Venting Ideation from social situations

[Pespio]

Sorry for a self-centered, long post. tldr; Social optimization is painful and makes me suicidal

Reading people's stories, I know that I'm very fortunate in many ways and so many things are going well for me. But when it comes to social things, I just want to kill myself. I hate how I interact in front of other people. How I look, how I sound. Not always, but often and deeply. I've isolated for awhile to fix things and coming back is hard.

All these different parameters. How long to be. Too arrogant. Hogging the space. Too friendly. Too intrusive. Did it match the tone or culture of what people were saying before. Am I injecting enough of my own personality or should I mirror. Do I have enough rapport to say these things. Would it be too much to add these thoughts here. Consider it from their perspective. Am I being honest enough. Am I being sensitive enough to other people. Am I using "I" statements here or is that unnecessary. Am I just trying to get praise from others. I try my best to care about people. Social optimization can fucking suck sometimes. Constantly trying to make up my past social mistakes.

I'm doing it right now, and feel self-centered, guilty posting this. Just disgusted with myself. I'm sure it's because of past experiences and shit I need to process in addition to just sucking at this stuff and coming across as unlikeable. I feel justified enough to chronically call myself out for things. And call it overthinking, but mostly because I don't have the social intuition and pattern recognition of many NT folks. Of course someone who's rated 600 in chess would have to play classical time to even compete at the 1200 blitz level, and onwards. I think that's true of many things that it takes time to get good at stuff.

I know a lot of it's a function of being out of practice, and I've been working so hard on this. I spend hours on emails, and I feel I've gained a lot of insight. I use chatGPT to explain social situations and find words lmao and that really helps. I'm a lot more efficient than I used to be. I think i can learn it and I know it takes time cuz out of practice. I just really hate myself so much through the process. I sometimes watch gore videos to see how painful different suicide methods are. How to do it properly. The risks and amount of pain that is possible to experience are kinda wild tho. In my case though, I think I'm open to giving life a shot. I have so many opportunities, and it's possible to get things in order. Right now, finding myself self-sabotaging with not eating, or ruining my gut sometimes, and pulling an all nighter each week. Sometimes not communicating to people just so that they can get the wrong impression and hate me, because it's too much energy to optimize.

 

[Pubert]

I know this is an older post, but i just found it and I can relate so much. Im in my yearly twenties and im going to assume youre about the same age. During highschool social anxiety made my life unlivable and miserable and i stopped going to school and isolated. I avoided college for a semester but eventually started school and a job because i found the isolation more unbearable than the anxiety. I brute forced my way through talking to people, stumbling and awkward, because i so desperately wanted to be the smallest amount of likable.

Being older now, I realize that while practicing how to talk will help you with strangers and initiating interactions, there will be people that you will be able to talk to normally without constant social optimization. Some people will not like or vibe with you no matter how good you are at talking, and some people will gravitate towards you for just being yourself. That ratio depends on person to person, and for myself, I have found maybe 4-5 people that i feel like I can be totally myself around in the past 5 years. Once I realized that some people will not care about me no matter what I do, I cared less about how i came off to them.

Im sorry if this came off a bit preachy, and if you aren't looking for an opinion, but how you feel is totally valid and you do not have to feel guilty for experiencing and expressing how much pain you are in. Feeling so distanced from people while at the same time wanting to be accepted can be so horribly difficult, feeling guilty can just amplify the pain. I wish I had talked about it to someone earlier, because there are so many people who suffer with similar stresses. I hope you are happier in your future and live a great life.

 

[The anhedonic one]

I'm Bipolar 1 and aspie.
I gave up trying to fit into society a long time ago.
People view me as some kind of alien species.
I also feel like a fish out of water, especially at social gatherings, which I avoid like the plague.
So sorry you are going through this.
It's brutal.

 

[niki wonoto]

I'm from Indonesia, and I can relate a lot with this post. It sucks to be a socially-awkward person who is so bad at socializing, don't know what to do in social situations, don't know how or what to talk or behave to people, etc etc etc. And it's only got much worse because now due to me being too emotional & overthinking everything, I've got anxiety & depression both at the same time. But of course people will probably never really understand how hard/difficult it is for some people like us, whereas maybe for them (normies/normal people), it's so easy & natural. I feel alone, and even also feel like an alien that can't relate to most people in this world (or even human beings/species).

 

[Forever Sleep]

I love this quote by Dr. Seuss:

'Be who you are and say how you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.'

I struggle in social situations too and unfortunately- sometimes they're unavoidable- at work etc. Still- you don't HAVE to be friends with everyone. Not EVERYONE is going to like you- that would be kind of weird. We're all different. I suppose I feel like it would be nice to be able to 'get-by' in most social situations. Still- in order to find TRUE friends- you can't be walking on eggshells around them. What's the point in being friends with someone you are afraid to be yourself around? For what it's worth- in terms of friendship- I'd just say- try to be yourself. Those who don't seem to like that probably wouldn't be that good of a friend anyhow.

The awful cynical truth I've found also is- friendship takes effort. Even if/when you DO find people you click with. You BOTH need to put in that effort. In my experience, as we age, unless our circumstances align- both have partners and children- it's all too easy to let friendships slide. Personally, I've gone the recluse route now- less disappointment that way. I couldn't really recommend it though. It can't be good for mental health or confidence. I hope things get easier for you.