Are social phobes anti-social?

[Meaning_of_meaningless]

Hi, I have written a short piece regarding social phobia,

It is said that if all of us (or most of the society) were well-behaved, peace will come into the society. Everyone will respect each other and harmony will exist.

I think it is alright for me to say that most of the people here on the forum are well-behaved. There is a tendency to believe we are the ones who are anti-social and do not fit into society. This is complete untrue.

"Anti-social behaviour is that lacking in judgement and consideration for others, ranging from careless negligence to deliberately damaging activity, vandalism and graffiti for example."

Think for a moment, have your neighbours ever complained about your behaviour? No, it is you who choose to complain about yourself.

Social phobes are not anti-social citizens, on the contrary, we are very loving people with big hearts.

The cause of our social anxiety is partly due to a perfectionistic emphasis on being well-behaved all the time. We are afraid of seeing less than excellent behaviour from others due to our unrealistic expectations.

Therefore, in order to overcome this attitude of discrimination, it is important to replace the false belief mentioned in the opening paragraph. We have to believe that noone can be well-behaved at all times, it would be extremely oppressive to force a person to keep up a good behaviour.

I welcome any comments.

 

[Warlock]

Some are antisocial but the majority are not. The average person thinks being shy is the definition of antisocial.

I think many people who are antisocial are avoidants who are antisocial to reject others before they can be rejected. I don't know anything about antisocial personality disorder though.

 

[SYNAPSE]

I'm not inherently antisocial but the fact that people seem to keep rejects and scapegoats outside any sort of moral or humane considerations (they seem to think themselves as "good" just because they are nice to their friends and the people they suck up to) makes me feel little more than contempt for the vulgar person (and it's problems which cannot be tragic but are often pathetic).

That said, I don't find myself going out of my way to hurt others or even to deny help when it's needed; I don't think it's even worth it; I'm too busy with my own work. . .

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

I agree with the jist of your post, meaning-of-meaningless.

I am definetly not antisocial. In fact, I'm very much focussed on people and emotions -and I would hardly call that 'antisocial'.

There are times however when I have acted antisocially.

I think that a label like 'antisocial' is one that identifies the symptom but not the disease -or rather, perhaps- the cause.

For one thing, if a person were TRULY anti-social, they would neither be highly introverted/withdrawn, nor the highly extroverted social butterfly. What I mean is that if one actually cares about relationships and people, you could not call them truly anti-social. Just as all of us are here because we have trouble relating better with others and we WISH THAT WE COULD do so more easily. So, how are socially phobic people, therefore, innately antisocial? So, there is antisocial behaviour, but since when is any person truly antisocial in nature?

So to me, words like 'anti-social' are mis-leading and are superficial judgements of who and what a person really is about.

Furthermore, it goes against simple survival to be antisocial, and it would therefore be instilled within a person through evolution to want to be sociable. Also, some people like having little contact with others, preferring to live for the most part in solitude -but since when is this 'bad'?-if such a person sees no misfortune in living in solitude, than by all measures that mean anything, they are happy. ....And yet, people seeking help and/or struggling with social anxiety clearly are not so happy, and want to have a 'better' way of relating with others -which is 'BETTER' only as defined by them.

I would state instead that a 'socially phobic' person is merely on a journey to relate more effectively in the world, and therefore to incorporate a more extrovert manner of relating, BUT that it is likely that they do this from a innate, natural introversion. ....If such a person were to achieve this better flexibilty, (and achieve a more satisfying mastery over their heightened sensitivity, self-conciousness, anxiety etc) they would no-longer be judged as 'antisocial' by others, but rather as shy, introverted, reflective etc -and probably even somewhat 'people focussed' and caring. ...So the label of 'antisocial' is thus revealed to be the superficial, narrow and negative judgement that it is: it sees the 'how- and -what to do' of things too much from one particular perspective -and it is not the perspective of a shy, sensitive person.

There exist many many different ways of relating and of being in this world. And the term 'social' can be defined by a myriad of definitions -and not solely that of the 'dominant majority' that for the most part judges 'good' and 'bad' and 'normal' too much from one angle and perspective. This is why people with difficulties like 'social phobia' can be labelled too negatively, and seen as having some major primary fault; when in reality, it is this inability to see and respect the non-dominant 'intovert' way of being that causes people to make-out that being shy, introverted and sensitive is something negative. -Since when is this the case, and from whose perspective?

 

[Predacon]

Yeah I'd say there is a differance to being introverted as opposed to AntiSocial. Typically when the word AntiSocial is used it means someone who is beating up people or just acting aggressively to other people. Just because I'm introverted doesn't mean I go out of my way to create trouble, in fact I do anything to avoid trouble.

 

[Chrysta]

I am a little Anti-social. Most of the time I choose not to associate with too many people not because of my anxiety but because I just don't like people that much. They are rude, stupid, and clueless. I just don't want to bother with it.

 

[Oli025]

yea theres a big difference between the 2 for sure.

 

[Si]

It seems the term Anti-social can be taken in a number of ways. It is actually not a very good term to use for SA people.It tends to give the impression that we are against (anti) society and socialising which is totally untrue.I personally would love to socialize more, but I'm held back from doing so by my shyness and anxiety.I would rather use terms like Hardtobe-social or Iwanttobe-social or even better imtryingtobe-social.
Maybe a simplistic approach but why make life more complicated than it already is.

 

[spurs]

Thanks for your post Little Miss Muffet! it really made me look at things in a new way.

 

[missquiet]

yeah anti-social sounds more like it would be someone who doesn't want to be sociable. If us SA people were anti-social we wouldn't be on this forum right now asking for help on how to make friends and things like that. I consider myself socially challenged.

 

[pinkputter]

ok i didnt have time to read thru everyone elses posts. But I just saw the question, and I went thru social phobia, and still battle with it today.

I was a very social person before my condition got so bad i could hardly function. My condition was even more frusturating since in the back of my mind I really did want to socialize.

Social phobia is anxiety based. It's not based on the fact that you just hate socializing. If you dislike socializing you could choose to not go something and wouldnt feel guilty. The thing is most social phobia sufferers would rather be able to socalize but feel like they can't or feel like they are being under constant scrutiny. THIS is what is anxiety based. The core problem is most likely anxiety and it just happens to take a social phobia form. Most people that struggle with social phobia are naturally shy people, and when their anxiety hits, it affects how they interact with people since theyve always been a little shy.

Start by trying to get into the moment more. Enjoy little things. Think postive. Think well about yourself and about others.

 

[Alexp]

Excellent piece of work Meaning_of_meaningless

Anti-social has terrible stigma attached to it as if we are the evil rebellious ones.

Its ironic, that we of all people are the ones that want so bad to be socially perfect and socially happy - yet because of our unrealistically high expeectations... we feel such torment and pain which leads to anxiety, which in turn makes us more socially imperfect and avoidant of social events. Or in the reverse..if we were really 'anti-social' and didnt care to be social at all, we wouldnt be so afraid and anxious and would be more likely to be 'social' in the long run...rather ironic.

 

[2invisible4u2c]

I'm not anti social, I have my friends... But sometimes I am I guess...