Relapsing

[schist]

There was a time when I thought I had successfully slain the dragon known as social anxiety. Oh, how wrong I was.

This past weekend, I was at a party at a friend's house, and I initially only knew about 4 people there. Granted, I spent most of the night talking to and meeting new people, but by the early hours of the morning I was just sitting on the couch quietly like a boring prat while everyone else was having fun talking and joking with each other. Normally, when a party is winding down, I feel most at ease making jokes and all that, but for some reason I just felt outshined and anxious, and I could sense people's annoyance with me. By the time I'd decided to get up and leave, I was offered an awkward hug/goodbye from my friend who'd invited me (normally, our hello/goodbye hugs are quite enthusiastic).

I guess I should feel honoured that I was actually invited, but I get the feeling I probably won't be ever again. I was originally thinking of cutting contact with her to save myself the embarrassment, but I realize now that's probably a bit irrational.

F**k you social anxiety.

 

[dyingtolive]

that sucks dude, well we all have off-nights
maybe there was just no one there that you hit it off with, but at least you tried

it can happen to the best of us..

 

[O'Killian]

Eh, based on your description I wouldn't get terribly upset about this. (Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist, but I sometimes pretend to be one on the Internet.)

People have a sort of social stamina - interacting with folks will drain this stamina and you'll feel less and less like being social. (I've seen this as an explanation for why people from big cities tend to be terse and not interact with folks on the street while small town folks tend to be the opposite - the city folk are saving their stamina and the town folk have plenty to spare)

So it doesn't seem all that odd that you went to a party where you barely knew anybody, ran out of 'juice', and then 'relapsed'. On the other hand, you do say it's abnormal to feel that way at the end of parties, but then perhaps something else was abnormal and you had less stamina than usual.

So it may not have been as bad as you think. Either way, the past is the past and all you can do is keep trying.