I (F29) started my current job in April 2022. As an introvert with social anxiety, I liked the more laid back, quiet environment of my new academia office compared to the fast paced loud media world I had come from.
I threw myself into socialising at work to try make the work friends i hadnt had before and sat with anyone and everyone at work. I’m very good socially with strangers or people I’m meeting for the first time, you would think I was an extrovert with not a trace of anxiety.
However my social anxiety kicked in hard about a year into being there. I started to get a red blushing chest and would sweat profusely around people when socialising in a non work meeting setting, say at lunch when topics were open and I felt like i had to live up to expectations of being a certain level of outgoing, funny and social. Although I socialised with everyone I didn’t ever pin down a specific friend so sort of still drifted around. I then convinced myself I didn’t need to make work friends and completely withdrew, having my lunch alone in quiet areas and not being around as much.
Now I’m in a place where I chat to most people but have no one I could just go sit with at lunch, it’s gone so long that people I used to chat with regularly just ignore me now. They presumably think I’m quite rude as I just disappeared after being so social, it was very inconsistent.
I want to integrate myself back into social life but have built up in my head that people dislike me. How can I go back to being more social after this awkward inconsistency in my behaviour?