Are any other newbies here absolutely petrified of playing against real people?

I genuinely don't understand what there is to be anxious about?

It's not like this is a real over-the-board chess club and you have to face the other player, look him in the eyes and say "I resign", whilst a crowd of people watch you lose.

You're playing online against some random people from other countries who have no idea who you are and will probably never see you or play you again. There's millions of users on this site, so you're pretty much invisible.

Whatever games you win or lose - however much your rating changes - only you will notice and only you will care.

I think the anxiety is all around what @Brad253 pointed out...

As a begginer you might think that chess is directly related to how smart you are, and of course that's kind of related, but for an amateur I think the fear of losing to a real person is related to a fear of having a "proof" that he/she is not smart.

It's very  commom to see this "self sabotaging" behavior (seeing problems before even starting to deal with the situation)   in all kinds of situation, so it seems preety normal to me to see it on chess.

I've been playing a little with 'real people': here's a question...are people able to use computer analysis against you during the game? I don't but am worried opponents are. Then again I could just be terrible! Sorry if this has been asked/answered before

Well. A few times messages from chess.com came to me. But the cheaters were in daily chess games. I am not sure if it is possible to cheat in live games, maybe in rapid but not in bullet or blitz. But if they do, it does not harm you but to them. They cannot have good feeling of winning like this. So I would not worry about it

Thanks @Katerinah337..good points

No problem

Also i am fine with playing real people as long as they don't act toxic when they lose and disable chat and block me and everything lol

I'd just start playing, block chat and you'll most likely never see them again anyways.

Me 'cuz there's a good chance they're doing the thing where they have a high level bot on another page and they play the opponent's moves on that page, and then copy the bot's responses as their own move. 

Probably a low chance but still, my elo just keeps dropping and dropping.

Why are you looking at the chat when you should be looking at the board?  Play the game, and learn to ignore what doesn't matter.

Yeah, I do this all the time because whenever I mess up instead of thinking my brain decides to go, "See? Now the person you're playing against is JUDGING you very harshly. You absolute moron." even though the logical side is just saying that that's malarkey and most likely I will never interact or meet this person ever again (hurrah for social anxiety). For what I do, I just pretend like the other person is a bot and act like so instead of worrying about whether or not they are judging me. I also play with chat turned off.

Edit: Changed due to grammar mistakes.

I also usually train by versing bots, preferably 1500 bots. I rarely play against people because I also have anxiety versing against people, even lower rated than me. Only when I have a decisive advantage is when I start to relax. I made a similar forum on this, and the replyers told me to play more live games so I'll get used to it. Maybe that'll work for you

Hi

Hi will you please sub to my channel

That counts as spam though, no matter how you try to glorify it. There are places to do that, but it's not here.

ok I am sry

yea get ricEd

I also get nervous. The advice about playing dailies is helpful. Less pressure and more time to think. I still get crushed a lot and I think that is just something that comes with being a beginner. It can be very frustrating but I think it is helpful because with bots there's the temptation to take back or get hints, which doesn't help development imo.