A small victory over social anxiety

For more than a year I have been struggling with depression and anxiety. Also, I am quite introverted and not very talkative even before the depression. Because of this, my social anxiety spiraled: moreover, I realized that I was too focused on my past romantic relationship in the past 2 years, and did not even make any new friends at college, which made me feel quite lonely, increasing my depression levels.

I decided to change that and started to approach people this semester: talking to some guys after classes, visiting university-wide events, etc, but it seemed that nothing has been working. I often felt like I had nothing to talk to people about, was afraid of awkward silence, and felt very vulnerable and anxious about proceeding with the conversation. Yes, we would talk and joke for a bit, but the relationships just didn’t seem to move past the casual small talk, and I would make all the moves to invite people to hang out outside of the classroom environment, which really depressed me.

Last week we went out to a bar with one of the student clubs I am part of, and I sat near this girl, to whom I talked before only briefly. We ended up talking for 2 hours straight, finding a lot in common, and I believe she is a very interesting person. Yesterday she texted me and asked if I wanted to hang out and watch some Halloween movies, and the invite got me very happy – for the first time this semester I wasn’t the one initializing the hang-out, and for the first time in a long time, a person considered me to be interesting enough to continue talking to me. So this is my small victory in a battle with social anxiety.