Grant500

So, I've been involved with this site in the past and stopped using it for various reasons. I feel like I need a friend to talk to and cannot think of anybody to talk to. I know I've been driving my girlfriend crazy talking so much about it. I would like to talk to somebody over message or over chat, but if you can leave a comment, that would be appreciated too. One of the main causes of my depression is the dawning realization that I will never be able to support myself in a field where I can be creative. Recently it's come to my attention that even being creative in my spare time is impossible. My main problem being that I find it nearly impossible to colaborate with anybody. When I was young I wanted to be either a musician or a painter. Being a naive teenage I thought that because people seemed impressed by my talent that these same people would be willing to give me money to continue making art (they weren't). I quickly realized how difficult it was to make a living in either of these professions. I believed the words of unscrupulous college recruiters who told me that graphic design was the best of both worlds. You can be creative while also making a livable salary. After having several jobs in the graphic design field, I quickly came to realize that it was neither financially nor creatively rewarding. Clients do not want to hear your opinions on how things should be designed. They literally want you to simply carry out their ideas, font choices, photography choices, color choices, etc. without adding any of your own ideas to the mix. Financially, the job is painful. I am constantly feeling the need to justify why I have a job at all with clients who treat me like I'm lucky to make enough money to live off. It is not uncommon for clients to offer me money that are below minimum wage and even jobs at billion dollar companies don't offer health insurance. I'm now working as a taxi driver. I've kept the few graphic design clients who didn't make me hate life (roughly $500-$600/month). It is not a bad life but I do get depressed that I'm doing a job that anybody can do. I've learned to accept that making a living at being creative is something that is just not in the stars for me. I've been trying to continue being creative in my free time but I'm finding it increasingly difficult. I have been trying to work with friends and colleagues on creative projects but find it almost impossible. People are routinely over an hour late for meetings or practices without an excuse or apology. When they get there, they're more interested in the alcohol and gossiping then discussing the project. I feel like a kindergarten teacher who needs to be standing over their shoulders if i want any work to get done. No work whatsoever gets done between practices or meetings. People routinely just get "bored" or "tired" of projects after I've put hundreds of hours of work into them. I don't know. Should I just give up on trying to work with people? Should I just give up on trying to be creative at all?

Update: Got a sales job yesterday. I actually am trying hard to be optimistic about it.

thank you all for the feedback. MCS, it's more than just criticism. I had one boss tell me "I want you to carry out my ideas, not come up with your own ideas. I don't even want you to improve my ideas." What's even the point in going into a creative field? Misanthrop, that's what I'm asking... Should I just go strictly for money and forget about job satisfaction? Lauryn, I've defintiely considered this. I've applied for several food delivery, clerk, taxi driver jobs recently. While I find it very depressing that at this point in my life being a grocery clerk doesn't sound like the worst possibility I don't really know what else to do. Spell, maybe I do just need to solider on. Maybe the right job is out there for me. Kabuto, your first suggestion is probably the best one. Find something low stress and well paying enough that I would have time in the evening to work on something creative. I have done freelance before and it is definitely not for me. The only way I would be interested in other careers was if I didn't have to go to school. I'm already too far in debt with student loans.

I'm really worried that I'm not going to find a career that I enjoy. I studied graphic design which I really enjoyed in college. 5 years of working in the field... having every ounce of joy sucked out of my designs by uptight business men without a creative bone in their body... has made me lose whatever passion I had for the field. After finally being fired from a very boring, repetitive job where I was pretty much just designing projects from templates, I've spent the past 4 or 5 months soul searching. I really want to get out of graphic design because it is a very unrewarding field (both financially and creatively) so I started working on my illustration career. I'm taking an illustration class which is pretty cool. The teachers are real-world illustrators who have actually worked for magazines that I've heard of. The problem is that it seems like the whole thing with graphic design all over again. They seem to want to suck all the joy out of my illustrations. Anywhere that I exagerate facial features or try to add interest or creativity, they make me redo. The fact that I'm not good at it doesn't bother me. That means I just need to work on it. What I'm really worried about is that I'm not enjoying it. I already had graphic design ruined for me. I don't want to lose the joy I got out of painting ruined as well. I don't know what to do. Is it a losing game trying to find a career that you're passionate about? Is it better to find a dumb, safe job and get hobbies that make you happy? Thanks in advance for any advice.

So, I'm having a catch 22. I take zoloft for anxiety and one of the main things that gives me anxiety is dating. Lately, I've been having trouble having sex and I think that zoloft (along with nerves) is to blame. I realize that the girl I'm dating is not going to want to stick around if i'm not able to make her happy. Any suggestions? I am going to try taking it every other day.

Moogie, I'm sorry if it sounded like I was ignoring the other advice on here. It just seemed like Bird was talking about something specific and I wanted to know what he or she was referencing. By asking for advice specifically on that, I wasn't trying to invalidate the other advice on here but from rereading, I can see how it would be interpreted like that. Sorry again to you and anybody else who might have been offended.

Does anybody have any suggestions? I don't know. I can't just google "how to have a good personality".

"This kind of advice is splattered across the Internet, yet rather than actually taking stepped measures to improve upon what we have there" Do you have any recommendations for things that I could look up? I don't know. I guess it seems to me like I try really hard to be funny and interesting but it never works out. I would love any type of advice people can give me.

Oh, definitely, Whatcha. I think about that all the time. It's just that changing your personality is a lot harder than it sounds. Especially when you don't know what it is about your personality that people don't like.

I'm not sure I understand the logic in saying that you should never lower your standards. I mean, I think we would all prefer to date super attractive, smart, funny, interesting people... but since these type of people make up a relatively small percentage of our population, it seems to me like the majority of us are going to have to settle. Whatcha, I wasn't saying that girls aren't allowed to like what they like. It just seems to me like if your expectations are so high that there's no way those expectations are ever going to be met, at some point you need to reevaluate your expectations. Yes I do get angry, mainly because I know a lot of great guys... not just nice guys but guys who are good looking, smart, interesting, and successful... who sit at home lonely and depressed because they can not find any girls interested in them. I know that the word "settle" has a negative connotation to it but my point is... If a girl who is morbidly obese will only date a guy with rock hard abs or a girl who is constantly unemployed will only date super successful guys... they both need to settle a little bit.

Funky, Thank you for your very thoughtful and kind response. I understand what you're saying but I feel like taking your suggestion just runs me into the same problem. I would love to date a really smart, funny, interesting girl but unfortunately it's not just the bottom of the barrel that avoids me. All girls do. I don't really know how to lower my standards or raise my standards when no girls want to date me. Wri, Thank you for your response as well. I think you are probably right. I am mainly trying to meet girls in their early 30's. I would have thought they would have grown out of that by now but I guess not. If there's nothing I can do to change it, what am I supposed to do? Just be sad and lonely the rest of my life? THat seems way too sad of a conceit.

I've heard the above philosophy (that men are too picky women it comes to women) used many times on this site. Whenever a guy complains about how hard dating is, the answer is almost always "your standards are just too high". Even at times when I've tried explaining "Zero girls want to date me. I don't know how to lower my standards below zero." I am an average looking guy in my mid-30's. I am not bald, short, or overweight. I own my own home and have a decent job. I dress well. I also have a very active social life. Meanwhile I've been rejected by just about every type of girls who (in my mind) have no redeeming qualities... Girls who are unattractive, morbidly obese, chronically unemployed or have dead-end service jobs. I've been rejected by girls who have no personality whatsoever. No matter how much I try to lower my standards, I can't seem to find a girl who will date me. I've tried explaining this to the "men are too picky when it comes to women" people and they don't believe me. They've accused me of lying (where are these invisible women who want to date me so badly?) I finally have proof that this theory is incorrect and it is totally possible to be a perfectly decent guy that no girls want to date. I'm reading this book called Dataclysm. It was written by one of the co-creators of OKCupid and uses the data collected by OKCupid to come up with explanations for why people end up dating the people who they date. In the book, the author came to the conclusion that women are much more critical of men than men are critical of women. When OKCupid asked customers to rate members of the opposite sex (he doesn't go into how gay members rated members of their own sex) on a scale of 0-5 (a feature that OKCupid no longer has), Men gave women an average score of 2.7 (bare in mind that the halfway point between 0 and 5 is only 2.5) whereas women rated men on average 1.9. I don't know. I don't really know what my point is here. I just find it really frustrating that on top of not being able to find any girls who like me, I'm told that it's my fault for being too picky about girls or told that I'm lying.