Not doing well lately...

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My social life is miserable/horrible, and I am plagued by intrusive and paranoid thoughts.

I suffer from a terrible case of social anxiety. Consequently, it is very difficult for me to talk to people in person and make new friends. I am more comfortable making friends online. My social anxiety is perpetuated by paranoia, which may cause me to misinterpret what people say or to think there is some sort of hidden "plot" behind my social interactions with people which involves them already knowing who I am prior to meeting them. I will feel like they are only talking to me because they are trying to extract "information" from me, which they will relay to the doctors and psychologists who they are "working for." I usually do not confront them about it, because deep inside I know these are only paranoid thoughts, so I try to act as casual as possible while attempting to moderate my social anxiety.

Aside from that, it has been very difficult to find peers who share the same interests. I know there are some out there, but they are hard to find. It's easier on the internet, because I am able to pick and choose and determine their potential value as a friend based on their profile. In person, there is no way for me to know such 'meta-data' unless I blatantly ask them questions about it, which may seem inappropriate during casual conversations. It seems that people expect you to engage in small talk and eventually build your way up to large talk, but this process doesn't usually happen immediately. The only place for me to make in-person connections with anyone is on campus at my school. I would like to join a club or something but my school doesn't have any clubs I am interested in.

I have decided that it would be better to make friends online. I already have a couple friends who are relatively close. My tendency to misinterpret what people say has gotten me in trouble in the past, which involved me offending someone who was my friend at the time, resulting in losing that friend. I tend to seek mostly females, because they are more likely to understand who I am and not judge me negatively. I am an individual with a shy and sensitive personality, and most males I have been friends with did not like or care much for someone like me. I have one close friend who is shy and sensitive like me, and we get along great. It's difficult to make male friends while being a shy and sensitive guy in a world that is largely dominated by confident, aggressive males.

Hey, me too!

(mostly)

Don't know what to tell you. It is what it is.

I have the same problem and try to make friends online too and eventually something happens and even the ones online want nothing to do with me and I get upset and just feel worthless and pathetic-so a lot of crying does happen-I wish it was so much easier than it is-I feel lost in what I have done to make people treat me the way they treat me. I just do not understand and the only person that told me my "faults" was another person on the spectrum-so if he sees something and its tough for them to see things it easy for others to see I guess.