Jus,

I think you are already onto the answer. You wrote it in your post. What made you happy was sharing in the posts on tiny buddha. You said it was “nourishing for your soul.” If you head in that direction in your personal life, seeking what is nourishing for your soul as you relate to others, I think you will find the answers, and kind of people, connections, and confidence you are looking for

I am older than you (and you have many years in which to have new experiences and learn what works for you), but even so, I went through a period of time of about 5 years where I was not dating despite wanting to. I was convinced the reason was that I was ugly. In fact, that I was partially balding, and I would never have a pretty girlfriend (despite having dated many pretty women in the past). I even considered hair transplant. And it did make me more self conscious socially.

Then guess what happened? I moved and met a pretty girl who wanted to date me. AND it didn’t work out (for other reasons). AND after that I just stopped worrying about how I looked. It is like the experience cancelled out that concern in my mind. Despite how she and I looked, we didn’t really connect.

What changed? How I looked? No. How I felt. My looks didn’t change very much at all.

As time went on I focused more on just saying more clearly what really expressed my thoughts, and a lot more people wanted to connect with me.

A LOT of people worry about how they look. In fact, Super Models worry about how they look (you can even hear one talk about it on TED Talks). I’ve met women in their 70s worried about how they look, and beautiful women in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

When you get poor reception on your cell phone, what do you do? Blame the phone? Blame the cell tower? No. You walk around until you find a place with better reception.

So, if you walk around and put out a signal that is you, and eventually you find a place (or person) where there is a good reception, you too will eventually stop feeling badly about how you look, because you will be connected to people, and that will change how you feel, and as you change how you feel, so will the image you have of yourself. The issue is so often how people “feel” about how they look, not about how they look objectively.

You can feel good about yourself one day, and bad about yourself another. But what is changing is not reality, it’s the software inside that creates your “idea” of you. No one sees themselves, rather we all take information we have from (pictures, videos and mirrors) and we link that together with how we feel. Then we produce a self image.

I know the experience is a tough one to shake, but consider that what you see with your eyes is an illusion. See with your heart instead.