Im guilty of that, i feel bad but i cant help it sometimes

Edit:

Thank you for your answers. For me, it's this new coworker. Last week I was feeling very exhausted and didn't want anyone to even look at me, and I was cold to her. She's nice, but she talks non-stop, she even said herself that she can't stop talking. So I just went cold turkey and said hi to her and nothing else, ignoring her the whole time even though we work next to each other. Now I feel guilty, as the introvert wave has passed and I'm open to a bit of communication again. I dont want to be completely open to her. Since i might regret it later when i want everyone to leave me alone again

Like oh my days its 7 AM in the morning im taking a bus to my school, full buss full of people, whatever, i dont have nowhere to sit, im SCARED but LITERALLY scared to talk in the bus with full people, scared to move or just do anything, why does it happennn why cant i just be normal? :(

Next, im sooo fucking scared to eat in public near people, in class too obviously, when i get here at 7:10 and then have to wait 50 minutes for class to start i usually eat something before someone comes, and as soon as someone enters the classroom i just hide it and i just dont knowww its not ONLY the eating, i just cant do anything near people, PE is the worst.

also im 16, a LOT of other boys have GFs and stuff at my age, i never had one and im ALWAYS targetted by my "friends" and made fun of new people as well, been told others to NOT talk to me and stuff because im "weird" and all my friends said was "omgg it was just a joke calm down" like what? youre literally talking about me like i was a human with no feelings?

I dont have anyoneee to tell this and i dont even know who could possibly reply to this with something that would boost my mind, like, fuck those people i hate every single one of them, and its my fault as well, apologizing for my english

Kid wanted to eat alone on a 7 day cruise 😀

The best experience for me is sitting alone, in a cafe occupied with my own thoughts. This is bliss and I can do it for hours on end.

As a guy my life has been work, gym, my small group of friends, and solitary activities -reading, painting and writing.

This is not good for dating and meeting people.

So, I internalised this idea that my existing lifestyle was insufficient and unattractive and I need to “put myself out there”, become more sociable and bubbly. I attended social events, hobby groups, and tried to become more talkative with everyone.

This was extremely self defeating and made me more miserable.

I forced myself to become someone I’m not, and adopt a lifestyle that in all honesty did not make me comfortable. I did this for approx 2 years.

I have now gone back to my usual introverted lifestyle, and have given up on changing who I am.

This will indefinitely keep me single, but the trade off is peace, solitude and bliss.

At the same time, being single when everyone around you is partnered can get sad.

Anyone else in the same boat? How did you navigate introversion and contentment with solitude and finding your partner?

Truck driving is the dream

Honestly, I think truck driving is one of the most appealing jobs for introverts. Imagine spending most of your working day alone in your own cab, listening to music or podcasts, focusing on the road and getting paid without having to constantly interact with coworkers. Even at a relatively low-social job, the endless little interactions like saying good morning, saying goodbye and making small talk can get tiring. Truck driving appeals to me because you have your own space and can spend hours getting on with your work without feeling like you need to be socially available all day.

Obviously, it's not an easy job, with long hours, traffic, fatigue and plenty of responsibilities, but I'd much rather deal with those challenges than work somewhere that drains me socially. I'm not looking for a workplace where I can make friends or have conversations all day. I just want to do my job, earn my money and go home. The idea of spending most of my working day alone in a cab genuinely sounds golden. Even if I ended up hating the actual driving, the independence and reduced social interaction would still be incredibly appealing to me.

People say this like it's supposed to make me want to go out and experience everything. Travel, parties, friends, relationships, social events, whatever. But what if I just don't like any of it? I don't really have a bucket list. I don't sit around thinking about all the things I need to experience before I die. Most of the stuff people consider "living" just doesn't appeal to me.

I don't particularly want to go out, I don't want a big social circle, I don't want to spend my weekends making plans and I don't really care about having some amazing social life. Even at work, I'd rather keep to myself, do my job and get paid. Then I go home. That's basically it.

Maybe that sounds depressing to someone else, but I don't necessarily experience it that way. I'm not sitting there thinking about all the fun I'm missing. I just genuinely don't seem to want very much. Give me my own space, enough money to live comfortably and the freedom to be left alone and I'm good.

"You only live once" just doesn't have the effect people think it does on me. If anything, I'm glad there's no expectation that I have to do all this again.

I have friends, but I rarely feel like going out with them or attending events. Even during garba nights, when everyone seems excited to go out and enjoy themselves, I don’t feel like going. It’s not that I don’t have friends or that they don’t invite me. I just don’t feel the urge to go out, even when I have the opportunity.

Hi guys. I’m currently a 3rd-year college student, and I’m hitting a massive wall in life.

I’ve never had a girlfriend or even close female friends throughout my school and college years. Lately, the craving for affection, intimacy, and just feeling wanted by someone has become so loud that I can't focus on anything else. I feel like I'm missing out on life while everyone else is moving ahead. It leads to severe frustration, and on bad days, it brings up thoughts of suicide that really scare me.

I’m trying to prepare for my career placements right now, but my mental health is completely dragging me down. I’m posting this to get guidance from girls and peers who have been through this:

• How do I stop feeling so hopeless about my lack of social/dating experience?
• How can I learn to interact and talk to women normally without putting pressure on myself or every conversation?
• How do you manage crushing loneliness while trying to stay disciplined with studies?

Any advice or perspective would mean a lot right now.

I'm a loner and have been attached to only one friend for the past 7–8 years. Because of that, I think I've put a lot of pressure on this person by expecting him to be everything for me and to be there whenever I need him. And I know that's not fair.

On top of that, he is an extrovert, while I'm a complete introvert.

I feel the need to make new friends, people I can talk to, share my shit with, or simply have conversations with to gain different perspectives on life. But whenever I try to reach out to people, I struggle to open up. I can't pretend to be someone I'm not, and I don't know how to build connections without feeling awkward or uncomfortable.

And honestly, it's hurting me more with each passing day.

What should I do? How do I learn to build meaningful connections with people? Or what should I read to help me understand myself and navigate this loneliness?

I couldn't do the job I'm skilled at because of a very extroverted supervisor. I also tend to be more quiet as I take time to open up to someone.

As the title says. I kept fucking up and looking like a dumbass despite being good at what I'm doing. Brain just froze so I simply couldn't think. I couldn't even speak at all so I looked even more incompetent. Extroverts are the bane of my existence.

Also, when is it not them being the first to notice you when you are in the same room and greeting you first a sign of dislike or disrespect instead of just them having a bad day. I've noticed that when I greet someone and they greet back like they haven't slept in days, they might have a much more lively reaction when interacting with someone else. But then again, maybe they are matching my energy or the fact that lately I have troubling chatting with people. Right?

I don't mind small talk with co-workers every now and then, but that's about my limit. Never liked having friends, so after I gratuated high school I cut contact and been friendless ever since. I don't like talking to my family either, I only do it out of obligation couple times a year over text. I don't want love either, never cared for it.

I just want to be alone, I'd like if everyone else would disappear. Anyone else like me?

I live with my best friend, and our other joint best friend comes over every day after he is off work. This friend comes over after work because he lives 30 minutes away, and his commute is very congested on the rush hour home, and he comes over after work to "beat the traffic". Understandable.
However he never asks to come over. He doesn't text and ask, or say hey let's hangout today. He will come over, smoke weed with my other friend who lives here, and they watch their show they are in the middle of.
I am the type of person that wants to come home to a house that I pay for and enjoy some quiet time without having to give my attention to anyone else besides myself. I want to come home and read, do nothing, and basically just be alone. I work 12 hour shifts, and in the days that I work it is just annoying to come home to a loud show and a friend in the room that doesn't ask to be in the home. He also will spend the night on work days randomly, and 1-3 nights on the weekend he will sleep here. He even brought his dog with him without asking last weekend.

He doesn't pay rent here, and it feels like he lives here. I want my own space and time, and I don't want someone feeling like they can just show up whenever they want without asking first.

I love this friend dearly, he's awesome. Love him to death. But I do not want to see him every day unannounced and it feels like he is abusing this privilege and using the house for his own benefit rather than hanging out with his friends intentionally.

What is a good way to approach this with him ?

The introvert in me wants to stay home but another part of me wants to go out try new things and make memories. Why can’t these two agree on anything? 😂

​

I'm a shy and introverted person who has always struggled with socialising, but lately, it's been getting worse. I want friends and meaningful connections, but I'm scared of being judged or rejected. Whenever I'm around people, I often feel like an outsider, struggle to express myself, and just want to go home.

College has become emotionally exhausting for me. I don't feel comfortable there, and I often feel anxious, disconnected, and desperate to be back home. Even after coming home, I keep replaying conversations and overthinking what people might think of me. I feel low, anxious, and mentally drained even when I'm alone.

I don't know whether this is social anxiety, low self-confidence, or something else. I don't want to remain isolated, but I also don't know how to get out of this cycle.

Has anyone experienced something similar? How did you cope with college anxiety, shyness, and feeling like you don't belong anywhere? I'd really appreciate genuine advice.

We have a stand up meeting each morning, but on top of that my manager wants me to post on slack when I pick up a new ticket so he has visibility on my tasks. Nobody else does that on my team.

I'm completely unfamiliar with the tech stack and my manager has been complaining about me being too quiet since week one. I either post my PRs or sometimes a question about a ticket. The others post their PRs and stuff they find about new tech, cost saving, bugs etc - all work related stuff, no socialising. I don't keep up with dev blogs or the latest releases and I'm still struggling to understand parts of the codebase so I cannot come up with improvements. I just work on my tickets and I have nothing to say beyond that. I also don't see the point of updating him for visibility's sake. Either the work gets done or it doesn't. It doesn't make a difference whether I post on slack or update the Jira board and he hasn't complained about my output. He has complained at least 5 times about me being too quiet though so I'm not sure if he has trust issues, doesn't like quiet people or if he's concerned about work not getting done.

I don't want to comply because I'm being singled out and my work gets done in record time so this kind of micro management pisses me off. At the same time I don't want to give him a reason to fire me (I'm not US-based so he needs a valid reason) and he's put the Slack updates as an action item into the HR system.

​​

An introvert is someone who has a state-of-the-art social filtration system that improves the quality and purity of interaction by preemptively reducing contaminants.

I need career advice/perspective. I feel like my personality is a problem in every job I go to. I’m a shy/slow to warm person and I’m also very introverted. I’ve been in my current corporate job for 2 years and both yearly reviews the main issue brought up is my communication - that I don’t speak up enough, ask enough questions, or communicate enough with my teammates. I feel like a lot of this stems from my naturally quiet personality. Last year my manager even commented that I'm 'not the most talkative person,' which made me feel like my natural personality was being viewed negatively.

Before my current job, I worked a corporate role on contract. During my first 2 weeks of training, my manager met with me and told me that they were concerned about my ability because I didn’t speak and ask questions enough. However, a week later, she met with me again and told me they were really pleased with my work and thought I was doing a great job, and I was frequently praised in front of the team for having high quality work. I ended up leaving that role for my current full-time role.

I’m just feeling really down about my current job because in my first yearly review my communication was brought up as more of a casual “things to work on” type of thing but this year my review was even worse and it was presented as more of a problem. I genuinely feel like I do ask questions and try to communicate, but it feels like every time there is a miscommunication, the blame falls on me because Im the quieter person. Sometimes when I do speak up, I feel like my opinions aren’t taken seriously, and I’m met with pushback or questioned as if they don’t trust my judgement. I’m not an argumentative person so I don’t really stand up for myself and then I’m ultimately blamed for “not speaking up about issues with the data” even though I feel like I tried to but no one wanted to listen. Another thing I'm struggling with is that even if I stay at my current job and try to improve, I feel like my coworkers and managers already have this negative perception of me. I constantly feel anxious and judged at work now, which makes it even harder to communicate naturally. I'm not sure how to move past that or whether it's possible to change their perception of me at this point.

I’m just looking for some advice or perspective- has anyone else been through this? Am I the problem? Is this something I can improve on over time, or is this a sign that my work environment or career might not be a good fit for my personality?

If it’s misalignment I would appreciate any advice on careers that might be a better fit for me. I currently work in consulting as a data analyst and I’m exploring going back to school to become a medical laboratory scientist because I feel like maybe this career path isn’t right for me.