Lecture: I wasn't expecting more than twenty people to show up, got seventy-four. Most seemed to be from three high schools that aren't far from uni, but I hadn't surveyed them, just recognised some of the teachers. It went pretty well. The Q&A session afterwards took almost half as long as the lecture itself. I also received an email with a long-form question. Wanted to puke from stress after it was all over. Good thing those are only once a month. Don't take me wrong - I enjoyed it. But it is very exhausting and takes me about fifteen times longer to prepare than to deliver the lecture. 'Dating' (or rather Books, considering): I got stood up. Again. Wish people would stop doing that. My expectations are so low that I'm taking Durant with me to dates. The reasoning is that in the worst case I'll look like a wannabe intellectual, whereas in the best case I will not feel as bad about wasting time. She didn't call or answer. Might as well wait for a bit longer, right? After two hours and the Roman conquest of Greece, I went back home. I hope to finish reading volume 3 (and perhaps start 4th?) before the mid-terms. State of mind: I'm done trying to be social. At least for a while. Even disregarding my last few 'dates', I can't stop thinking that it's a pointless exercise. I've been forcing myself to engage more with other people for around five months now, and it doesn't look like I got any better.
No results after 5 months? Honestly, it seems like you might be looking in the wrong place. It’s not necessarily you « not getting any better ». A big part of finding cool people to hang out with, was finding « my people ». Like, friend wise most importantly. And then keep growing that circle through friends of friends. I remember only getting along really superficially with people in university. But now I realize it’s because they were just not my kind of people.