I’ve heard people talk confidently and dynamically about the most boring shit. My boss will tell elaborate stories about his morning commute or why he buys the energy drink he buys. Then I try to tell a story about like… shooting a movie and trespassing in a busy train station to get the shot we needed and I can’t hold anyone’s attention.

I’m not convinced you need any life experiences to have an identity or share a story. This of unfortunately not a solution.

my best anecdotes are from either myself or someone else doing something very stupid, so my tactic is increase the amount of stupid shit I’m doing.

this tactic has gained me a series of new interesting scars and numb spots on my body so I think that’s progress?

I’m doing my best to push through it, I’m out there talking to people, but there’s usually a point where we are sharing personal anecdotes and I just feel my stomach tightening, as I barely have any of those. I have no experiences which means I have no identity which means I am uninteresting.

Most people stop learning in whatever thing they’re interested in after about a year. You’re not 10 years behind other people, you’re closer to 2-3 years. I used to think that I was hopelessly behind other people when it came to dating but most people only learn how to date for a year or so. Then they just glide on what they know for the rest of their lives. It’s the same for pretty much anything else. Once people stop learning passively, they usually stop learning.

It’s the same for you. You’re not 10 years behind, you’re only 2-3 from being just as experienced as the average person.

I’m becoming old, bitter, and insane about it.

Like i’m also still engaged in a search for medical interventions that will let me get back out in the streets causing problems, but that hasn’t borne fruit so for the time being angry and bitter and unhinged is what i’ve got

People love talking about themselves. You can get pretty far by just listening to people.

Assuming you’re talking about people traveling and dating and doing stuff with friends in their 20s while you hung out indoors on the computer or something:

I’ve experienced this with shorter periods of time (on the scale of a year or so) and the main way to move past them is to actually change your life in the way you want. If you’re still in the period/mode of doing nothing then you stay stuck worrying about it. If you change your life and start doing things you don’t worry about it so much, it just recedes into this amorphous time in the past when nothing happened. Life can be quite long. Are you changing your life to experience those things you want to experience now?

If you’d like some solidarity of experience from another group outside the norm, look up queer temporality.

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I think the only thing that you can do is go out and try to do shit now, hopefully a few years of it and you’ll have the anecdotes and that feeling doesn’t set in. Also you might be surprised what people find interesting tbh. When I’m forced into making conversation my go to is talking about moving out here without much of a plan and people always seem impressed and then start asking about where I used to live. You may not be giving yourself enough credit

At least you’re talking to people tho couldn’t be me hahaaaaa

I’ve felt like this in different periods throughout my adult life and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever really dealt with it. It kind of just fades away until the next time I get obsessively introspective about where I am in life.

i feel the same way, a lot.

in conversation, you could always fall back on your media experiences. So SO many people just talk about movies and music, games too.

also, did you know that when you read interesting things from interesting people, those interesting ideas become part of you? that’s how I enjoy thinking of it. so if you read interesting things from interesting and obscure people, especially historical people, then you will have things to talk about (often very shocking things), and also become wise. In many ways, those experiences have become yours. that’s what i tell myself, when i get sad about how little i’ve done with my life so far…

also refocusing your mindset. dont think about how interesting or uninteresting you might seem to the person you’re talking to. think about how interesting THEY are!

There’s several methods to handling this. First, you already have the insight and possess a level of introspection where you’ve reflected on this aspect of yourself enough to understand it is a flawed mindset. I would argue you didn’t waste 10 years because it appears during that time you’ve developed a level of wisdom and maturity many people never do.

Second, in dealing with lack of experiences and struggling with identity, the best I can do is offer some advice that I hope you find helpful. Identity is a tricky thing because of how abstract it becomes the moment you really try to analyze the concept. For a long time I felt like a void of personality due to feeling no strong sense of identity to things that people I saw identified with. I wondered why they found meaning in these things while I couldn’t. But I soon found its because their constructing an identity around employment, commodities, sports, etc., and that I was looking in the wrong places trying to answer “who am I?” I don’t have a great answer to identity crisis though. Ultimately, try not to worry about “what’s my identity/personality,” let people piece it together themselves, either through conversation or by whatever symbols you may use to express yourself. Just let go of trying to define your own identity, let your understanding of yourself and your experiences define you. Which brings us to your reported lack of experiences.

Luckily, a couple things that can be done to help with that. The most immediate one, and it seems you are actively doing which is great, is to go make experiences. By meeting people, carving out opportunities, getting lucky, and so on. But “experiences” in terms of having a repertoire of personal anecdotes comes with time, and well, experience. You’ll get there. No need to look backwards because these experiences are in your present and future.

The next thing you can do is a mix of changing mindset and finding the “experiences” you do have, or rather reframing your view of yourself and the last 10 years. Did you read? Did you learn? Did you cook something new? Did you go on a walk somewhere, take a hike, change a tire? Did you play video games, or watch TV? There’s a plethora of things to draw from in any of those areas in terms of being able to converse and share experience. Like having an opinion about why you liked/didn’t like something and talking about it. You can talk about any of it! Someone has a story and it reminds you of something from a book you read, talk about it.

Last thing, and I don’t recommend this but you’ll find a lot of people do this. Just lie. Half the stories you hear people telling about themselves, their “anecdotes”, are bullshit. Its either highly exaggerated or they’re just stealing a story they heard from someone else. Maybe they read it in a reddit comment. Some people will just collect ‘bits’ and then deploy them out in conversations, but its really just an act. So, you could also develop an ‘act’ of stories that you make yourself the main character of and use that to fill in the last 10 years. But I don’t endorse this method for reasons I feel need no explanation.

Regret feels a lot like grief, in my experience, almost like a lighter shade of mourning what could have been. Acceptance is probably the hardest part of it, and it takes a different kind of mindset to reframe the way you look at yourself and what you have experienced. Hindsight after an extended period of surviving rather than living is probably one of the most difficult things to process emotionally, because you can look back and see the things that could (or should) have been different but there’s no way to make changes. It’s lonely, and the struggle is internal, making it hard to share and describe to others. It’s okay to say “I got nothin” in those situations, though, or even sharing things that you wish you had done instead. Technically that’s still sharing your experience without having to delve into that feeling of nothingness. You never know, someone might just say they feel the same, or even offer to make new experiences with you moving forward. I think being honest is the best way to genuinely connect to others. We’re all walking our different paths, and moving at different speeds. Go easy on yourself comrade, it sounds like you’re making good strides even if it feels like you’re lagging behind.

yeah, I have the same problem. I don’t have any advice though.

I’ve lost a decade of my life too, and I know how that feels… I don’t care for conversations or what people think, but I suffer a lot from that hole no one else understands. I hope you find a way to feel better about it.

why did you lose 10 years of your life?

i’m in my 4th decade now and i’m looking forward to not living beyond like 65 if i can help it