Social anxiety sucks. I'm a pretty quiet person, and often I wind up just retreating into silence. Sometimes I get the vibe that I make people uncomfortable. I wish I knew what to do about that.

I don't know how to start a conversation, so instead I wind up hoping people will come to me. One of the things I love about the local improv people is that they're friendly, and manage to do a lot of the approaching.

Yesterday, friend of mine gave me a ride, and as we were getting in the car, she asked me if I was going to talk to her. I hate this - my social reticence has led someone to believe that I have no particular interest (or reason) to like her. Really, I think she's cool, it's just that often we're in a larger group and I get all quiet and reserved.

Maybe it's just that I'm just not sure how to relate to people. Especially people my age group - so many conversations this past week have involved some musical person and/or group, generally something or someone I don't listen to - jimmy eat world, fall out boy, sex pistols, britney spears, carrie underwood, backstreet boys - just to bring up a few names that have been dropped in the past week.

I don't really listen to music, honestly. I don't watch videos, I don't listen to the radio, I haven't bought a CD in 15 years. Mostly I enjoy the music I hear in TV shows and movies, but apart from that I don't really have the urge to find out the name of the artist, and the title of a song, when I hear it. So, I wind up being, like, "oh, that song" when I hear it, and that's about it.

Then there's the whole 'yay drinking' attitude. I don't enjoy the taste of alcohol, so the cultural exaltation of the booze is a bit difficult, sometimes, to 'get'. "Let's go drink" doesn't do much for me other than get me into a place where alcohol is sold and things are often over-amplified, where the music turns into so much noise over which to be shouted.

Sometimes, I really hate parties. Luckily, I don't find out about them very often? I go to one, I find a somwhat 'safe' and comfortable corner, then effectively turtle up. I see others managing to interact with one another and I wonder when I forgot to be human, because that's how it feels. Like others are going around being human, and I'm not.

So, in the end, I wind up in the corner (metaphorically), in a place where I can barely hear people and have to strain to make sure I can hear, or yell to get people to hear me. In the end, I wind up sponging the conversations around me, listening to them, wondering when I should talk.

This is incredibly frustrating when I'm attracted to someone. In this case I wind up, staring a lot, trying to use my mental powers to make them come and talk to me. So, yeah, "meeting someone" as far as escalating a step beyond socialization is difficult. I more or less overthink things to the point where I've convinced myself I have nothing to offer.