Skip to main content

In Which I Decide My "Social Anxiety" Is Actually Low Self-Esteem

Time to exercise some more naval gazing!

I often tell people that I have a small amount of social anxiety. I often dread going to group functions, and will agonize over whether or not I'll actually go up until the moment I actually arrive. I have shown up, and just turned around and gone home before actually finding parking, although that's a pretty rare and extreme occurrence.

When I tell people about this, they often have the response: "Well, you don't seem anxious". Thank you, but that's not really the point. It's almost like they associate social anxiety with social awkwardness. I'm sure there is quite a lot of crossover there, that's really not my issue. I don't end up with panic attacks, or lock up in front of people, I just really have to push myself to make it out on a given night.

For some reason I've been thinking about impostor syndrome a lot lately. My understanding of this is that it's a feeling that you don't deserve the recognition/praise that you receive. "You did really great at the sportsball today" "Thanks, but it's really just the team carrying my worthless ass and then I made a lucky shot".

For the third prong of the "Bryce, what the fuck is wrong with you?" fork: I've definitely got low self-esteem. I'm nearly forty, I'm overweight, balding, and I like to spend my days playing videogames while cuddled up with my three cats. (No, I'm not dating anyone Mom.) Maybe low self-esteem falls under the umbrella of "social anxiety" but since I've never finished a psychology course, I'm going to assume that it's different enough for the purpose of this discussion.

So, why don't I go to more social engagements? Why do I go months, maybe years without seeing some people? On some level, I think that no one actually wants to spend time with me, if they say otherwise, I assume that they're just humoring me, out of pity or something. This is completely irrational, I don't do this with other people, why would they do it with me? As always, that's the problem with irrational feelings, they're hard to rationalize your way past them.

So, I debate: "Do I really want to go there? I'll probable have fun. It'll be nice to see Bob, or Terry. They probably won't care if I'm there. Their night MIGHT even be better if I wasn't there." ad nauseum.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Return To My Brainstorming Days Of Old

Way back when, say, ten years ago, I had a dream of making a game. At first I wanted to make it a videogame like a JRPG (Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, etc.). Then it was going to be a pen and paper RPG (Dungeons and Dragons). And for many years, it kept bouncing around, back and forth between the two, I thought I was so very creative and clever. Eventually I started to realize that I was never going to be able to do anything like this on my own, and that neither I, nor any of my friends, had the time or energy to put into learning the necessary technical skills for a videogame, or simply the desire for a tabletop game. Still, I really liked brainstorming ways that different elements of a setting would interact with each other, whether it be a game system, a fantasy world, a system of government, or a military force. Sometimes I'd write this stuff down, but more often than not, I just day dreamed about it. I think it was kind of like therapy. I still wanted to do something wit
Post a Comment
Read more

Lemme Tell You About The Transformer, Astrotrain, And Why He's My Favorite

       I am, quite obviously, a massive fan of Transformers, but I grew up in kind of a weird time for being a fan. Really, I'm just a LITTLE too young. I remember seeing my brother, who was six years older than I, get all of the coolest Transformers, and then by the time that I started being able to ask for Transformers for myself, the nature of Transformers had greatly changed. I have a great anecdotal story about him clipping Soundwave (arguably one of the coolest Transformers toys ever, which turned into a microcassette player) to his shorts and climbing a tree. He then proceeded to fall 30 feet out of that tree, and land on Soundwave, which poked him right in the kidney, and he peed blood for a week.        While I still have a great deal of fondness for them, Powermaster Optimus Prime is just not as cool of a toy as the original Optimus Prime. Notably, if you landed on Powermaster Optimus Prime, he probably wouldn't puncture your kidney, but the original Optimus Prime mig
Post a Comment
Read more

The Worst Contact Allergic Reaction I've Ever Had

I'm started to feel like a bit of a freak show. I've of course been injured by shrapnel from a pipe bomb, and I've got impressive scars to prove it (side note: One of my friends said that I need to come up with a really awesome story to go along with my scar, and I sad "Someone throwing a pipe bomb at me isn't awesome enough?") I've mentioned that I took a first aid/CPR class in my first quarter of college, taught by Ron Hussman at Edmonds Community College. He was a great instructor, with a lot of great stories being a navy medic for 24 years, I think that's what he said. I'm proud to say that the pictures of my leg injury are now part of his curriculum, but I got tired of raising my hand every time he asked if someone had done something in particular. Called 911? Check Used an epipen? Check Been in shock? Check Ridden in an ambulance? Check Had burns in your throat? Check (seriously, don't let your kids hold roman candles while they fire) Lat
1 comment
Read more