Feeling "trapped" with myself...

[wastinglight]

I've never had any kind of a social life (I'm 24, by the way). I'm not sure if I necessarily have "social anxiety", per se, but I've just never been good at connecting with people.

For a while, I just put it out of my mind. I didn't give much thought to the fact that, other than going to work or school, I spent all my time at home, doing nothing of value. Ever since last summer, though, I've been REALLY wanting to have a more fulfilling, enjoyable social life. I want to have friends, I want to go out on the weekends with people, I want to go do stuff, I want to have a life.

But, I've been reaching out to acquaintances for months now, and all it's amounted to is me going out with some people twice. Twice, in about eight months.

Honestly, I just don't know what to do. I feel "trapped" by myself, because I just don't know how to get out there, meet people, make friends, and have that life I want. I've never known. As someone that's very introverted, it doesn't exactly come natural to me strike up conversations with random strangers and build up a friendship out of it. I was hoping that I could strike something up with either people from college or people I work with, but I've failed on both accounts, and now I'm almost done with school, and my coworkers seem completely indifferent to me.

And going out alone just doesn't... feel right, to me. Really, there aren't any places I'd like to go or things I'd like to do, just on my own. My hobbies and interests are basically things that I do in the privacy of my own home, by myself, so they don't get me out in the world. Going to a movie by myself, or a bar by myself, or out to eat by myself, I dunno, I just feel weird about that. If I had friends and they say "Hey, let's go here" or "Let's go do this", I'd definitely be up for it, but by myself, there's just nothing that makes me go "I'm going to go do this", or whatever.

I'm just so sick of not having people in my life, and not being able to get out and have a life. On nights like these, I get bummed out thinking about what everyone else is doing. The people I wanted to be friends with are probably out, maybe going to see a movie, or going out to dinner, or going to a bar. The girl I've been crazy about for the longest time is probably having sex with her boyfriend right now. And me, I'm sitting at home, alone, probably just going to fire up some Netflix and then turn in for the night.

I just hate how things are. I hate it, and I want "out", but I just can't get out.

 

[Pacific_Loner]

If you're not the entertaining kind, people who are not your close friends won't be interested to go have a drink with you. It's normal. So if you want to do things with people I think you should start doing some activities that require a partner, or that are more fun with a partner, like hiking, climbing, swimming, etc. Then, you can try to find someone to do it with you by asking around at work, at school, or elsewhere (I think there is websites with people looking for activity partners). It's easier to not be socially awkward when doing an activity with someone because you don't have to be talking all the time, and there is a context that you can use to find something to say. You can start more than one activity, have more than one partner, at some point maybe you will become closer to one of them and start being friend with them, etc. It's a good way to enrich your life if you're bored and lonely.

 

[wastinglight]

Well, that's kind of what I was trying to do with classmates and coworkers, say "Hey, let's go here", or "Let's go do this", and I just never got anywhere with people.

On a side note, I should mention that I wrote all of this last night, but my account didn't get activated in time to post it, so I just posted it this morning in a rush before work. Hence some of weird timing issues in my post.