Be confident in yourself - people like to see someone who is ok with themselves. If you make a fool of yourself - it's ok, just keep going - no one cares, everyone's done it.

Don't be cocky though - it's annoying. Do group things - dancing, classes, anything really, Introduce yourself to people - it'll feel awkward, but most of them will be pleased. Remember names - saying a person's name in a sentence 3 times shortly after meeting them helps. Be polite - please, thank you, hold open doors, etc. Don't be cocky - it's annoying.* This helps you meet people - beyond that is up to you - but it's ok, no one else knows what they're doing either. -- *I typed it twice because it's important.

Originally Ma Bell got sued because you could only connect Bell telephones to your landline - nothing else would work. It was decided this was anti competitive. Now all of a sudden carriers *can* decide what devices we use? I think there's precedent for this. Verizon may not manufacture my phone, but there is a Verizon logo on the back of *every* phone I can choose. That seems like an unnecessary amount of control.

Why don't we have a standard (maybe like the LSB but better) with distros that follow it? Perhaps it could be modeled after a popular distro such as Ubuntu? Other disros would be free to deviate, but major software manufacturers (Adobe, Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc.) would only be expected to produce software for the standards. If a distro didn't follow the standards it would be up to the maintainers to make it work if they wanted the software.