Okay so after I went and put up an introduction post and went on about how I was going to work on being more active here… I went and disappeared for like a month. Whoops. Granted, part of that is because I was busy with editing, but there’s also another big reason behind it. I am very bad at doing this thing called dealing with people. I just kind of… don’t know how. Among other things, I have pretty bad social anxiety, and I also highly suspect I might be autistic. And I just generally have no idea how to people, and it’s gotten noticeably worse over the last few years. In terms of people I talk to on a regular basis, I have a few close online friends (like, 1-2 people), and my immediate family (i.e. my parents), and that’s about it. I got done with school recently and don’t have a job yet, and even then I’m planning on working from home because commuting to and working at a full-time job somewhere else seems like my idea of a personal hell. I have a best friend that I talk to basically every day, but unlike me, she’s got an SO and also actually leaves the house sometimes, whereas I am more or less glued to my computer every waking moment because it’s my only connection with the real world. So on days when she isn’t here I tend to feel cut off because again, only social contact. But that’s extremely unfair of me to put on her shoulders, so for both of our sakes I NEED to get some sort of social life. So now I’m just like… how do I do this? There are almost no social meet-ups in this area that interest me, and even then I pretty much have no choice but to drive to them, and driving is immensely spoon-draining. Every option sounds like more effort than it’s worth. More to the point, I’m bad at making and keeping friendships. I don’t know what to do because I desperately WANT close, lifelong relationships with people, but I don’t have the mental energy to maintain those relationships. Am I just fucked? Am I doomed to be isolated from the society I want to connect with forever? Am I just driving away any possible relationships because of my fear of abandonment? I don’t know how to deal with all this crap. I partially just need a place to vent, but I’d also appreciate any advice anyone might have. ETA: Also, since I'm still kind of feeling my way around here, I'm not quite sure which section of the forum this kind of venting-ish thread is supposed to go in. Sorry.
I have been through times like this. In fact, I recently cut a lot of toxic people out of my life and throttled down my interactions with other not-quite-toxic people too. For myself, as a person who finds it hard to pick up and maintain new friendships, I found that patience and becoming comfortable with myself were incredibly important. Finding a job helped a lot too. Working alongside the same people everyday, or a small rotating assortment of people at any rate, gave me a chance to build up a gradual bond with a few individuals. Like, when we've shared t he experience of dealing with difficult customers, that's one thing we have in common. Then a few of us discover we play d&d or something. Out of a store full of people I end up making one friend, over the course of a year. At some point we hang out and I meet new people through him, and over the course of another year I find that one or two of them develop a bond with me too. And so on. And once in a while there's that oddity, a person I immediately feel comfortable with and within days we're socializing like we've known each other for years. Or there's one or two folks that I've known now for ten years and we're perfectly friendly at work but the only time we ever socialize outside work is if we both happen to be attending the same event. We like each other just fine, but we're not compatible to form any real bond. I don't know if this overview is going to be any help to you. My social issues collide with my depression in a way that makes it weirdly easy to be patient about these things (I'm often not capable caring for weeks or months, and then I am so used to being around a person that my shyness and social anxiety aren't triggered when we engage more). So I really don't know how helpful this will be. I hope it helps some though.
