Do people treat you differently because of your SA

[caringsoul]

I get treated differently by this work colleague, basically he treats everyone normal except me, he wouldnt say hello or bye to me, because he thinks i am uncomfortable with this, and he doesnt invite me out for lunch but invites everyone. he said i look like somebody who has no friends, and scared of people.

but when i am online, he is constantly messaging me. but critizes me..

 

[cassiestrange]

wow that guy sounds like a real jerk. i would tell him i dont care what he has to say and to go @#$% off. but thats just me..

 

[DespairSoul]

Caringsoul,

Well if he act to u that wait the guy have issues to be in company with someone who isn't popular or look not so social. I wouldn't be even interested that he is mine company if he would avoid me and later write me personal messages and yet make some awkward critic about me. Just tell him that isn't your fault that is how it is and if he don't like it to be in contact with u that he stops contact u on messenger or whatever he do is pretty strange. It sounds coward to me as he is scared make contact with u that other by occasion don't see it propably that's a shame. Just ignore that guy he isn't worth it even your company and messages.

 

[Shant]

I know back when I was on the high school's football team I was often alienated because of this, essentially. It was pretty awful. To this day I can't stop asking myself why I ever joined in the first place. Long story, but basically, in that instance, they did treat me differently for it.

Besides that (and after my last year on that team), however, everywhere else I go I'm just mistaken as this "cool/chill/relaxed/laid-back" kind of person a lot of the time because of the social phobia and not being so extroverted. Maybe a bit shy, but SA doesn't stand out to them for some reason.

In your case, I don't mean to say any of this is your fault or anything, but do you say hi or bye to him? Again I'm not saying you're in the wrong if you don't do that; but simply that if one person isn't greeted first, they're not comfortable greeting the other. (Which anyone with social anxiety could attest to, it's easier to greet someone who's greeted you before.) As far as everything else, he's probably simply generalizing; if you don't look approachable then he/she may not think you are, whether you really are or not. Besides the last paragraph, he/she doesn't strike me as "rude" rather than "mistaken". In the last paragraph, it seems rather odd that he/she would just bug you like that.

 

[matthew_]

In a sense, this is something that confirms our worst fears. At least seemingly.At film school, i had a few people say directly to me "I just can't understand something about you"

Or something like that.

A single comment like that can cause a lot of progress loss. One of the few good things about doing something artistic, is that you CAN come off quirky without being entirely out of place.

If it where not for that aspect keeping my respect levels intact across a number of people, i would likely have let one of those comments cave me in completely and forsaken any progress i had made until that point. Since it would feel like the entire world was against me, the ultimate unrealistic fear.