That’s it for my vent/rant. Thanks for reading through it.

Hi, I'm Doug. This is a vent/rant about me having a really hard time socializing. (spoilered if you don't really care for reading through it)

I'm currently 31, and I've always been lousy at socializing—or at least, that's how it feels. But even that statement is misleading. I have memories of being very social back in first and second grade, but then it stopped—coincidentally or not—around the same time I first remember experiencing the "big sad". But that's not the point.

Throughout school, I was very artistically and creatively inclined, but I never really pursued it until I was almost done with middle school. High school was when I started focusing more on art, joined the furry fandom, and began creating and posting art more frequently. It was also when my childhood friends transferred to other schools, leaving me alone.

There’s a correlation there, but to put it simply: I wasn’t really allowed to express myself at home. Having family members shoot down and dismiss my ideas and feelings made me uncomfortable with socializing. In school, being the shy nerd that I was, art became my way of expressing myself in a way that wasn’t loud or bothersome to others (as it was back home). Then, I realized that it was easier to let people come to me because of my art rather than approach them myself.

That mindset, formed in my youth, has shaped the way I socialize ever since, even as I’ve learned more about myself. I have some degree of social anxiety and unresolved family trauma, which makes the whole thing a very difficult ordeal for me.

Over the last decade, I’ve been creating furry art and comics, and through that, I’ve met a huge number of people—several of whom became friends along the way. But as with many friendships, people drift apart over time. I’ve always known that a big part of the problem is that even after becoming friends with someone, I struggle to reach out and check in on them. And as often happens, if one person is always the only one reaching out, eventually, they stop.

Art helped me meet people, but it didn’t necessarily help me maintain those friendships. What actually helped was reading a book about making friends and applying the lessons it taught. It wasn’t vastly different from what I had already been doing, but it gave me a new mindset that helped put things into perspective. It’s a bit shameful to admit, but the biggest takeaway from the book was that the key to socializing better is to actually care about others.

At the end of the day, I had been seeing things through a selfish lens: I need socialization, so I’m going to “manipulate” people into socializing with me. Sure, there were genuine thoughts and concerns about others mixed in, but it’s funny the hoops your mind jumps through to justify things.

After improving my social skills, I made even more genuine connections with people who were drawn to me because of my art and creations. But it also made me realize that my living situation was bad and needed to change. I won’t go into details, as they’re darker and more dramatic than this vent is meant to be, but suffice it to say—Covid wasn’t my lowest point.

After everything, I feel like my sense of self was badly damaged, and my focus was shattered. I returned to my hometown—one of the cities with the largest concentration of furries in the world—and yet, I find myself unable to socialize properly, even though most people here at least know of me and my art.

To summarize, I’ve always been a lonely person—not entirely by choice, but due to how my mind works and the circumstances I’ve found myself in. Using art as a crutch for socializing worked for a time, but now, it almost feels like a hindrance, as many people find me intimidating to approach because of it.

Ultimately, the problem is still me—the way I approach things, or rather, the way my mind makes me approach things. I’m constantly afraid of interacting with people, and the mere idea of socializing spikes my anxiety to dangerous levels, even when it’s friends or people I’ve known for years initiating contact.

Here's the finished piece for JeffWolf, the winner of the YCH who got a chance to use me as a massive canine bed and sleep in that naturally soft mattress with built-in pillows.

In both versions I'm helping him get a nice place to rest, but the NSFW version comes with a built-in body pillow as well! :>

Last year I missed doing a monstrous version of myself for Halloween like I always do, so I tried to think something up, and with it being the Chinese year of the snake, what better form than Nagadoug? :D Or Snekpo? Naggo? Who knows... Nonetheless, hope…