So It’s been probably 5 years since I’ve had anything resembling a friend group, or really anything like a friend; and recently I’ve been wanting to get out there again but I’ve stumbled across a couple roadblocks.

I can’t do IRL because my town has 1000 people in it and most of them are hardcore conservatives and I don’t own a car (fuck american infrastructure)

I am struggling to find an online group because I am extremely uncomfortable around men due to a lot of childhood stuff, and a majority of the public spaces are either mixed Adult / Teen or Adult only with absolutely zero tolerance for NSFW (I’m a hentai artist, unfortunately, I love my hobby too much lol).

I feel like a lot of it are personal hurdles I need to overcome too - like I’m very embarrased at how deep my voice is, I haven’t had very many positive social encounters when I’m being myself and not putting up a façade etc.

But I have been working on myself recently and I think I’m getting there, but by trying to be too safe I can’t really find the community I need. But I know for a fact that if I venture out too far I’ll just end up getting hurt again, and my sensitive ass is pretty sensitive so y’know that’s a shit deal.

What I want to know is: how did you find your group, and is it really worth it to put myself out there right now?