Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

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I got a PM from someone a while back, a mother describing her son, and it's somewhat like my situation now.

Was the most striking line of it.

This is my problem, it's circular. At first, I think people like me, and I think I'm fine, and I'm OK, and I'm hanging around with people. For a while, I think I'm not weird, not strange, all those things. Then, after a period of doing/feeling that way, people start saying I'm weird, strange, general negative things about me. Then I withdraw from people and feel bad, then people (sometimes the same people) say "oh, you're fine, there's nothing wrong with you, you're OK." And it's just an endless cycle of this.

Today what struck me was a counselor guy saying I put too much stock into other people's opinions. I told him if I don't, people think I'm weird and bad things happen due to it. Apparently when I care about what people think, I shouldn't, and then when I don't care, I should.

I can't win apparently.

This happens to me all the time. If I do it, it's wrong, if I don't, it's still wrong. I can't offer much advice, but I can name a few situations where this happens:-

When the bus is full and I get up to let an elderly person sit down, they say ''no, don't get up, stay there, I'm all right'' and I say ''are you sure?'' and they say, ''yes, yes, stay there, I'm all right'',
Then if you don't get up for them, they glare at you because you're young and should be letting them sit down.

When I try to join in, people give me the ''I wasn't talking to you'' look,
Then if I stay quiet and don't say anything, people look at me and say, ''you're quiet!''

When I try to express my feelings I just get told to ''stop moaning'',
Then when I don't tell anyone how I'm feeling, people tell me not to bottle feelings up inside me and to tell someone if something's worrying me

When you ask somebody if they would like some help, they snap at you and say, ''no, I can do this on my own, just stop bugging me!'',
Then if you don't ask them, they whine and say, ''nobody bothers to help me in anything, or even bother to ask!''

And the list could go on and on. I know sometimes people just like to be offered something or asked, but it's the response I get that I feel is so rude.
And last Sunday I had a roast dinner with my mum and her friend, and her friend asked if I wanted any sauce, and I said, ''yes please'', and she said, ''aw, do you have to?'' That annoyed me because why offer somebody something if you don't want them to have it?

Straight up, counselors tend to give clunky, one-dimensional, flat advice. They give static advice.

And what we really need is dynamic advice. Make an overture that's higher probability, and maybe it will be well-received and maybe it won't and take it from there.

And actually, I do care what other people think. Maybe I "shouldn't" in some objective sense, but hey, I'm a person, I'm social, and so, I do care. And sometimes partial acceptance hurts most of all. I sometimes wish a person would just reject me at the beginning. And admittently, I can also misperceive an acquaintance for a friend.

(I tell myself, medium step by medium step, a series of medium risks. Sometimes that helps.)