Accepting you are a social failure

Post Reply New Topic

How do you go about just accepting you are a social failure and any feelings of loneliness that go along with that.

My social problems (presently of unknown cause as I only have a social anxiety diagnosis) run deep and have been with me forever. I cannot find partners and have trouble keeping them if or when I do, can't make friends or cope with them when I do (it requires more socialising than I can manage) and so on.

I am a paradox.

I do not desire many friendships but I have a strong desire for a life companion (I love cuddles, intimacy, love and sex).
However cannot cope with living with said companion if I do find one as I have a preference for living alone.
I only wish to form friendships or partnerships with those people with whom I can share my interests and thereby develop a connection (either that or I like them to have a sense of humour). Strangely this is hard to find.

I am confused by the way people think, they keep misreading everything (both my actions and my words). They place intentions on my words that are not there, they take my sense of humour seriously (think I am being serious when I am joking or have my tongue in my cheek), they always think my hobbies are a waste of time and when I do socialise I don't get any time for my interests and this upsets me greatly (even if the world does think they are pointless).

People seem to think I am being negative or offensive when I am not (although sometimes if enough people yell at me I can be verbally offensive on occasion due to being very upset by their accusations and not being able to get them to understand my perspective or feelings).

I have to walk on egg shells all the time because god forbid I should be comfortable talking openly about something they are uncomfortable with (which in my experience is just about everything).

I am beginning to feel that using words is futile and am losing my desire to even want to try to talk to people at all.

Therapists advise working on my communication but it makes no difference what words I use people will always read what they want into them. And when therapists tell me to be myself and I am people still don't like me anyway. My quirks irritate them whereas their constant need for social chit chat drives me insane (when I socialise I get stuck making this chit chat for hours at a time and I try to be interested, I really do, but I cannot...I don't really care about the latest sale at new look when I don't need anything from there, I don't care about the local gossip and I don't care much about whom said what to whom and who got laid by whom last friday and so on). When I socialise I always want to get away so I can get back to my hobbies.

And yet I get lonely for company. But not just for any company, the company of a kindred spirit.

I always was weird due to my development (I had advanced development in some areas such as moral development, academic ability etc but was considered to be emotionally immature, over sensitive and too idealistic) but I thought things would correct themselves as I grew up. They did not.

To make matters worse I have a whole shed load of ability but cannot use it as the world has well and truly rejected me and any skills I have along with it. I am depressed as well. Id go for treatment for it but drs and support services talk to me like I am an imbecile, keep telling me simple things as though they think I don't understand anything and I find it offensive especially as I had advanced development and am an A grade student academically. If anyone is rude they are with their offensive attitude.

I am withdrawing socially more and more but the world wants me to cure my social problems and I cannot. These days a part of me would rather be alone tinkering with the things I love as the pain of constant social rejection is just too much. I am not concerned about embarrassment (I am not easily embarrassed I wouldn't post s**t like this if I was http://memyselfiandawebcam.blogspot.co.uk/ although part of the reason I now do that is because it represents my sense of humour at times and I have gone past caring in that way now...nothing I do is right socially anyway so I may as well just do what I want as long as its not hurting anyone...I don't like hurting anyone. Also I have taken a liking to making silly videos, and although I am new to it and it is in its infancy, I find it fun and if I am not studying or cross stitching (my other loves) I'd rather do those things instead of socialising) I just don't like when people are nasty to me for something I have not done and am stressed out and exhausted by the constant need for socialisation. Nor can i keep up with their constant need for pointless chit chat. I get very bored. I try not to but I do.

How do i get rid of my yearning for a kindred spirit so I can quell my loneliness. I am not really lonely for social contact as much as I am lonely for a soul similar to mine to experience the journey of life with.



I just wish

Hi Bumbel

I don't really know how I can help you other than to say I feel like you wrote so much how I feel.

I feel I am in the same place as you undiagnosed in an official way - everyone telling me what I am. Normally this is SAD according to one therapist which I completely disagree with. I am certaitainly anxious of social situations and defiantly avoid them but this is only after years off pushing myself to get involved and failing completely.

I don't know what its like to have friends as I never learnt that skill - the definition of this is shy and social anxiety or so everyone would have me believe. Even online relationships can be virtually impossible to maintain, draining and unpredictable. Frequently online and offline I am missinterpritated and accused of selfishly hijacking conversations bringing things back to me when truly I am tying my best to empathise I don't know any other way and don't want to show fake emotions I don't feel.

I actually think that most people simply want to be able to place labels on people like us as it makes them feel more comfortable to be around us. I am often told by my mother to not be so shy and go to the party and behave like a 28 years old should. No one can understand that the party is to draining for me, I would happily plan the party just don't want to attend it why would I be shy when I don't intact with people anyway and they certainly don't want to interact with me.

I do have a partner but this can be incredibly difficult and the idea of living alone is appealing, I would like that kind of control over my life very much. To be part of a relationship can be extremal difficult especially on days when their is so much relief to be had from just being able to switch of from walking on egg shells mode and just do what you want without the pressure that everything you do can turn into a conversation about your actions which I may or may not be mentally prepared for.

The worst thing is he spend most of his time in his office programming so how much alone time does one person like me really need, he simply does not understand. So I get tense every time I hear him move upstairs, is he going to come down is he going to want me to emotionally react to something he says, how intense should that reaction be. Living alone at least you get to avoid this kind of tension.

I am able to relate to what you are saying about having work skills but still being so rejected and cannot use them. Are you working at the moment? Progression in work is all about how much other people like me not my skill level and how to develop relationships were people like me is elusive to me. I am currently a well skilled unemployed person, absolutely wasted which brings me to family. Cousins who skip hello, ask if I have a job yet and walk away when he answer is no, and I'm the one who is rude! Occasionally I find work as a cleaner but I have an architectural degree and a web design foundation degree so this baffles my family. Actually I quite like cleaning I have my my own floor, I'm left completely alone and have a strict routine but I know I can do so much better.

I have never felt more among kindred spirit as I have done since i found this forum.

All I know is most people solutions do not work, remedial solutions to single occurrences. My mum will say if you don't know what to say to someone just say what your eating for lunch like it is that simple and suddenly everything will fall into place.

I hope you can find a kindred Spirit bumbel. It also may be the case that you have to make extreme sacrifices to accommodate their needs too, only you will know if it is worth it. For me it has been (only just) but I will not lie at times it is excruciatingly difficult.

Meh anytime one talks about relationships it's important to remember we traditionally have an ownership based concept of them.

Too many people want dream up the idealized view of relationship based on what they've experienced as a child growing up.

No adult relationship can be based on unconditional love, it's the big scam of our society.

Relationships are based on mutual benefits.

This can only work if the relationship is viewed as a temporary coupling, and not permanent. The second one gets in a permanent situation they are doomed.

Relationships take work and just like a business contract require constant negotiations to ensure each partner gets a fair deal.

Now of course for nts renegotiation, means fighting and mind games.

Now of course this is the reason we fail in relationships so badly, because these negotiations require excessive amounts of non verbal communication.

So if you wanna succeed you really need to get the non verbal elements in writing as it were.

The only bit of advice I can think of at the moment that might be helpful is this:

your hobbies and the things you really like to do that you miss when you are socialising -
these things - can you take them even more seriously?

the reason why I say this, is that this way, you have a real chance of meeting like minded individuals....

for example someone might like plane spotting, but only does it alone .... you might keep fish, but don't get to talk about it with others...

You may have tried it, but taking your interests really seriously, not ignoring them or giving them up could help ---- this is what worked for me...

for instance getting professional training in your hobbies will put you in touch with others --- so if you do end up socalising with them, at least you have something real to talk about, and not the mindless chit chat you mentioned...

hope this idea helps

I could have easily written most of your post, so I don't have many answers for you. Sorry about that.

One thing did jump out at me, though. If you do cross stitching, can't you sell some of your work? Surely there are people out there who would be happy enough to buy handcrafted work like that. See how much they'll pay. If you can make enough money at it, the world won't reject you. (Of course, that's probably even worse. You may want to seek out a middle ground...)

That's not much, but at least it would be something. If you could charge enough (I have no idea how much you could get vs. how long the work would take) you might be able to earn enough to be a bit more comfortable.

I do have to add, a lot of what you're saying doesn't sound like simple "social anxiety" - you have the "obsessions", the inability to be understood by most people (although you make perfect sense, in my opinion - but, hey, no one understands what I'm trying to say either), things that sound much more like something on the autism spectrum. Is it possible the person who diagnosed you was a quack? Either that, or could they be under some pressure to avoid giving you a diagnosis which might lead to some type of benefits? (I'm not sure how that even works where you are, but I do know it happens.) Because you sound too much like one of us to be anything else.

Thank you for posting. I'm in such a similar place, and I don't know what to do about it. Every day I live with a mountain of painful memories, and I don't understand what is so wrong about me. Why is every single thing that I do misinterpretted?? Why am I criticized for my strengths? I.e., honesty, loyalty, literal minded, focused hard worker. Why are these bad things when they come from me? I also find socializing to be too much work and would prefer just a kindred spirit. I had one. But he decided he was better off without me about 15 years ago, and I've felt alone ever since even when I was in a relationship or did hav friends around me. I hav no advice to offer, but just wanted to say I understand and its awful.

I usually try to find people with similar interests but it is hard to find. My interests can also change intermittently although they don't so much go away as go dormant whilst my focus shifts. Over the years I have had interests in parapsychology, nutrition and the link to mental health, paleo diet and lifestyles, geology, evolution, jigsaw puzzles, shark breeds (modern and prehistoric and a desire to want to tack the complete history of them), video making (its new so I am still learning on that one although I did study media studies and drama some years ago), cross stitching, and lately I have a desire to want to learn to paint with acrylics as well and so on.

One or two will pop up as my main hobbies whilst the others fade into the background for a while. For example I did only jigsaw puzzles for 2 years and cross stitching for 6.

As I am presently studying towards biology degree my other interests are taking a back seat.

It is still hard to find people I connect with even when I am on a course studying areas of interest (I study from home at the moment). The last time I tried to converse with other students I got told off. It was a theoretical discussion on the group forum and listed a number of points I wanted to open up for discussion. However my tutor received complaints from the other students because they felt I was coming up with all the answers and apparently I was told it was intimidating to them.

I was only trying to open up the points for further discussion. There were no set 'answers' it was a theoretical debate for crying out loud.

Suffice to say I did not get to discuss my thoughts and ideas so that pretty much killed that for me.

It is all so depressing.

Hmmm. You sound a lot like me. I gave up on the social stuff long ago and a lot of other things as well. I have learned the hard way that living as a hermit is probably the only real solution. There are others, but

.................................,

I would like to tell you the real truth about living with AS for this many years, but the forum moderator would just end up banning me from this forum. Yea, the truth is not very nice and that's an understatement!

I hate it when people get "intimidated" because you're not acting like a brainless idiot. If you're that easily intimidated, go join a playgroup for toddlers. When I don't know something, I actually appreciate it when someone else explains. That gives me a chance to learn, and, far from "intimidating" me, it empowers me.

Yes, the world can be a very depressing place. Then again, just when you're about to give up, sometimes it can surprise you. At the moment, I have two cats who help keep me sane.

I understand completely how you feel, I feel the same way. I am almost constantly looking for the kindrid spirit, though I am not sure such a person exists. But yeah, most of my daydreams focuses around this very topic, espeically when I am at home.

Anyways; what can help is to focus on getting close friends. People you like spending time with, it can ease things up and make you feel less lonely. At least it's that way for me. I have very few close friends, but it hellp with lonelyness having someone you can visit every now and then. It takes a bit of time to build up.

Especially in the last few weeks I've been feeling extra lonely, but this weekend I'll probably go see a friend of mine, that cheers me up a bit.