[QUOTE="derekjeter2005"][QUOTE="uhoh_hotdogs"] My God. It is like you see into the very depths of my soul. :| Absolutely serious here. :|
I appreciate you posting this (and the people who replied) because the exchanges that went on really make me think about my own life . . . some of the things said mirror my world nearly perfectly.
MrGeezer
I'm happy too because I've gotten advice from a lot of different people. really glad to see there's people out there in my predicament. I've been in it for the past five yearsFor what it's worth, I've been "in that predicament" for basically my whole life. By the time I reached the age of about 20, I just pretty much resigned myself to the idea that that is who I am, that I will never be willing to make the change necesary to become someone else, and that that's who I will always be. Then, by the time I reached the age of about 22, I just plain no longer gave a flying ****.
Behaviour often dicates desire, not the other way around. You can spend years shovelling poop hoping that you one day become rich so that you can stop shovelling poop. Fast forward to 15 years in the future, when you've won the lottery. You no longer have to shovel poop to make a living, and you quit your job shovelling poop. But while you're living comfortably in your expensive mansion, you find yourself having desires to go back to shovelling poop every time you smell the stank that enters your nose whenever you take your prized award winning poodle out to do its business.
Ever watched The Shawshank Redemption? For YEARS, Red said the **** that he thought he needed to say in order to get paroled. By the time he finally did get paroled, he was wishing that he was back in prison. Because prison was all that he knew, it was where he had a certain level of comfort, and everything else was sort of scary. He always wanted to be free. But once he was free, he had been in prison for so long that prison was truly where he BELONGED. He became "institutionalized".
And as someone who has been EXACTLY where you are, let me tell you that you can become "institutionalized" to loneliness and sadness. It is possible for that to become "normal", so much so that social contact actually HURTS. Frankly, these days I don't really give a **** any more, and I'm comfortable with the level of social interaction that I have. Occasionally, I wish that I had good friends, a loving wife, and awesome children. But the second I have to socially interact with people, I feel extremely uncomfortable. Minimum human contact is extremely unpleasant for me, and can become painful, and I keep finding myself retreating into my "loner zone", despite the fact that I used to desperately want to get out of the loner zone. I've been "institutionalized" just like Red. I've allowed this to be who and what I am, and I am old enough that I no longer really care enough to make any changes.
As I said, behaviour dictates desires. Be a solitary anti-social loner for long enough, and eventually that will become the only thing that pleases you. Be a jerk for long enough and you will surpass the date by which you can stop being a jerk. Bite your fingernails for long enough, and you will ALWAYS have a need to bite your fingernails, and failing to bite your fingernails will be painful. Behaviour dictates desires.
You are at the five year mark. I think it's time to evaluate the degree to which you CARE about being sociable. Because with each passing year, it's gonna get harder to become more sociable. And with each passing year, you're going to more and more start to find yourself thinking that you frankly don't give a **** enough to make the effort to be more sociable. Now is the time to decide whether or not you are comfortable spending the rest of your life being shy and lonely, and whether or not it's worth the effort to change. Changing will be hard, and it's up to you to decide if that's worth the effort. But rest assured, if you keep this up, eventually it'll be too late to go back. Eventually you just won't give a ****, and that'll provide the foundation for the rest of your life. So decide soon, because five years is a long time. You live like this for 5 years, what's to stop you from living like that for another three? Then you're approaching 10 years, and by that time any kind of change becomes difficult as hell, REGARDLESS of how much you want it.
That was some of the best advice I have ever gotten on the internet.
But I honestly feel the same as this guy. I have been a loner for most of my life, and I haven't had many friends. I always thought that college would be a place for me to turn a new leaf and make friendships. It's been two years, and I can't believe I'm in the same rut that I was when I graduated high school. I will say that it's much easer to talk to people in college then it was in high school. But it's my obsessive paranoia of rejection that keeps me from wanting to meet more people. I'm almost scared to go up to a stranger to talk with them and petrified if I see someone I knew in high school; just because it brings back so many unwanted memories. I can talk and have a conversation fine but eventually you start to question if you're doing something right or you're just not right in the head. Perhaps if I change the lifestyle that I'm living now then maybe I can change. The saying old habits die hard come to mind. Thanks Derek for posting this, it let me get some quality advice and gave me a lot of peace knowing that I'm not alone.
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