To start, I’m okay being alone, but I sometimes try to take an objective look at myself. I try to understand how I think and do things the way I do.
If my brother didn’t live with me. I would probably live alone. I work from home and have infrequent meetings, outside of that I would probably have almost no interaction aside from the people I see doing my weekly grocery shopping. I have probably 2 or 3 people I could call a friend, and a few acquaintances, and all of them are previous coworkers. My interactions with them are generally constrained to discord chat. This is simply setting the stage, lets continue to set the stage for how did I get here?
If I’m being critical, I don’t know that I have ever had many/any friends. In grade school, I had neighbors who’s houses I would go over to, but I don’t think they ever came over to mine. I was a member of many clubs, but I didn’t really talk to any members outside of the club itself. After starting college, I think I might have kept in contact with one person from high school, but that was only once or twice. I haven’t talked to anybody from then for over 10 years.
Surely people from college, right? Well, again I was in the marching band and lived on campus, certainly many friends from there. Everybody in band has a friend right? Other than attending alumni events, and some volunteering, I don’t talk to any of them either.
So what does this all mean? Well I think I can say I can be alone in a room full of people. I can go to a meetup, after working though the anxiety that would keep me from attending, and leave after barely talking to anybody. I have anxiety that keeps me from going to events where other people would be, and if I do go, I have no idea how to interact. In general I would say I don’t really know how to start a conversation with others outside of a professional setting. I can respond in a conversation, but leading is out of the question. I’m bad enough at reading people in person, online I’m even worse. It takes effort for me to only say “fine, you?” instead of a full explanation in response to someone I know saying “hi, how’s it going” as a greeting.
I used to say I was an introvert, but I don’t even know if that’s true. I’d much rather do things with someone else than just alone, I just don’t have anyone to do it with. I just don’t want to be in a group of people having fun, and not knowing how to even start a conversation. Anyway, yep I’m lonely and usually okay with it.
For reading the above, here’s a silly music video with lots of cartoon violence (including cartoon death) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-atRsitNsY Song is let your love flow by the Bellamy Brother and animation is by Tirrelous
I can relate to a lot of this. I think much of it is a cycle - not engaging in a conversation because of social anxiety and as a result not gaining the necessary experience to improve, so it continues. The only way out is to push yourself, even when it’s uncomfortable. Just say what comes to your mind, don’t overthink things. I’m trying to get better at it myself.
As a side note, I’ve met the Tirrel (the animator of that video) in passing in real life. They seem really nice :3
@OmegaMouse @l_b_i
But what do you do if you are somewhat autistic and most people consider your clumsy attempts to get in conversation as repulsing, leading to more isolation from their side
If anyone actually feels that way (repulsed by your conversation), then they’re not a good person and you should try to find better friends… But perhaps they don’t actually feel that way, and it’s something that your anxiety is convincing you is the case when it isn’t? I think we tend to assign too much weight to our perception of how others judge us, whereas in reality the other person is probably too hung up on what they’re going to say to actually notice or worry about our errors. Go out, be clumsy and make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes in real life.
@OmegaMouse
They are not friends, they are the people to meet on munches or other events where i was trying to find friends and local buddies
Edit: and the repulsion is obviously seen as in they will not talk with me again or have me uninvited from future meetups
Did they say why they wouldn’t talk to you again?
For me at least, its just the attending that is the anxiety. The lack of speaking is not knowing what to say or having nothing to say and not knowing how to start a conversation with someone I don’t know.
That’s understandable. I think the anxiety will improve as you attend more. Are we talking about furmeets? In which case, make a list of things you could ask in advance. What’s your sona, how long have you been in the fandom, what kinda games do you play?