I know exactly what you mean. But now that I know this is the issue, how do you go about learning to do things the "normal" way. How do you learn to stay in that job? The answer to me seems simple--you put on your long pants and just stay--but I don't have that difficulty.

Is each thing you avoid avoided for the same reason? Fear? fear of rejection? failure? what? Do you quit a job because you get promoted and don't believe you're capable of the additional responsibility? Do you leave a relationship because you've had an argument, so that must mean she doesn't love you any more? Do you avoid family gatherings because you were chubby as a kid, or had bad acne or whatever, and the family likes to remind you of that?

There are so many reasons to avoid a situation, maybe that's why its so hard to change it. If you know where the problem comes from you can fix it, but its much harder if you don't know where it started.

I don't know how people become friends. I truly envy people with friends. The friends I do have I inherited from my husband. They were all his friends when we got married. I didn't have any then, and haven't made any since. I'm tired of being chronically lonely.

I meet people I want to keep in my life, but don't know how to go about it. I try, but I must do something wrong, because it never works. At 48 its pretty damn hard to bother trying any more, but I've come to realize just how important a circle of friends is. Especially to me, for I am cut off from my family.

Sorry about the whiny tone, but I just had to respond to someone who seemed to know how this feels. Have you tried therapy, psychologist? Counselor?