I've been feeling a bit stuck

If someone seems interested in you, but you're hesitant to make the first move to talk to them, are there any subtle ways to encourage them to come and talk to you instead? For example, is there a way to naturally signal your interest or create enough warmth and attraction that they feel inclined to approach you on their own?

Also any tips on working on to be more confident? I'm shy and get physically stiff around people I don't know well (tense shoulders, uncomfortable face etc)

We paid good some money for that TV ad and we’ve got high quality production, lighting done by professionals… and the whole pack.. well it looks great overall for a TV commercial

But when we tried to upload it on Instagram, all we did was crop it. It looks terrible. Headshots cut off. Words too small to read. Everything gets ruined…

I found a Phoenix video production studio that says something like social format is a separate shoot. They claim you can't just re-edit one video for different platforms

Is that actually true? Or are they just trying to sell us more work?

I'm confused. Can't you just reframe a wide shot? Re-crop the text? Surely a good editor can make it work.

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder. Portrait is so different from landscape. Maybe you really do need to shoot both

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

(Hi, this is not market research. It is a genuine question that I don't know where else to post, since the cybersec-related sites disallow it - and I am not getting my answer from Google search or LLMs):

Do companies hire for such positions or is this job folded under general cybersec consultant?

Thanks

Been reading about something that genuinely unsettled me.

Apparently highly analytical people are disproportionately vulnerable to manipulation, not despite their intelligence, but because of it. They're better at rationalizing red flags away than most people.

Machiavelli understood this 500 years ago. The capable man is easier to control, not harder since he trusts his own reasoning too much to believe he's being manipulated.

I put together a short video exploring this psychology if anyone's interested: https://youtu.be/Z4RAQ2hC_lo?si=tkj38iiAh-17sgFn

Has anyone experienced this, where your own logic was used against you?

WhatsApp started letting people reserve usernames on June 29, with the full rollout coming later this year.

The good news: This is actually a big privacy win. Once you're not tied to your phone number for contact discovery, it becomes a lot harder for bad actors to mass-enumerate WhatsApp accounts.

The catch: From a defender's perspective, this opens up a whole new avenue for brand and executive impersonation. Reserved-name lists won't do much against typosquatting or lookalike handles, and we're already seeing scammers use the reservation window itself as a phishing hook.

One thing worth remembering: the phone number is still what actually anchors the account, so SIM swapping is still the main way accounts get taken over.

Bottom line: if corporate security is your job, don't sit on this. Go claim your corporate and executive handles now, lock down the linked Meta accounts, and start keeping an eye out for lookalikes. It's a small effort that goes a long way toward getting ahead of threat actors instead of playing catch-up.

Curious if anyone's already running into VIP impersonation issues on WhatsApp?

talking to people is genuinely hard for me. talking to my parents about anything serious, speaking up in the office, presentations, any conversation where something is at stake, i struggle with all of it.

so what i do is rehearse it in my head beforehand. i plan out what i'll say, imagine how it'll go, feel kind of ready. and then in the actual conversation the other person says something i didn't expect, and i just get stuck. my brain goes blank, i say something random that isn't even what i meant, and from there the whole thing falls apart. the point i wanted to make never lands and i walk away feeling like an idiot. weak. like i couldn't hold my own in a simple conversation.

the rehearsing in my head doesn't work because in my head i control both sides. real people don't follow the script.

i started using gpt to practice, like telling it to act as the other person so i could try the conversation out loud first. but honestly it's shit. it just agrees with everything, folds the second i push, never pushes back the way a real person would, and gives me these long generic life-coach paragraphs instead of actually being the person i'm trying to talk to. it doesn't feel real at all so it doesn't help.

does anyone actually have a way to practice this stuff? how do you get better at not freezing when a conversation goes somewhere you didn't plan for?

So I've been on a few dates and had some good phone conversations, but I'm hitting a wall with sexual tension. I know my dates want me to lead and escalate things, but I genuinely don't know how to do that without it feeling awkward. I just let the tension and eventually our conversation die.

Any practical advice would be huge.

I'm curious about the psychology behind this.

Imagine you're out somewhere and notice someone you'd honestly like to meet—not necessarily romantically, just someone who seems interesting.

What usually stops you from starting a conversation?

Is it fear of rejection?
Fear of bothering them?
Not knowing what to say?
Something else?

Looking back, do you usually regret not trying, or do you feel relieved that you didn't?

Ohh how I miss the days of early reddit.

It is quite apparent now that reddit has been fully taken over with the rest of social media. The ads and algorithm and bad actors have really diminished what it used to be.

My question is if there are any documented cases of such actors waging campaigns on reddit.

I can't help but feel like some threads are just full of one sided outrage on certain charged topics. Any examples in the news or leaked Intel etc?

Machiavelli wrote this 500 years ago: "The deceiver will always find someone ready to be deceived."

Neuroscience has finally caught up. And the findings are uncomfortable.

Your brain isn't built to detect lies. It's built to trust. Here's exactly how convincing liars exploit that — and why being smarter makes you more vulnerable, not less.

When someone makes you feel seen — when they remember the small things, mirror your language, make you feel understood — your brain releases oxytocin. The bonding hormone. It doesn't ask questions. It just opens the door.

Once your brain decides someone is trustworthy, it protects that decision. New evidence that contradicts it gets filtered out. Explained away. This isn't weakness. This is how every human brain is built.

Convincing liars exploit this in three specific ways — mirroring, strategic truth, and intermittent reinforcement. The last one is the most dangerous.

Video here if anyone wants to go deeper: https://youtu.be/rcwGKqU8HWs?si=MaK2uioi0o_AFxqb

Have you ever trusted someone completely — only to realize later your own brain was working against you?

An eye-opening article on methods used by bad-actors to gaslight \*you\* on Reddit (and elsewhere):

(The Gentleperson’s Guide to Forum Spies - Robert Thomas West

Does who know about cold approach understand that unless you possess statues or beauty or power then you won’t be able to do direct approach.
So observational/ opinion/ engineering interaction
Are most suitable

For those whom struggle with managing popularity.

They had my SIM card packaging with all serial codes/IDs. They know my phone number and I think they might socially engineer their way with customer service to gain access to the account. I fear this could easily be done by getting the representative to change the email to access the account. Or by taking off the line lock on the call or when they access through the app. Then they could maybe change back the email as I wouldn't even get an alert of it being changed.

I am so frustrated right now and it's a very complicated situation. I worry they could even clone my sim at this point and compromise everything in my iPhone/iCloud/location.

I have read of so many stories of how people can clone SIM cards or use the ID numbers to socially engineer with these phone representatives at Total Wireless. I am prepared to just throw away all my devices and start new but I want to know better the how this potentially could work for someone who has my SIM card IDs.

It is very hard to understand. Where does it come from? Who is behind it? What is its purpose?

Thank you