I was like this for a while, but I'm not so much anymore. However, the less I go out, the more I act in the manner you describe. The more I go and do things, the more my confidence builds up (and when I say do things, I can mean simply walking around the mall with me, myself and I, not necessarily out with another person) and the less afraid I am of others. I know you might think that with me it's a little bit different, and although it is in some ways, overall it's not. As for someone coming to break it up, as long as you remain unapproachable, it won't happen. I realize looking back that there were people that tried to break the cycle, many people, but I wouldn't allow them to do it, and I burned many bridges along the way. I didn't realize any of this at the time. It's not easy to do, but if you can figure out exactly what it is you are scared of, then maybe you can address that. I concluded at one point that I didn't know what I was scared of, so I went out and did whatever and flew by the seat of my pants, and it worked. Do I have a lot of friends? No. But I never wanted a lot of friends, because I'm not an extremely social person, and in many ways that explains why I'm not very social, because deep down I know that if I am, I'll get something I don't actually want, and that's a lot of friends. It's happened before, and I was uncomfortable.