I'd like to start of by saying I'm sorry if this is not the correct subreddit to post such a discussion, but I really don't know where else it could go and I think this subreddit could help me out. If you're going to reply I would appreciate if you read the whole thing, because I've thought about quite a few retorts and the standard ones don't motivate me.
I've always been a weird guy, I'm rather reclusive but my closest friend seems to think that wasn't always the case, I've never had what I consider to be even a semi-serious relationship even though I've come close a few times and there was even a few times when I think I genuinely wanted to start something serious with someone, and in a broader sense I think that I've never been a normal friend to anybody. What I mean by 'I'm not normal' is that I believe that, even though I know no one is perfectly normal, that I sit securely outside of the grey area considered normal. Evidence for this may be the fact that, even since the beginning of University (having easily slipped into a friendship group), I'm frequently made out to be autistic. It's a quasi-serious running joke, one that even I indulge in often, backed up by people thinking I'm abnormally smart, that I get frustrated when things aren't how I like them, that I take invidual problems (individual assigments, even individual equations I have to solve) very serious yet on a broader scale I don't have the same level of intensity when it comes to all of my studies, i.e. I'm very focused on singular tasks. Additionally I don't believe I communicate with people in a 'normal' way, in saying that what I mean is that I believe lots of people lie within the grey zone of 'standard communication', they may have a few weird moments or quirks, but I sit firmly outside of this grey zone, if anything I'm only dipping my toe into it. I'm quiet, I mumble sometimes, I don't like to speak unless I have something to say and that isn't very often yet I'm still capable of understanding what normal communication is, it just means that for some people it may seem as though I have an awkward aura. This has been a preface to my problem, a vague description of my personality and I would prefer if, whilst replying, you kept it in mind that I'm nothing more and nothing less than what I've described, unless you have a specific point to make outside of that realm.
My problem is that I'm lonely. I'm more of an observer than a player. Even though I have everyday interactions with people, and I'm capable of making friends albeit sometimes I feel I vent my frustration in ways that may annoy people, I'm firmly abnormal. I feel like I'm a very strange character. Normal people go through life experimenting in relationships, I've had plenty of chances and yet I have never initiated anything because I've had certain confidence issues regarding whether I wanted to risk the relationship that I enjoyed with an individual very much in order to have a chance at something larger - but this is not what I want to focus on. Today I realised something in light of realising how weird it is that I wouldn't at least try something fully understanding that I find someone attractive and they find me attractive, in every way. It's that this feeling of being abnormal is what's stopping me from developing healthy relationships, in all aspects of the word, platonic, romantic and sexual. It's that I don't feel as though I have the space to make mistakes because I'm already weird, if I decided to have sex with someone in University then people would know, and they would want to know how well I performed. That's because it's abnormal for me of all people to have sex. That is one example of many but I chose it because it exemplifies the phenomena I'm trying to explain and perhaps other people understand the anxiety of performing well in the bedroom, but I have the same level of anxiety surrounding developing a romantic relationship with anyone, everyone would want to know, and they'd want to know how much we talk, how much we see eachother etc. so that they could judge me because it's not normal for me to be in a relationship. This same phenomena means I don't feel as though I have meaningful platonic relationships with anyone either, but I've become used to developing these sorts of relationships with people. Before you say it, I have to care about how people view me because I'm abnormal, the consequences of what people think of me are amplified compared to anyone else because I don't have the same platform from which a normal person would be able to defend themselves from such claims because I've always been abnormal. It would tarnish my image more so than it's tarnished already. If someone claims anything against me then it's taken as truth because I'm abnormal, I see this all the time in insignificant social interactions for instance the fact that if I ever wanted people to stop calling me autistic then I'd be considered even weirder because I cared about such a thing.
Now, I would like to hear of other people's opinion on this view, because it's difficult to escape a perspective that holds you back from developing healthy relationships if the perspective itself makes it detrimental for you to talk to anyone about it.
Tl;Dr: I want to fix my perspective that causes anxiety surrounding my social skills, otherwise I'm worried that I'll never develop them as a normal person would. I don't want to be lonely, I just feel incapable of being anything else.
Edit 1: Formatting
Submitted March 01, 2017 at 09:32PM by piemarine http://ift.tt/2mttH05
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