Socializing - Tumblr Posts
no, bcos we need to stop learning about how to start a conversation. i can have hours and hours of conversation with someone, but my energy gets burnt out easily. we a need a book about "how not to talk people, but how to balancr your energy"
Me being mutuals with someone but not talking to them is the same as a cat existing in the same room as a person and considers it socializing. Me liking and reblogging posts is like the cat purring
smoking weed in order to go smoke weed with a friend is like, peak social anxiety if you ask me.
I miss alcohol
“God this is boring. Socializing is so boring. Maybe I should just become an alcoholic like everyone else.”
— Anna Dorn, from Exalted
Real Life Acting
This may come as a shock to no one, but I’m not usually the most interesting person to be around in real life. While others are talking or doing things, I’m often lost in my own space, saying very little and not moving much. At best I’m usually invisible to others in the room, and at worst I’ve sometimes come off as cold or disinterested.
It turns out, in practice, that my first reaction when something happens is usually... nothing. My emotions are very responsive, but that stays entirely within my head; it doesn’t translate to anything tangible - my body isn’t emotive, and my brain is too busy processing to come up with something to say. This is probably 90% because of autism, but the other 35% is just because I was never around enough people growing up. There’s no social instinct that tells me what to do.
So my solution is to act out how I’m feeling. I put a megaphone to what my brain is processing and speak it out, putting effort into being as expressive as possible. In an almost cartoonish manner, I become a character who represents what I truly feel inside, and clearly showing others what that looks like.
In a way, this feels disingenuous, like I’m just overreacting and pretending how I feel about everything. Yet it is how I feel about everything - just not how I would react to it normally. And as I practice more and people respond favorably, it has started to become instinct in a few cases, a truly genuine response. In a way, I’m finding my own voice!
Plus, since I have little prior experience, I’m able to start with a blank slate and mold it into the character I want to show myself as. I get to choose the kinds of responses I give, ones that (hopefully) make people feel comfortable and happy. Of course, that’s still a work in progress, but I like to think that it’s working ^_^
I have no idea how much of this makes sense to read, but I hope it gives an interesting glimpse into how my introverted self is trying to break free from being stuck in my head all the time!
50+ unread messages on Discord from 5 different people please God grant me strength
i swear just two years ago i was lucky to talk to one person a week on discord
i don't know what changed but lately i'm getting a few dozen messages a week from 10-20 people on regular rotation
and it's like, i LOVE LOVE LOVE that people want to talk to me and i get to meet new folks who reach out and i get to stretch my social skills
but i'm still an introvert and big number scary sometimes. i get my inbox down to 0 and it's back to full within a week. i need a cooldown!
50+ unread messages on Discord from 5 different people please God grant me strength
Went to the mall that might be the backrooms and there was a dude on one of those animal bike things who was probably around 15ish and I notice he's kinda steering towards me so I step out of the way and walk right along the wall only for him to keep coming right at me which is weird but then he makes eye contact with me and goes "reowr reowr" and I simply said "not funny" and he said "oh" in a very defeated way and steers away. I don't know what his goal was.
the allergy i am seeing grow up around small talk in any form is troubling to me. do you know how to make friends with people in your physical environment? it typically starts with small talk. do you want to live in community? small talk. do you want to have the type of relationship with your neighbors where you can run over and borrow a battery for your smoke detector when it starts beeping at 10pm? small talk!! do you want leeway from your coworkers when you fuck up something small? you gotta be able to build a relationship and that's small talk, baybeee.
"but i don't need friends and i don't care about community!" okay, lone ranger, what about the people in your community who need you? "but i have social anxiety!" me too, bud! we simply must soldier on. making up lists of questions to ask people helps. and people are predisposed to be generous, i've found. even if you make some kind of mistake, what is this but the natural give and take of human interaction? nobody is perfect.
you were not put on this earth to live by yourself and then die. you need people and people need you. treat those around you with curiosity and generousness of spirit and you will gain so much goodwill in return.
Introvert-friendly?
I mean I'm a socially awkward animal and I need care?! So.. be friendly (introvert-friendly!)
So I want to be in a community of any topic but like the "introvert-friendly" community (or groups or channel or whatever irdk!). No I don't mean like a community of introverts! I just want an introvert-friendly community if it makes sense..
Like an 'introvert' community is a community with introverts but an 'introvert-friendly' community (as I call it ..) is a community that is introvert-friendly.. lol.. ok so what I really mean is a community that's not too small to be less informative/useful but not too big to give anxiety.. I mean I really wanna join in groups that are about my favourite artists or idols or anything I like basically but then seeing the vast numbers of human beings that are formed into such a community makes me anxious.. I mean as much as I would love to be updated with my fav artist I don't want notifications flooding my phone and if the mute or off the notifications still when I open that certain app I would see tons of 'to-be read' texts which are the triggers points, the fear of missing out if I just scroll down and the fear of feeling left out is one thing but the fear to even see that many texts is terrifying (personally!). Which is why I wanna be in communities that are introvert-friendly. Cause I can just join in some communities where we only get updates (and anyone or I cannot text) to be updated but that'd mean no communication at all which is sometimes boring and most of the times discouraging if the reason I wanna join is to make friends or to be more communicative.
I don't know if I even make sense at all with this but this is something I've been feeling lately. I wanna know new people but larger groups make me anxious, more people and more communication makes me anxious, and still I want 'new' people in life T_T like I can go out and make friends but that'd make me anxious too, I mean my whole point is I'm an introvert so you can't expect me to do things in the casual and most usual way, cause what's causal for you is already a trigger point or an terrifying chore for me. Or maybe just maybe meeting new people in life than online is not only much more terrifying but also a lot boring .. ryt ?
Born to fight seemingly lost battles with trusted comrades, all odds against us, triumphing in the end, to live a life of endless peril and adventure, to see the fear in my enemies’ eyes as I deliver the final blow; forced to endure a dying world and socialize (ew) with those who destroy it
Friends: Hey wanna hang out tonight?
Me:*when I just left my workplace where I have been the last 15h with annoying people that I don't like at all and I don't have energy for socializing anymore*
