anti-social or avoidant or what?

[zinn99]

Hi all,
Question: I grew up in a big old house and my parents were shy and reclusive and didn't push me out to do things. I ended up reading, studying chess, and studying in school. I made friends as kids seem to end up doing but after 14 I stopped trying in both social and academic areas. I wish I could have companionship but I don't have the skills and even feel misanthropic. I am polite and team-oriented for work but it's a show since any time outside of work spent with other people feels like lost time. I just like surfing the internet, watching movies, reading, and jogging by myself. So it's like I want to have people around (good) but am completely unwilling to do the things it takes (bad). What is up?

Thanks for your input,
z

 

[Helyna]

First, antisocial is not what anyone here is. It's the opposite of socially phobic. It's when someone can't care about the feelings or possessions of anyone else, so hurts others without remorse.

It sounds like you have some kind of social anxiety. Or you just never learned to be social, but since you're conscious of that, surely you feel anxious to some extent? Even if you aren't actually afraid of people, you'll probably fit in here because you're facing the same sort of issues with being alone and not knowing what to do to get friends. You'll probably get some ideas from reading around the forum.

 

[Ubersonic]

Extraversion and Introversion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion#Introversion

It sounds like your just introverted.

 

[zinn99]

Thanks for your timely responses and I have also dug around some and found something from 2 PhD's that most closely fits my situation:

low self-esteem
http://www.coping.org/lowesteem/low.htm

I score high on the survey (very high) and will work from that end.

Thanks,
z

 

[soc683]

You might be like me, I find few people really interesting after I get to know them. For instance I have a friend from work who likes to get together for coffee on weekends. Problem is last time he brought his wife with him, me and his wife ended up talking the entire time while he read the paper, excused himself twice to walk the dog, etc etc. I don't think I spoke two words with him the entire time. Then he gonna ditch me and his wife because the dog can't crap unless there's grass around and there was none at the shopping center. Now you might think that's not so bad, except his wife has been married four times and every time my friend would leave us alone his wife would complain to me how she's been trying to divorce my friend for the past two years, she complains about all the money he's stolen from her etc etc. I find all this very annoying, I don't want to hear it and worse I think shes looking at me as a potential future mate. oh man, no way. My friend can't understand why I really don't want to go to coffee with him that much. Seriously it's difficult to find interesting people to hang around with.