"Be yourself"

If being myself means, shy, quiet, boring, ect; then how does that help?

When you start acting and pretending to be someone you ain't. It's all gonna fall to bits. =/

If being myself means, shy, quiet, boring, ect; then how does that help?

cuz, lyk, acting diffruntly is bad n stuf...
you can't try and tell me you act the same all the time. people only truly act "themselves" when they are really relaxed, so generally with mates they know well already.

when i'm myself, i tend to be marginalised...
my tastes are too unique for most

But that doesn't mean there won't still be other people around who have the same tastes. Why the pressure to appeal to most people?

And I wouldn't say that "be yourself" is silly advice -- because it's directed towards people who deliberately act unlike themselves to get what they want. Why would any prospective partner want to be deceived into thinking you're someone you're not?

'Being yourself' is the lamest sounding advice ever, but when I actually started thinking about what it actually means it made dramatic changes to my social skills.

Shyness is not part of your personality, but merely something that inhibits it — you can almost think of it as a disorder, freezing you up when it's most important to share who you really are with someone. So the first step? Pretend shyness doesn't exist. Decide that you're going to either be someone else (ie: feign characteristics that aren't you) or be yourself, but whoever it is that person is not shy. They don't hesitate to say what's on their mind.

By not being yourself, you're putting all the pressure on yourself to behave in such a way that impresses whoever it is you're talking to. By constantly thinking about not saying the wrong thing, planning what you're going to say during a conversation in advance, and acting in a way they'll approve of, you end up screwing yourself over with anxiety. This anxiety is a serious killer and will stop you from even approaching people. Even if it does initially go well, eventually they'll discover the real you and it'll fall apart.

If you be yourself, you're putting that pressure on the other person. You just say whatever you want to say as soon as it comes to mind without worrying what they think about you, and if they don't like what you have to say that's their problem. At the end of the day, you want to find someone who likes you for who you truly are. Therefore, if someone doesn't like the real you — flaws and all — they're doing you a favour by making this clear, and you need waste no more time on them. Life's too short to spend talking to people you don't get along with.

Maybe this doesn't make much sense to you and doesn't help at all. This kind of thinking really did change my outlook on social situations, though.

Acting different is bad, when you have no intention of carrying on with the behaviour.

It's like all the young girls that fall for a romantic person at the beginning of a relationship, only to later go ask herself why did he change? He used to be so sweet and caring. Dating sucks for that reason, in the sense that it's not really a true representation of how a person would act in everyday life situations.

It's just fail and headache inducing. Better to stay relaxed and change normally then to fake a changed persona.

But you can't always be yourself, the whole point is in a relationship you slowly work out for yourselves what your partner is like, and each becomes more and more comfortable with the other until you just naturally act yourselves. Every relationship goes through a romantic "honeymoon" phase, before the two come down to earth and genuinely learn to like the other person, and deal with their bad points. I don't make a conscious effort to be someone else but when nervous, when waiting for an interview for example or when meeting new people I've found you sometimes just can't relax.

high five
Problem is, we don't get approached, and we don't approach either.

Long live 300 year old virgin.