Can't agree more. I've found this mindset to be super useful for health and weight loss journey. Anytime I encounter someone with a lot of rules that involve "trying" or "sometimes" it's pretty clear they're not gonna make it (and i've never seen a non drug-assisted exception to this)
I really think this is a case where one needs to provide pictures of themselves for this to be taken seriously. Similar to my preference that people "post body" if they're giving advice about fitness. I want to see proof of work. The brief self description doesn't sound cool or high status at all to me, and it seems counterproductive to take advice on coolness and status from someone that might be uncool and low status
I really think you made a mistake by going to a philosophy meetup instead of sports bars during a game. To me this implies you're in such a deep bubble you actually don't even know what a normie is at this point so I wouldn't get ahead of yourself classifying them. You had the correct instinct, but at no point here did you actually engage with a normie. At least do that before having an existential crisis and writing a long essay about them right?