EDIT: Sorry, I literally just realized this was a “Social skills” subreddit. I thought it was a “Social anxiety” subreddit. Feel free to remove if this post isn’t on topic.
23 y/o male.
This is a giant vent thread so feel free not to read the entire thing.
**Some back-story about my life, because I feel like it helps give you an idea of why I’m struggling so much with an issue like this (and also just to vent a bit). I left a lot of out so as to not turn this into an entire book about my life lol; feel free to skip**:
So when I say slow, I mean that I’ve had social anxiety (and as a by-product, severe depression) ever since middle school. It got a lot worse in high school and I was on the verge of not graduating because I would skip all my classes to avoid the stress of being seen and spoken to. Even when I was a toddler, I’ve always been very shy and sheltered heavily by my parents as a result. I know this because I remember watching old VHS home videos of me when I was a baby at the park, and while all the kids would be playing and doing normal kid stuff, I would always be attached to my mom scared to leave her side. My whole life, I was never put in any extracurriculars or sports teams, never took any lessons for anything, etc. I was a latchkey child that went straight home from school every day and played video games for hours until my parents would come home from work at night. I was not socialized well and I struggled my whole life to develop relationships with people. I was not held to high standards when it came to academics either, so even though they would get angry when I got bad grades, they also didn’t bother helping me foster good study habits, nor did they get me a tutor or anything of the sort. I grew up not knowing anything about life; while it may be typical for most kids to learn about all sorts of basic life skills from their parents – things like how to buy groceries, how to drive, general know-how when it comes to basic navigation skills (like how to determine where you are by looking at street signs), the list goes on – I never developed any of those. Because of this, I always viewed myself with such a low sense of self-worth; while many people have “imposter syndrome” when it comes to their job, I have it when it comes to life in general. I always assumed I had a low IQ or some sort of learning disability because I would always get bad grades in school (mainly because my anxiety levels were always at their peak in classroom settings, making it impossible to focus on the content), though I’ve never been diagnosed. Once I got to late-middle school, I had a falling out with my parents because I was so resentful of the fact that they coddled me so much during my childhood; it was so bad that I turned into a selective mute when it came to my parents. To this day, I have not said a word to my parents verbally, nor have I looked them in the eyes even once. I still can not explain how it got this bad, but it weighs on me constantly.
Fast forward to more recently, I’m doing a lot better when it comes to managing these feelings of low-self worth, and although I still don’t know a lot of basic stuff when it comes to living a normal civilian life, thanks to the internet I always have information at my fingertips to help guide me. However, I still can not drive, and my basic navigational abilities are still laughable at best. I am still quite slow when it comes to learning and understanding more complex concepts (like things related to computer science, my major), but I am able to “keep up” for the most part. And although I still have VERY low self-esteem and struggle with depression/anxiety, I am able to mask it well enough to where I come off as “just introverted”, which is good enough for me. To this day, I still don’t have a good relationship with my parents and I only ever communicate with them through text with short responses. I don’t resent them anymore, and I know they love me, but it’s been so long since I have spoken to them verbally (around 8-9 years now) that the feelings of shame and regret are so strong that I can not bring myself to look them in the eye and speak to them.
——————————
**Relevant Section – also left a lot of stuff out, which is funny considering how long it is**
So I have a roommate (I will call him A), who I consider a friend, that is in the same program as me in college. We both transferred from the same institution and have a decent amount in common. Before I ever met him in person (because of covid, our classes were all online), we talked a lot through discord and got along well. We have similar senses of humor, both like video games, and are both in the same program at school. The thing is, he is also quite smart. He grasps concepts much faster than I do, and has this innate ability to recall the littlest of things from memory. I, on the otherhand, am not very smart and I have terrible memory because of, and this is just my guess, all sorts of things that I needed to block out in order to keep me sane. I lived so much of my life trying to forget things, like all of my anxiety episodes, failures, and trauma, that I struggle to remember the most basic things nowadays. There were some times when he would give off an air of superiority when it came to certain topics and would either dismiss or make fun of opinions I had. And very often, he would call me out on not remembering past conversations or things that he thought I would “obviously” remember, whether it be assignment specifications, due dates, or stuff I did in highschool. It got to a point where I started to think that maybe he was a little bit narcissistic. Though in the end, I didn’t think of it much, especially because it was all through text and there was a chance that I was reading too much into things or simply interpreting his words wrong.
Once we moved in together to attend our new school, those suspicions I had were confirmed.
There is another roommate that we live with (that neither of us knew prior to moving in; I will call him B) that he gets along with well. They are both very social and were “normal” in the sense that they both had good upbringings and solid support systems in people like parents, friends, and close relatives. They had a lot to talk about because they were both movie buffs, they both liked hockey, and just knew a lot about “normal people” things like politics, current events, sports, etc. It was all normal stuff that people our age would know about, but knowledge that I had never accrued throughout my life, and frankly, stuff that I don’t have much interest in. I quickly understood my place in this group, as they could talk and laugh for hours, and I would never have anything to add to the conversations; not just because I lacked the knowledge on the various topics they would talk about, but because my anxiety would kick in heavily whenever I’m in a social situation where I feel inferior. It got to a point that even when I would be able to have one-on-one conversations with B, my anxiety would kick in and I would struggle to find anything to talk to him about because of how uninteresting I would seem compared to A. Whenever he would ask me questions, I would give short answer responses and made sure to not talk about my life or anything personal, as it would further prove how slow and/or unintelligent I am compared to A.
I quickly turned into a shut-in, as I realized that there was no point trying to interact with them. I only leave my room to get food or to go to school. Since he has a car, A drives us to school because we are in the same program and have identical schedules. When we are out of the house is the only time I really get to speak to him one on one. Whenever I try to start conversations, I would very often be met with a sarcastic/condescending tone, and often, a response akin to mocking. I get a very strong vibe that he really doesn’t care that much about my opinions, as it seems to him that I’ve “proven” that I am not really worth having conversations with. Due to my lack of general knowledge, whenever I make a comment or share an opinion about something like which route we should take to get somewhere, or even something like what we should get for lunch, he would make me feel like I was an idiot for even suggesting it.
For example, when all three of us go grocery shopping, he is the type that scours the weekly flyer for sales to get the best deals possible. I, on the other hand, being a novice when it comes to grocery shopping, usually just get whatever seems relatively cheap. One day, I offered to buy some dish soap for the house since we were running out. He told me that I should pick since I was paying. I picked one that was on sale, since I knew he would patronize me for picking one that wasn’t on sale. He then scoffs at me and says “BRO, that’s barely a sale. The one beside it is SUCH better value since it’s bigger for the same price. Use your brain man, are you trying to waste your money or something?”. Both A and B continued to laugh and make fun of me for not knowing which dish soap was better value. I am usually able to keep my composure, but I was so exhausted and fed up with him talking down to me CONSTANTLY, so I told him that if he was so sure of himself, that he should have picked one out instead of telling me to; why tell me to do something if you’re just going to criticize and belittle me. He responds with “You’re the one paying dude, I’m not your Mom. I’m not gonna do everything for you”. I then realized that it was obvious that he told me to pick one in hopes that I would screw up so that he could make a joke out of it with B. He does this all the time, with literally anything; as long as B is present, he uses me as a pawn to give them something to laugh about. I noticed that he is a bit tamer when it’s just me and him.
As another example (I have MANY, just so you know): We were in the car on our way back from school. He said he wanted to take another route this time since he knew it was faster. I, being “slow” when it came to navigational skills, made the mistake of suggesting a different route that I thought may be slightly faster; though honestly, I didn’t really care much, it was just to make conversation. He turns to me and says “Bro, do you even think before you talk? That route would be a COMPLETE detour. Nothing you say ever makes sense. I bet you don’t even know what street we’re on. It’s okay bro, let someone who knows what they’re talking about make the decision.” What I thought was a small suggestion and conversation starter turned out to be even more fuel for him to belittle me with.
Last example (happened today): Me and A were playing basketball in the school gym against two other strangers. I made a wild layup, but ended up crashing into the bleacher because of how much momentum I had. I got bruised up pretty badly and had to stop playing. He goes “You good bro? How does that even happen, did you not know bleachers were there or something?”. I respond “Honestly, I forgot the bleachers were even there and I couldn’t stop ’cause of the momentum.” He makes a joke out of it with the two strangers, completely disregarding the fact that I had just made a crazy layup. Whenever I do something that would warrant some sort of compliment from most people, he would either ignore it and pretend he didn’t see it or make it seem like it was less than it was and say that I’m getting excited for no reason. Anyway, later when we get home, I go “Bro my knee is killing me”. B says “What happened?”. A says “This dumbass forgot there were bleachers and ran into it.” B, casually and mockingly goes “Damn, didn’t know you could forget bleachers were in a gym. Pretty wild”. They laugh it up. I walk to my room, exhausted more from the routine patronization than the game of basketball I just played, and I decide to vent on reddit for the first time.
I’m honestly so tired of dealing with this shit day in and day out. Like I said, I’m a shut-in and avoid them as much as I can (which they also make fun of me about), but there are times when I inevitably have to interact with them and I dread it every time. I don’t have any other friends really, so any human interaction I do get is with these guys and it never fails to make me hate everything about life. I literally can’t do anything when I’m around them without being criticized and made fun of.
Again, this was just a vent thread, so I’m not looking for advice or anything. But if you’ve dealt with anything similar in your life, it would be nice to know that I’m not alone.
**TL;DR – My “friend”/roommate is a dick. That is all.**
1 comment
Agreed, move room.