Uhappyguy: I believe I am moderately socially avoidant. It does sound like you may be, also. You may have the actual Avoidant Personality Disorder, or you may be somewhere on the spectrum of having some degree of socially avoidant trait.

My real, larger point is that having the trait of being moderately socially avoidant is no small barrier to happiness. Other anxiety issues and other traits can compound the problem to the extent that life can be quite a miserable ordeal.

I think looking at one's upbringing is about the best place to start to get some understanding. What you describe sounds a whole lot worse than what I went through.
I do notice a common experience, in the sense of feeling like a caretaker to a parent.

While my parents were decent people who took an interest in my personal development, something was not exactly normal. Both my parents were somewhat avoidant, themselves, and had needs for friendship that they weren't getting met in healthy ways. My mother seemed to want me to be her best friend. So did my father. This special relationship I had with each of them started well before kindergaten.

I thought I was lucky to have a mother who loved nothing better than to sit at the kitchen table with me for hours, talking and sharing the history of her life. I thought it was a compliment that my father wanted to take me with him just about everywhere he went. He, also loved to tell me the history of his life. I was very sensitive to the needs of my parents and I became very involved in keeping them company and trying to help them to not be lonely.

All this time and attention that I invested in them was that much less time I spent playing with children my own age. I got sort of good at being a child whom adults found very pleasant. Like you, I was an obedient child. Kids my own age, however, found me about as interesting as an old shoe. At the playground, I literally had no idea about how to play with other kids. My hope was that some other kid would ask me to sit down and listen to the story of his or her life. I knew how to do that.

My parents, also, were very non-demonstrative physically. They just were not comfortable with that, except with babies. The parenting style in my house was stern.

I had little involvement with peers in high school. I just focused on my studies. I didn't have one single date while in high school. I was socially inept, I believe, due to lack of social experience (normal to peers my age.) I had no idea who these Rock bands were that everyone talked about.

My current therapist is not a big fan of Cognitive Therapy for people like me. He says it focuses on logical thinking, when that is not the problem.

For me to actually enter into a chat room here at PC was quite a challenge. People were way nicer than I expected. I learned you can talk about your unhappiness, but not all the time. I learned to lighten up.

I think you and I must know something about love, or we wouldn't be yearning to have friendship in our lives. In my case, I tend to be suspicious of the motives of someone who comes on friendly. I know I have often attracted the attention of persons who saw me as a lonesome person who could be used.

We do need to "learn to play," but we must anticipate that some play rough and unfair. Learning to "play" is going to involve some pain. Since I didn't pay those dues on the playground as a kid, I have to pay them now. When someone hurts me, I have to say to myself that I won't die from that. Then I go try to play some more. Even if I can just have a short conversation with someone at my depression support group, I say - hey - that's a little opening up of the suffocating cocoon that I'm in.

Thank you for starting this thread. I would like to see a little more action here on the socially avoidant posting area. Let us not avoid sharing.