Why not just stay home?

[ether667]

Jazz and Blues... I had to do a double take as to whether or not it was ME who wrote that original post! Totally, wholly empathize. I'm someone who tends to over think a lot and so even though I have plenty of friends, am social despite my anxiety/depression, and even do live performing, I find myself in so many cases where I lock myself away from events for exactly the same reasons you describe.

Even more so, if I'm at an event that I had these thoughts about before, I tend to feel some sort of guilt as well. Not cool at all! I remember going to concerts/parties/etc all the time in my early twenties, and it's pretty much what I lived for, but nowadays I'm just blah. My own place. My own rules. Social contact at my own discretion.

Yeah. It's the comfort zone.

[Jose]

I'm a total homebody. An ideal weekend for me would be ordering food and watching like a dozen movies in a row, I don't get to do this because I live with people who would call me a lazy asshole and make me get off the couch, which is probably a good thing. I never have fun at parties, I always feel out of my element and end up talking to people I've known for years about things we've talked about 1 million and a half times just to make it seem like I'm comfortable with being social when I'm truly not. It's obvious when I leave the house what I'm expecting out of the party- That I'll meet someone. So I try to look my best and psyche myself into being an 'attractive' person. Usually when I enter the place I get a read right away on how the night will go. It's like all the air being sucked out of a balloon, I look around at people totally content and happy to see eachtother, while I'm seething in the corner that there's nobody here for me. If I do like someone at the party, I'll be casual to a fault. Only speaking when spoken to, so when they ask me questions I tend to answer them in one word or sentence, or I'll mull over something in my head and let the silence hang their way too long until the entire rhythm of the conversation is just dead. This is why I avoid these kind of gatherings and really any type of interaction that requires me to answer "So what do you do?" I can't even tell you how many parties have ended up with me and the other lonely guy introducing ourselves to eachother and making small talk because we can't make any headway with the girls, it's so pathetic. Sooooo pathetic. This weekend there's a memorial day party at this place on the lake, I'm gonna go just try to enjoy the scenery, not get my hopes up for anything too special to happen and see where it takes me, but I so value my alone time that these shindigs get FUCKING EXHAUSTING and I find myself at the end of the night like "Where's a TV, a book, ANYTHING?!?!?" All of the social engagement going on kinda feels like it turns my brain to mush, so I get as drunk as my body will let me and inevitably say some innapropriate joke or reveal something too personal about myself and without exception I ALWAYS leave the party thinking someone there hates me, usually one of people I'm closest to. I never go home with a phone number, instead I pretend to care about some dude's political idealogy and then arrive in my bed thinking "Well, I guess I'll chalk that up as another social experiment."

How are you guys gonna be dealing with Memorial Day Weekend here in the U.S?

[Paul Gilmartin]

I so relate to this thread, which is why I read it on the show. It's like my brain is the tiniest, worst travel agency in the world and when I'm considering going someplace it will unveil a slide show of the most negative "worst case scenarios". NEVER good stuff. Some of the favorites: You won't find parking; you'll get robbed; It will be too crowded; it will be boring and you'll be trapped.

Also my ego can play the reverse trick. It thinks it's going to get stroked, so I'm excited to go somewhere, I build it up in my head and then I'm disappointed when the reality is nowhere near my fantasy, and on top of it I feel like an ass for having imagined such grandiosity.

Paul