On Being Social...

...or not.

To those of you who know me, it comes as no great surprise that I'm an introvert.  Absolute, 100% introvert, through and through.  Somewhere along the line, though, that apparently become synonymous with being antisocial.  Not the same thing.  Okay, maybe kind of the same thing for me personally, but generally not the same thing.

I remember back in high school I took one of those career aptitude tests.  I had no idea what line of work I might enjoy or even just be well suited for.  I figured, what have I got to lose?  The answer was, evidently, my pride.  When the results came back, they were...unexpected.  So, what did the test say my true calling was?  Apparently, I was born to be a mortician.  That's right - I am not suited for any profession which would require my clients actually be alive.  That was probably the one time I was actually glad to not have any self-esteem because if I did, it would have surely been gone in that moment.  I should have known at that point that a world where I am comfortable with social interaction was pretty far outside my reach.  And of course, I ended up becoming a software developer, which is probably pretty much the next best thing to being a mortician, socially speaking.

But it's not because I don't want to be capable of social interaction that doesn't involve me choking and sputtering on my words because I'm so anxious and uncomfortable.  I don't know why exactly I have such social anxiety, but I always have.  I've always dreaded having to get up in front of people and talk...about anything.  Giving presentations for school, giving talks at church retreats, even just speaking up in meetings at work.  They've all been horrific for me.  I tried pushing myself to face my fear, hence volunteering to give talks on retreats when I was in high school.  It never helped.  And I'm sure those talks left people scratching their heads wondering what the heck I was talking about because I'm about 100% sure that most of those talks was an incoherent mess.  I should get credit for trying, though, right?  For torturing myself in the name of self-improvement?  Of course I should.  I should reward myself with cake...of course, I always think I should reward myself with cake.  Woke up this morning without cursing?  Cake.  Made it through work without punching someone?  Cake.  Showered?  Cake.  Finished a piece of cake?  Cake.  You get the idea...

I take social anxiety to entirely new heights, quirky new heights.  For instance, I hate phone calls.  Absolutely hate them.  Phone calls make me absurdly anxious.  Most of the time, I feel like I have to script myself, and then if the call doesn't go exactly as planned and my script gets messed up, I get all flustered and confused.  Yup...that's me.  I regularly forget my own phone number when leaving messages too.  And I hate going through fast food drive-thrus.  There's something about ordering at that stupid little microphone that makes me clam up and become instantly unable to understand the English language.  I mean, the person on the other end of the speaker may as well be speaking German because that's about how much I can understand at that point.  At some point I usually just mutter, "OK" and drive up, hoping that they gave me my total somewhere in there and maybe, possibly got my order right.  And somehow it always still surprises me that my order is usually wrong.

The weird thing?  I'm not that way with going into a place and ordering.  It's odd...and seems kind of backwards, at least to me.  But I'd much rather talk to someone face to face than through a speaker or over the phone.  Perhaps it's because being able to see someone's body language allows me to see how full of shit someone is.  That's really hard to read from just voice.  Maybe it's because phone conversations and conversations through drive thru speakers seems so impersonal.  Not that I expect conversations at the drive thru to be deeply personal and cathartic, but still...

I wish people could understand that when I turn down invitations to go out and do things, it's usually not because I don't want to do them.  It's because I'm paralyzed with fear.  It's irrational, I realize, but it's terrifyingly strong.  I know I tend to push people away as a result, and it's such an unfortunate side effect because those are people I desperately need.  So to those people who have felt that way with me, please know that it's not you, it's me.  Seriously.  I hate that I'm this way.  I hate that I struggle so much even in the most minutely social situations.  For those of us with social anxiety, it's painfully hard to put ourselves out there, even when we really desperately want to.

I suspect it's hard for others to understand, but let me try to put it in perspective.  Let's say you have a huge speech to give in front of a room full of super important people.  Your job, your fate depends on how well this speech goes.  In this situation, most people would feel a tremendous amount of anxiety over the impending speech.  Anxiety is normal, even healthy, in a situation like this.  That is how I feel when I have to make a phone call or go through a drive thru or speak up in a meeting.  It doesn't matter how many people I picture in their underwear, the interaction is still kind of traumatic (and let's be honest, sometimes it's a little traumatic to picture your audience in their underwear too).  I do it because I have to.  I do it because I have to look "normal."  I do it because that's just part of life for me right now.

(...stick man is very embarrassed to be caught in his undies...)

But remember, connecting with people is hard for some of us no matter how much we want to be, no matter how much we NEED to be.  Be patient with us.  We're trying.

(and yes, I know I suck at drawing...)