Overcoming social anixety

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I am probably more outgoing than other aspies, but compared to my very NT dad and siblings, I am quite shy and withdrawn.

However I never used to have social anxiety and felt pretty comfortable in places with lots of people, like libraries. I suddenly realized when I attended university last semester I was socially anxious, especially around girls of my own age group 18-24. I could not really cope with the crowded enivronment of the university canteen and the library, I spent as little time as I can at the university. As a result I made hardly any friends, apart from the academic staff.

I decided I needed to overcome my social anxiety, because I believe if I can conqueror it, I can socialize a lot easier. I am doing things now like going out practically everyday, also going to campus during the summer break to get gradually used to being around more and more people. I'm also going regularly to a bar which university students frequent called The Golden Vine and when ever I can I struck up friendly conversations with people whom I meet.

It takes a lot for me, I'll tell you that.

It's easy for me to have matter-of-fact conversations with people. "I'd like a chicken salad tray with no mayo and no onions". "Dave I ran that report you asked for, here are the results."

But there's an invisible barrier that comes up whenever some kind of emotion is involved. If someone tries to be nice to me, I hate it - I can't be nice back, and I know that's expected.

The social awkwardness comes because I am aware that the conversation is going badly and I'm at fault. That awkwardness may cause problems in the future, it might make me shy, however the underlying reason for my awkwardness was that some invisible barrier came up and prevented me from showing emotion.

The problem is NOT that I am anxious in social areas. That's only a result of my inability to interact socially with people. Over the years, repetitive failure at social interaction has caused me to become more reclusive and more anxious in social situations, but that's just a side-effect, and it's something I can overcome. I overcome it every time I have to walk into my office with people I've worked with for years.

For me social anxiety stems from two things...despising eye contact and not having much to say.

Eye contact for me is much like being touched; it's something I consider to be intimate and I don't like just anyone doing it, because the moment I make eye contact with someone I start feeling uncomfortably connected to them as my empathic sense kicks into overdrive and I then start having trouble trying to sort out what I feel from what the other person feels. I've heard similar stories here from other aspies and I'm lead to wonder if it's some sort of compensation mechanism to make up for the inability to follow social cues.

On the plus side, for the brief time when I did have a gf, this ability did prove to have its usefulness in the bedroom, which is one reason why I'm reluctant to surpress it with medication. Over the years I have learned to sort of hold onto myself in social situations and consciouslly push back the tendency to empathize like that, but it takes a lot of cocentration and if I get too relaxed the mental barriers willl relax and then its like a dam bursting.

On the down side, although I can tell you how someone's feeling i can't for the life of me understand why their moods shift the way they do. So I can tell I just upset someone by saying something stupid but I have no idea why what I said is upsetting.

A couple of years ago in school, it was common practice for the other students to ask me 'why I didn't talk much'. Sometimes I would ignore them, but whenever someone asks me that no-wadays, I just tell them I don't have anything to say to them. One time I even said to an obnoxious guy "Why the heck would I ever talk to YOU?" really loud, in the locker room, and his face turned really red. It was funny.

Ah yes I missed the point about eye contact. I am really, really bad at eye contact. That's something that has definately caused anxiety in social situations.

At school I actually find social interaction easier because there are more casual opportunities to interact with people even though the pressure to be social is greater. I guess it's pretty important for me to have people with similar interests nearby as I don't like being alone all of the time. Maybe some people take my non-talkativeness and lack of eye contact as disinterest and that's why I can't make/keep friends very well. I've had to spend the last month on break and my inability to initiate social contact has made me a bit depressed.