Met Anyone Who's Out Of Your League? (AvPD)

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I suffer terribly from AvPD, Avoidant Personality Disorder. That's where an individual needs to show at least 4 of the following:

•Avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection.

•Is unwilling to get involved with people unless they are certain of being liked.

•Shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed.

•Is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations.

•Is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy.

•Views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others.

•Is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing.

Have you ever seen someone in real life, on TV or on the internet and feel they're way out of your league? I see people like that all the time and it makes me feel lower than a bedbug, lower than a slug creeping through pores in a garden. Arrgghh. It just makes me want to scream. I feel like such a person won't ever give somebody like me the time of day.

you are not alone in this sense of inferiority to the universe. life has a habit of reminding me why I need to hermit myself out in the woods.

I guess you can say I'm an urban hermit, if such a thing can possibly be.

then you are my people hero, as you can handle being around people better than I can.

couple of psychs have suggested this...but kind of like my add diagnosis I question it a bit...

according to my most recent neuro-psych I have seen though, the best way to get over this is to force yourself into these situations and perform

I believe if an aspie has this it will be harder than someone else to change his/her thinking because of the tendency toward routine and the increased need for coping mechanisms which are often apart of their behavior....

I honestly didn't know there was such a thing as Avoidant Personality Disorder. That's me all over, or at least it used to be. I just thought I had severe social anxiety. I still show some symptoms of AVD, but to lesser degrees, and they are getting better still. It's taken years of putting myself out there and seeing that beautiful people (physically, socially, or mentally) would want to have anything to do with me. Changing my view on what I consider admirable has helped a lot too--I realized that while many of those people might be happy and socially successful, they are just as flawed as anyone else, and it's people's hidden traits that stand out the most to me now. I try not to look up to celebrities or celebrity types--they don't make the world a better place; scientists, engineers, and political activists do.

Putting yourself out there is hard, and you will crash and burn plenty of times, but if you really do try, you will be surprised how far you get before that happens, and you will just keep getting farther each time. It takes a while, but don't let that discourage you--your life will be very different 5 years from now if you really work on it, but if you do nothing, then it will be just the same as it is now. The hardest part for me was making the commitment to myself to start doing the things I was afraid to do, and thought would be much worse than they actually were.

My experience is that's only part of my cycle.
I start out feeling confident and think I'm doing well in the NT world and then something happens that takes my legs out from under me. Usually, someone goes off on me for being a jerk when I didn't think I was being a jerk at all. Then I get really upset that someone would think I was a jerk and THEN I avoid people because I really can't figure out what I did or how I could prevent upsetting people again.
League sometimes crosses my mind after the fact, but usually not while I'm interacting with someone.

^^^
QFT.

Yes, and I think about them constantly.

Also, QFT (x2)

I don't think I have those feelings (except about the above) happening so much that I could fit the criteria of AvPD. Social phobia on the other hand...
It's all so confusing to me. I'll just call it social anxiety.

redrobin62, I was told I am AvPD. Being told that made me kinda mad and I never went back to that psych. I've felt out of my league with lots of different people.

I have a bipolar opinion of myself. I tend to think of myself as both inferior and superior to most people. I feel socially inferior to nearly everyone, and because most of my interactions with people have a social element, that makes me think of myself as inferior in general. But then I think about it more and realise I'm really not doing anything that I think is wrong - it just doesn't fit in with how most other people behave. I then feel that my behaviour is actually superior (because it is more honest, genuine and considerate) and that therefore maybe I am superior. But that feeling really doesn't hang around nearly as long as the inferior feeling.

In rare scenarios, I feel like I am an equal. This feels awesome.

it is quite interesting to learn the motivation behind peoples idiosyncrasies. i think that the motivation behind a personality characteristic is fundamental to gauging the subjective reality the person is experiencing.

i have a similar set of characteristics as you have bullet pointed, but different reasons behind them.


i avoid occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact because i am not interested in anyone else's input, and i am not inclined to waste my time in showing others what i have achieved let alone how i achieved it.

if i choose to listen to them, other peoples thought patterns disrupt my own, and i never am enriched or nourished by an external point of view.



i am not unwilling to get involved with people, but i am not inclined to do so because i do not really wish to share my time. it is immaterial to me as to whether people "like" me.



i am unable to feel "passion" and i have never cultivated "intimacy". it may seem that i am restrained, but i am not. i simply have no impetus for affection.

that is one characteristic i do not share.

if i am forced into a new interpersonal situation, i will supply the bare minimum with regard to recognizing my new interpersonal counterpart. i am not interested in them beyond the current meeting, and i can not be bothered to trot out the old worn niceties and protocols let alone talk on a "deeper" interpersonal level. i do not dislike people, but i have no interest in them either.

why bother to tell someone else what i know? it will not make me know it any better.

i do not see myself as anything. i never reflect on "who" i am. i just "am", and that is it.



no. i am not in a league.

Yes.

I'll meet women that I deem to be out of my league so I don't even bother trying with them unless for some odd reason she is attracted to me.

I'm the same way but when I think I'm superior for too long when I do get a chance to socialise I feel like a right idiot. I'm just awkward and forgetful and not very aware of my environment and the words that come out of my mouth are all a mess. So I go back to feeling inferior, then realising I prefer being this little asocial nerd and although I can't chat with people I could beat them in a debate, once I stop stuttering and tripping over my lines and shoes at the same time.

I find myself thinking the same thing though I feel guilty about it. b9 I wish I could be like you.