Do people *actively* avoid you?

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Like, I mean, as soon as you talk, there's a collective "That guy/girl is a creep." lightbulb that turns on and then the group actively avoids you in the future and walks wide circles around you?

Like, for example, I was voicing a rather seemingly standard opinion in Church camp one time, and then everyone in the room went to the other side and started murmuring "That guy is a creep.". Also, in my "normal classes", there seems to be a tendency for people to huddle on the opposite side of the room (The "left side of the room population" to "right/my side of the room population" ratio is 10:4) and in another class I was in, there was a visible "pocket of empty desks" with me at its epicenter. I'm looking at my opinions and my thought patterns and I'm wondering, am I really *that* repellent? I look at my posts on here and they seem like 'pretty normal' opinions to me, albeit, possibly contentious and biased at times but nothing that would scare people.

So, I'm wondering, is there anyone else who seem to get similar group reactions? Or is this kind of thing not really an "aspergers" kind of thing? (Like, possibly, just a socially maladroit and creepy nerd/geek kind of thing, maybe? Or maybe a schizophrenic kind of thing?)

Not really. People sit too close to me when in waiting rooms or in movie theaters. I am usually the one who gets up and moves I guess some people are insulted by that. They would would not be pissed if they knew how much anxiety I feel when they sit too close. I do notice however when I am pissed off while in a que the people give me some room but when I am with my brother they crowd in around us.

No, it tends to be the other way around.

Yes, indeed, all my life, off and on. Now I avoid everyone else instead. I can't recommend it as the most healthy way to go, and I have been learning how to converse in such a way as to put people at their ease, though this is at the expense of having the opportunity to speak my mind most of the time. But I tended to regret doing that so much anyway.

But I backed off fully for some time, figuring that if I was going to try my best to be friendly and sociable in a manner that seemed to me to be like what others were also doing, and yet would still manage to offend and alienate everyone but the kindest, most tolerant people or the people who found me amusing, then really, why speak at all? It is said that it is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. I reasoned that it was better to be silent and be thought a jerk than to speak and be thought one anyway, for more offensive reasons. Really, it's more efficient this way.

But I have been learning active listening, which is, in a way, still giving up. I have given up being liked for myself. At least I can learn not to offend anyone, and write my true thoughts instead. Sounds lame, that way, but I'm out of ideas.

I repel people and they repel me.

I don't know, but it sure seems like they do.

That quote is repeated in my mind with alarming frequency! I don't necessarily agree with it in some contexts (I'd rather be a stupid student who's trying to learn than a stupid student who fails because I failed to ask questions), but I find it amusing.

Your thinking seems remarkably similar to mine and your resolution seems pretty similar to where I'm heading ("I don't care", in essence.). Searching your posts, I noticed that you mentioned you had an "abrasive personality" which sounds plausible and I'm thinking that might be my problem. Do people really actively avoid abrasiveness? I mean, I guess I understand people would avoid talking to abrasive personalities, but it seems hard to believe that people would actively avoid sitting next to or being near 'abrasive people' since it seems there's a fair number of abrasive personalities in the world?

I'm thinking it might be something else in my case, although I'm possibly abrasive. I also noticed this post at http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/for ... ant-71196/ , where she makes fundamentally similar observations of people avoiding her, and one of the posters speculate it's due to "negative energy" that presumably emanates from the ideas communicated and the tone of voice. So maybe it's the "negative energy" that underlies her particular personality (Which might be abrasive judging from the tone of the writing and the fact she's accomplished the feat of being permanently banned after one post. Maybe she was a PM spammer?) and abrasive kind of personalities? This "negative energy" could also emanate from other possibly abnormal personal qualities, maybe.

Well, I did mention "contentious opinons" in my top post, so maybe there is something to this abrasiveness hypothesis, lol.

Last edited by swbluto on 21 Apr 2011, 1:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, abrasive is just the word I used at that time... whenever that was. Fact is, I rub people the wrong way too often and it brings me no joy to think back on it at the end of the day, so I just stopped talking. It didn't help that a lady who had known me for years chose that period of my life to tell me how much I had improved (and she surely wonders why I never responded to her e-mail after I moved; probably childish of me).

I have realized how negative I am, though I have a much better outlook than I used to. In my defense, I find the pessimism soars as soon as I get among people, the people I cannot relate to, who I know will never accept me as I am and always consider me the problem because the majority rules, and who have moved on to treating my children the same way.

Anyway, I have a lot to work on. But it became clear that my rate of improvement was far behind my rate of alienation of everyone I know, so there you go. It's disheartening. All people have weaknesses, but how discouraging is it to have your own be everything that people encounter when they first meet you? And so few people look deeper.

So yeah, I hear you. The world loves the frosting and doesn't care about the content of the cake. Heaven help you if you have no frosting.

When I was young they certainly did. I was the last kid in class picked for teams in grade school. Later on I had difficulty with saying too much or being too loud. Now I don't say as much and I listen more because I'm not as energetic and I don't feel like saying too much.

I like to keep my distance and I don't like to be crowded. I've met people who thought I was doing great things, but then they meet me, and they see work I've done and how it's so limited, with realistic claims based on experimental data and I guess it all seems so... ...ordinary. Maybe I look bigger when viewed from a distance or something.

People did it when I was little and now it doesn't happen anymore. People don't stay away from me nor sit far away from me.

Yeah, people definitely avoid me when they can. I was annoying as hell in grade school and just plain weird in high school and college. I had a small group of friends in college, but was pretty much only included as a peripheral friend.

These days, I know my coworkers would avoid me if they could. They usually can't because they have schedules to follow. It really hurts hearing comments like "[Conspicuous] is closing tonight? I shoulda called in."

When it comes to opinions, avoid giving them unless you're in a situation where it will actually matter. Having a strong opinion is important when decisions are being made, but when it's just people talking about an issue they don't have much control over, what's the benefit to going on about it? If someone asks for your opinion in a situation where it won't do any good, tell them you're not really interested in having a debate about it. If they really press you for it, go ahead and give your opinion (which, at this point, should be pretty well constructed since you've been thinking about it for several minutes instead of saying the first thing that comes to mind, which is what most people do). If they don't like it, shrug your shoulders and say that you didn't want to talk about it in the first place. It helps if you try to keep all of your sentences really short, but speak them about half as fast as you normally would (saying very little gives people room to interpret it however they want, and typically they'll assume you agree with them, speaking slowly implies that you're not avoiding conversation, you just don't like this particular subject). And even then it doesn't always work, but it's good enough. Also, this is no way to speak with friends, because if you have to put on this kind of a show to stop them from getting upset with you, they're not your friends.

Alternatively, cultivate a smug sense of superiority to the rest of society, and refuse to interact with normal people because you think they're not worth their time. No, really. It's narcissistic, sure, but it's also pretty spot-on. Their social games work for them, well great, but I don't want to play and I don't appreciate the people who try and force me, particularly when it's just going to end with at least one of the two of us upset over it.

I avoid people, mostly. The people who actually do make a point to socialize with me are people I met online.

Sometimes it happens but mostly I'm the one avoiding other people. I did have some random acquaintances crossing the street to avoid meeting me or pretending they didn't see me. Maybe those people can pick up some weird vibe around me that most people can't. I don't know. Anyway I try not to pay attention to anyone I don't care about.

Yes.

That seems to work best, though online conversation can go poorly as well. But given the time to consider and edit, I do better. Also, my 18th anniversary is near and I met my husband through letters we wrote at the suggestion of his cousin, later using internet billboards and e-mail when that became available (married 18 years, mind... we used Prodigy in black and white, no italics, nothing fancy... ooh, I feel gray hairs coming ). Anyway, I've often thought there could have been no better way to get to know the man than that... He needed to know what he was getting himself into, and I needed to know we had something in common. Things like that don't always come through on dates.

Of course, this undermines somewhat my bold removal from society... I'm not really as isolated as it sounded.