I'm a socially anxious nerd in his early 20s who's spent most of his life homeschooled and on a computer. Three months ago, I started taking medication and going to therapy to help manage my mental health issues, and a month ago my therapist and I agreed that I've made enough progress to start putting myself in social situations to try and meet new people and make friends and build up my tolerance for social discomfort. So I started going to the local bar every weekend, and found out something about myself that I was previously unaware of...
...Apparently I'm hot? Every time I've gone to the bar, women have approached me and given me compliments and I get told I'm beautiful and the other night a woman stroked my hair and this all sounds like some sort of fantasy, right? As thankful as I am to have found out I'm not ugly and to be receiving attention from women this easily, I have absolutely no idea how to respond to any of it and it's been giving me panic attacks and causing me to depersonalize and I don't know what to do.
The other night I talked to this girl and I really liked her and she complimented me a lot and I'm pretty sure she was wanting to escalate beyond casual conversation, but I just totally froze up and ended up having a panic attack and having to try my best to (badly) hide it, and she ended up leaving the bar after a couple of hours and seemed annoyed and disappointed, and I'm worried that the reason why is because I didn't make a move, and now I feel like such a loser because I actually was interested in pursuing something there, but I've never done anything like that before or received this much positive attention before, and a lot of the time whenever someone says I'm cute, my gut instinct is to think they're making fun of me, and I don't know how to deal with this.
I hate that my personality and social skills don't match my appearance, and I can't help but feel like I made this woman waste her night out trying to hit on me but giving up because I didn't know how to do anything except say "Thank you." awkwardly and subsequently avoid making eye contact. At this point, I'm not even sure if there's any advice that can be given to me, I've just been so sad about this over the past few days and I don't have anyone I can vent to, so now I'm on Reddit. I feel so broken.
[link] [comments]
from Dating Advice https://ift.tt/3xMPzVO
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment