My social anxiety + my inability to enjoy things on my own

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Ideally i would have left the house to attend a gig tonight. I have attended a previous event at this place and found my level of anxiety standing around on my own made the whole thing completely unenjoyable and unpleasant. Maybe that's the kind of thing i can only enjoy if i'm an NT? I love listening to recorded music and get strong urges to check bands out live. I also am supposed to leave the house sometime, yes? Man my life is getting distinctly unpleasant. It's just a bit of an unenjoyable slog with no social life and i will never stop craving the company of others. Anyhow i decided not to attend as i know it will be unpleasant and horrible from my previous so why bother putting myself through unpleasant crap? I just can't find enough joy or pleasantness whatever i do. I'm unhappy sat at home by myself, i'm unhappy when i'm around others and i'm too nervous to speak to anyone. It's just not fun. I'm not having fun here on planet earth as a human being.

i'm exactly the same i have savage social anxiety + cant enjoy things on my own.
your best bet would probably be a gig but a mellow one filled with people your comfortable with and not so many people your not.
the right environment that you enjoy it and get to be around people (i.e. not on our own)
maybe you might have to bare a little bit of the gig when its the environment you dont like but if there is a part you do like or even the whole thing then that would be great right?

I feel just as uncomfortable around anyone. The only way of slightly alleviating my distress i've found is when i'm around friends but at the moment i have no one i can call and go out with. So i tend to avoid anything with people at the moment but of course that means i sit in all the time and never meet anyone.

I feel you 100%. I even have a lot of trouble doing stupid things like grocery shopping by myself.

The only means by which I have ever been able to overcome my social anxiety has been through heavy usage of drugs and alcohol.

My social life basically went out the window since becoming sober

As someone who goes out on his own a bit to different places, I know what you mean. It's hard to occupy yourself alone...but I'd say go out anyways. Have a few drinks...you never know who you might meet or might realize you can strike up a conversation with. Even if it is just yourself enjoying a few beers and the music, there's enough to keep your attention and be entertained, I think. Even just being able to watch the musicians and how they play....the technique of how one guitarist might play versus the other if there's two on stage or how the drummer grips his sticks. Even just being to yell "yeah!" at a good point in a solo.

The only way you'll build up a social life is by going out and meeting people. You'll be more likely to meet people going to shows of bands you like. It gets better the more you do it...and sometimes it just sucks but trudge through it.

Anyways....liquid courage, my good man. Be safe with it, of course...but it'll probably help a bit.*


*Little known fact: anthropologists believe that the discovery of the fermentation process and, specifically, consumption of alcohol was a key point in the development of language and communication. At least that's a fact that I learned from this book here. There's also speculation (though less credence is given to it at the moment) that psilocybin mushrooms were a key influence in our becoming as self-aware as we are.

Isn't there a bit in one of Bill Hicks routines about the consumption of drugs changing our brains at some point in our evolution, also? Man i'd totally forgotten about that.

I think I read it attributed to Terrence McKenna that human language developed as a kind of synaesthesia bought on by mushroom use. It must have stuck. Good story anyhoo

i have friends and enjoy people and have occasions where I feel talkative, but much of the time, I keep to myself and need some time away from people to recharge my batteries.
Does that sound like the sort of thing that would suit you?

Yeah, I think it was McKenna who proposed it but there's also very, very early drawings of mushrooms.

And Bill Hicks very likely got it from McKenna as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsZbxRzWYLc



But anyways, even if you don't always enjoy going out, you shouldn't allow that to turn it into an all or nothing deal. Even enjoying it 10% of the time is 10% more that you're enjoying yourself than staying at home alone all the time.

I can't make friends i don't think. I haven't had a lot of success with that throughout my twenties. Too terrified and socially unskilled to make much of a go of it i think.

Can't think of how to meet people. I know everyone says join a group of some sort. Even if ic ould think of an adequate one i wouldn't real feel anything other than harrowed and terrified about attending.

I have another opportunity to socialise today but i'm very nervous as i don't know anyone at this event. Can anyone give me a peptalk?

I'm pretty afraid.

jamieboy,

Have you tried starting your own group? That's what I did. Find something you like that can include others. Maybe a group that checks out new musical artists in your area?

- Skysoar

I can totally relate. I have passed on going to many things simply because I couldn't find a friend to attend with me. I know a NT would go and make new friends, but that's something I obviously just cannot do. I too like music very much, and I love going to see bands play, but the standing around in between the sets the bands play is just... excruciating.

I actually made a few friends last week. I don't know how permenant it's going to be but it's a start. I don't know them well enough to just call them up and go to stuff with though...yet.

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