I meandered around the PC website and wound up here. Social avoidance is the topic I care most about. The thread has run cold. It's like a metaphor for my life. I'll look at what other threads are running on this forum. Seems I've checked and checked before. Will we ever see a thread here that runs on for numerous pages like we see elsewhere? They really are different from us (I am socially avoident, self-diagnosed.) - those folks on other forums that can lob a theme back and forth for page after page after page, enthusiasms undimmed well past the point where social avoidents could possibly continue to remain engaged. I have a foot in both worlds, I know. I think I go there out of my hypomanic drive. In that state, I compose replies that, when revisited a day later, I find ridiculous.

In my own opinion, I make the most sense when I say nothing. Inside of my head, I say all kinds of nonsense, but it would so often save me pain if it didn't get further than there. Yet, thanks to my belief that I can alleviate my social avoidance by jumping into web site discourse, out come my contributions - into the limelight where they can later serve to mortify me into ever greater conviction that I do well to contain myself.

Now, if I remain quiet, I can escape alone-ness, as many suggest, by listening to those needing a sympathetic ear. Volunteering at a hospital is an oft recommended option. Well, I took that even further and actually became a nurse, and a popular one at that - ever ready to shower attentiveness on others. That's an effective way of keeping engaged with other humans. Be a source of attentiveness to ailing folk and you will be much sought out. You'll have to hide to eat your lunch in peace. Is that really a program for quality of life enrichment? Hasn't quite worked out that way for me. Being everyone else's shoulder to cry on doesn't lead to learning to meet one's own needs for attention.

This is a thread started by someone else, so maybe I am trespassing or usurping. On the other hand, if I am standing at the end of a dead-end street, how am I blocking traffic?