Tired of being socially anxious
I struggle with socializing quite hard. I have this constant fear of being judged, embarrassing myself, sounding awkward, boring and annoying people, or just getting rejected. Even online where everything is apparently anonymous, it feels weird and stressful.
Whenever I meet someone, it’s like my tongue gets tied and mind goes blank. I can never think of anything to say. Well, to be fair, I don’t even have anything interesting to talk about in general. Just starting a conversation feels difficult for some reason I can’t explain.
And when I think about wanting friends, there’s always this thought in the back of my mind: “Why would anyone be friends with me when there are way more interesting and better people to spend time with?”
Before I even talk to someone, I already start imagining how the conversation will go, how awkward it’ll become, how I’ll say something wrong, or how they’ll lose interest immediately. I avoid conversations, groups, calls, and meeting people because it all feels overwhelming and impossible.
I don’t talk about this with my family either. My brother would probably just brush it off and tell me to “just talk to people” like it’s that simple. My parents used to send me to psychologists because they thought something was wrong with me for not having friends and staying in my room all the time. But honestly, those experiences just made me feel worse. I tried explaining how hard socializing is for me, and all I got back was stuff like “stop playing videogames", “go outside”, "talk to people", "get friends who share your hobbies". One psychologist even laughed and asked why I didn’t have a girlfriend yet after I literally explained that I can barely form friendships in the first place.
I thought I’d eventually stop caring, but it just feels worse instead. I hate being like that, makes me feel inferior and useless in comparison to others. I know nobody is obliged to be my friend, and it’s my own fault for not being good at socialising. The point of this post isn’t to beg people to be my friends. I just noticed there’s a place here where people can vent, so I decided to get it off my chest, as I don’t have anyone close to me I could talk to about it.