Socializing Skills

One of my big self-improvement goals is to be better with interpersonal interactions because I know that's a large deficiency of mine due to my lack of social development.  Though I also acknowledge that socializing is always a complex web of tradeoffs, not having a lot of experience navigating that web can certainly make already complicated situations even more fraught. 

My risk aversion and conflict avoidance also mean that I avoid doing a lot of the things that would help me develop better skills in that area, but at the same time I fear those may be the only qualities that allow me any semblance of being a civilized human being.  I'm just internal screaming all the time really and I know enough to know that just externalizing that as is would make both myself and the people around me very unhappy.  But my main strategy for dealing with it is to repress lol.

Kabocha Pumpkin Soup

Am making pumpkin soup with kabocha pumpkin, acorn squash, and carrots.  When I cut a few small holes in them (I am using 2 kabocha), I could smell a delicious pumpkin smell immediately.  I'm given to understand that kabocha are much more flavorful than ordinary pumpkin, so I'm looking forward to trying this out!