beard combo, but since I can't I have to settle with cutting my hear extremely short in order to de-emphasize the bald spots. Focus: What would you change about your behavior? I'd be less of a procrastinator and more of a self-starter. There are lots of things I want to do to my house that I keep putting off because I'm lazy.
What would you change about your appearance? My skin. I'm really fair, and I have adult acne that I have to cover with makeup. I've been going to a dermatologist for years with little to no improvement. The funny thing is that my face became crystal clear when I couldn't exercise for 6 months. I haven't gone that long without sweating every day since I was about 13. As soon as I could work out again, and sweat, my kickass complexion was gone. It became apparent that the reason I'm broken out most of the time is because I work out. If I stopped exercising I'd have pretty skin. What would you change about your behavior? I let other people push me around. It's something I am working on.
Focus: I guess I wish I was taller. I'm not that short, maybe 5'9". However, most of my friends are taller than me and the average height of dudes on here seems to be around 6'5" so.... Alt-Focus Personality-wise I'm laid back, however in my life I'm manicly accellerated and I wish I could slow down a little. That's probably why we pay extra for vacations. I sleep 5-6 hours a night tops and I'm constantly doing things until I get high, thumb through this site and pass out. To be fair its hard to sit and relzx when you have a 2-year-old that finds the shimmer off a kitchen knife to be hypnotic and therefore must be touched or perhaps thrown at a moving target. Rinse recycle repeat.
What would you change about your appearance? I'd like to add about ten lbs of muscle and have a six pack. I'm pretty comfortable with how I look, but I'm a pretty skinny dude at 165lbs and 5'10". It wasn't too bad when I was in the Army since I had some meat on me, but I haven't worked out at all since I got out 18 months ago. What would you change about your behavior? I'm an all-around shithead to be quite honest, I'm lazy, unfocused,a drinker, a cheat, and a liar; I've also managed to grow a sense of entitlement since I started college. Out of those I'd most like to change the unfocused part, I only lie to women I'm fucking anyway, so no big deal.
What would you change about your appearance? I'd like to be a bit taller. I'm 5'10'', so it's not usually a problem, but there's something about just having that 6' on your height that's appealing. Also, as another member mentioned, my hands are kind of small, although they fit my frame and no one notices unless I draw attention to it. It would be nice to palm a basketball though. One thing I wouldn't change, but that is somewhat annoying, is that I have a big ass and thighs from years of squatting/deadlifting/etc. I pretty much have the epitome of a latin butt. Most of the time it's fine, and for some reason the ladies love it, but finding pants that fit right is an exercise in futility. I have to buy 36's and 38's even though I hover around a 34 or 32, so I have to cinch my pants around my waist. In situations where I have to tuck my shirt in, this sometimes looks ridiculous. What would you change about your behavior? I have been working on being less aggressive lately, and it's actually served me well, although I'm sorely tempted at times (like yesterday when some joker was paying by check at the express line in the supermarket). I also need to accept when I'm wrong more graciously, which again I'm working on.