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I know what you mean man, I have a lot of those descriptors you listed myself, at least in some form or another. I think it is on the mild side but I believe I had some degree of social anxiety as well - I guess you can say it oscillates in severity depending on how much I push myself to get out there vs stay isolated, or just my particular state of mind at the time. Sometimes I can be naturally social and free wheeling, whereas other times I get extremely uncomfortable and withdraw from conversations, and if I do engage I turn out being very awkward or saying something odd. I also have a difficult time translating 100% of the ideas in my brain verbally on the spot, without stumbling through it, leaving out key details, etc. I don't have a ton of friends and I find it difficult to keep up relationships, particularly with more "acquaintances" or "buddies", but I do have the fortune of having a core group of a handful of good friends, along with a pretty cool, supporting family of which I'm pretty close with, including my cousin.

But yeah venturing out into social situations, particularly where I don't know many people can be a grind on me mentally. Almost had a freaking panic attack covering games at my first E3 last year heh. And I was completely dreading making a 2 minute wedding speech as the best man and getting on the dance floor at my cousin's wedding for several weeks, if not months beforehand. But ultimately I power through major events like these and while it all doesn't go perfect, they typically end up being not even close to the disasters I foresee them to be, and many times I find I quite enjoy myself. I ended up taking up an overnight gig for 2 years lugging heavy boxes around, partly because I'm a bit of an insomniac and night owl anyway, but mostly just to avoid dealing with too many people when working.

I think the best thing to do is to force yourself to get out there at times and be social or get a bit out of your comfort zone, even if it's just little things here or there. That's not to say unwinding on on your own isn't valuable too, but it's easy to get comfortable in that position (at least for me) which ultimately just makes the anxiety worse when you finally do go out or do something social.

Last edited by DarthMetalliCube - on 18 September 2018

 

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