What is the biggest personal change you've ever made?

The biggest change I've made was almost a decade ago and yet it was an extremely subtle change. I along with I'm sure many, if not all of you, have this metaphorical mask growing up we wore around teachers, other kid's parents and maybe even our own family. The nice, polite, emotionless, safe but sterile mask. Well through my teens and the struggles that go with, I found myself donning that mask more and more around anyone that wasn't my closest few friends. The people who got to see the real me grew less and less as the friends I had drifted away (as school and many childhood friends do). People had to audition with the mask before they ever got to know me and in hindsight, I can see why few bothered. And then and I'll qualify it now before someone thinks I'm marketing something, I don't follow it anymore, but I ended up on some Pick Up Artist forums and while I laugh at some of the stuff thinking back now it did one thing for me. It though me to put that mask aside for only the rarest of occasions. Now when I meet someone new they talk to the same guy my friends talk to, joke with same guy my friends joke with, and hopefully have fun with the same guy my friends have fun with.

Everything else I've done stems from that. I've spent over a year now living in Canada after coming here on my own. If I'd packed that mask I'd have been home in 2 months. I'm bartending here now and loving it because unlike a lot of people who work in the industry here and who wear that mask to work I never do and it stands me well. They see customer x, y, z and I see Carey who I suspect makes her living selling drugs, John with his silly dad jokes and JRod the native with the weird Scottish twang because his step mom is from Scotland.

TL;DR?
I've put my personality out there take it or leave it rather than hide behind a sterile mask while trying to judge if someone would get on well with the real me.

This morning I've decided to become a shark, so I too can dance with the Katy Perry's of this world :P

Kicked a 40 hour a week MMO addiction six and a half years ago, started running and lost 32kg in the process.

Got married, suggested to the OH that we could move back to her family in Argentina. She went for it. Had to learn Spanish, now a long way from home speaking Spanish all day and get all hysterical about a bit of rain and slightly fresh weather.

Still a work in progress, working on escaping our jobs and starting our own company.

Deciding that I would probably have a better life if I wasn't drinking two bottles of vodka every single day. Took me a while to knock it on the head but I finally managed it a couple of years ago. It's fair to say that I prefer life as it is now where I have friends and family who actually want to be around me, a social life, an income, and options for the future that go beyond my previous single option of a rotten death somewhere long before my time.

I made 4 resolutions last year and have done all of them. First was to buy a new car and pass the test, did both last year. Third was to lose weight and I lost 5 stone and lastly to get rid of my glasses and get contact lenses, best thing I ever did. Don't know where the determination came from but I feel so much better for it. Have to think up some new resolutions for this year

Zippie84 wrote: »

I am strange, but when I see things like that, I have a moment of 'ooh do I know this person? Am I the toxic friend?'

Yep, strange...

They say every group of friends has at least one d1ckhead. If you think "my group of friends doesn't have a d1ickhead!" , well, I've got bad news for you.