Hi everyone,
I’m (36F) terrible at socializing. Never had any real relationships (had limerance and fantasies), no friends outside 2 siblings and I’m a new immigrant to a western country from south Asia.
I didn’t care about socializing most of my life. I had horrible childhood experiences (abuse, neglect). I was hyper-fixated on my former religion up until early 30s.
I didn’t take any interests outside religion, so now I’m a very boring person. All my sense of self-worth used to come from feeling connected to a divine power. I used to be obnoxiously self-righteous. I’m glad now I have much more humility than before, but I feel so worthless. I do logically grasp why every person deserves to value themselve – but I just don’t feel it. At the same time I’m hypersensitive to criticism and being humiliated.
Improving my social skills seem like an impossible task for me. It’s a huge effort to just be with people. My anxiety and lack of confidence is so off putting. I involuntarily either default to infantile, fake cheesy behaviour or I’m totally aloof. I just cant be authentic. I have no interesting opinions and my mind is foggy. I’m taking forever to get the social norms of the country I immigrated to. I can hardly blame people for feeling uncomfortable with me.
I joined a weekly fitness meetup group to get some social exposure (attended once so far). I couldn’t connect with anyone and I get that others are uncomfortable because of me. I feel I’m spoiling their good group dynamics and I feel like trash. I think I should quit.
This meetup group experience is one example of how my life seem to be falling apart because of lack of social skills. I feel very depressed.
Sorry about the long post. Thanks so much for reading it. I’d be very grateful for any advice.
3 comments
One thing I like about meetup groups is that people attending the event constantly changing. Even I could have a bad experience at one but I could meet wonderful people at the others. I shall encourage you to try a few more before making the decision. And I think sometimes we are just too self conscious. Don’t be so hard to yourself.
It can often feel overwhelming for introverts to step outside their comfort zone. Don’t give up so easily and give yourself a chance. Imagine if you ever met someone like yourself how would you treat them? With kindness right? So treat yourself the same way and don’t give into the thoughts of negativity that come into your head to talk yourself out of this. Don’t assume what other people are thinking of you. Unfortunately for us introverts we need to work twice as hard to make friends so take it easy and just take it one day at a time and don’t feel defeated if you don’t make good friends out of this meet-up group but also give it some time and try to put in some effort. Try to take an interest in the people you meet there. You’ve only attended once so don’t give up so soon. You can’t form a connection with only one meet up. Most of the people I hang out with now are ones that took a long time to build a relationship with.
I could have written this same post.