Are you not outgoing because you don't know how or...

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It's a combination of both.

One other thing that happens to me is this. I will be outgoing and try to get to know people for a short period when I'm not feeling so busy, but then later I'll have a long period where I feel like I don't have the time to socialize. Either that or I feel too stressed to put any energy into socializing. After I haven't talked to someone for a few weeks it feels like I've missed my chance. Everyone else knows each other and I'm the odd one out. The longer I go the harder it gets.

I feel uncomfortable. Being with people can be nice for a short time but later I start feeling tired and I suffer from a lack of topics - those ones they find interesting are boring for me and vice versa. For example I hate talking about cosmetics or somebody's hangover. Anyway, I like being alone.

There are alot of things that I don't know, and a lot of things that I do know, but I feel fraudulent when I am pretending to be something that I am not. Yet I really enjoyed acting in school plays and the like. I suppose to be outgoing, I have to pretend to be a real person, which is where the things I don't know come in and spoil it for me, and acting I can make up as I feel.

If I know a subject well, then I can talk confidently about it. Small talk and chatting, I don't know what I am supposed to say, so I say what I think is the right (normally wrong) thing, then I get anxious that I have said the wrong thing, thus making me appear nervous.

eyes

I keep doing that in college. I have friends, but I'm not real good at following up, and then it's too late to get into the group. I hate it!

I have never been an outgoing person.
Mainly because it feels totally un-natural to be so talkative and hyper. It does make me uncomfortable because it feels like I am faking it all just to fit in...in the end I still don't end up fitting in.
I know that I am not the greatest at being an "outgoing" person, if I do try to be so, I don't notice that I did anything "wrong" until it's done. I've given up in just accepted that I am ment to be introverted. Thats not a bad thing though.

Perfect sense. For me, it's a combination of both.

Uncomfort, mainly. I can be quite polite when I'm occasionally not a surly bastard...

Most times I try to be 'outgoing' what I say and do comes out wrong. People read things into my words that I don't intend to say, causing them to think I'm being a sarcastic jerk when most of the time what people are reading from my words is not even implied. I generally don't like people touching me or me touching people and my friend interprets this as me not liking him, even though I do. My tone of voice annoys others because it seems nearly always interpreted as sarcastic or rude, even though that's just how I talk.

Aside from things I'm interested in or know about, I have little else to say. Some members of my family and my one real life friend don't seem to like me talking about my areas of interest, then sometimes verbally relay anger when I stay quiet, saying that I'm willfully trying to ignore them(even during times I'm not ignoring them).

They want me to be with them at bars or shopping malls for long periods of time when I get very nervous at crowded places and can't think straight from all of the noise(I've never relayed this to them.). When I say activities such as these make no sense, others say I'm berating them. When I tell my friend I don't derive pleasure from wasting my money on junk I don't want, he thinks that I'm "trying to be better than everyone else" when I genuineley don't have an interest in this activity. He basically stated I despise having fun and should party a lot more, when I really don't want to, and then thinks I'm trying to avoid him when I tell him I don't like partying a lot. So I take his recommendation anyway, just to keep him from critiscizing me, and then I get called a liar when I tell him I don't want to simply because I keep coming back to see him and his friends anyway. When I turn down an invitation, I'm called a loser, someone who "doesn't know how to have fun", or that I think I'm "too good for other people."

How do I tell these people how I truly feel? What do I say to them? People think I hate them when I don't.

Others try to make me someone I am not and then they seem to get angry when I express that I'm not the person they want me to be. I'm heavily introverted and in this society this is seen as being something other than human.

Glad someone else asked what's meant by outgoing. I'm still not exactly sure.

I'm not making any kind of conscious choice...I mean I usually don't talk to people unless they talk to me first, or I know them well, or have a particular reason to talk to them. Otherwise I don't know what I'm supposed to do or say.

makes sense to me

At work I can be very outgoing because I know the subject so well. Outside of that forget it. I come across as phony, awkward and disingenuous and it just sucks the life right out of me.

I have tried 2 b outgoin but it doesn't work 4 me cos i don't fit in 2 well wid ppl who can chat ages about different tings n i would find it hard 2 follow.

Frankly, I know at least a couple people who are really loud and talk a *lot*, but whom I would never call outgoing. They are very closed-in and don't allow others to reach out to them, emotionally.

To me, "outgoing" describes a type of emotional openness more than anything else, which allows people to "click" soon after they had met. In that sense, I can be very outgoing, and I can usually establish a connection with another person quite easily, provided they also open up to me, but I often don't know how to behave around others. I talk too loud or too quiet, am awkward, say the wrong things at the wrong time, talk over others, and just generally get confused far too easily. I usually end up being embarrassed and feel that I am doing things wrong, but at the same time I'm not sure how to do them "right" in the first place.

I also seem to have some social phobic traits, at least when I'm calm or in a more depressed mood (on the LSAS test, I've repeatedly gotten "marked social phobia", though frankly I'd never refer to myself as sociophobic, since it has always seemed to be that this implies being far more shy than I am).

What does outgoing mean?

I feel like it's way easier to seem normal in school or at work....because I know the topic, and there's a topic right there to talk about. If I can chat about a test or a weird teacher or an annoying boss, I'm all set. In a social situation not revolving around a more intellectual topic, I start to fall apart, because I'm not a good banterer.