Yes Parker, I am way too hard on myself. I've always been a perfectionist, and then when I was married I was never good enough as just me. I had to do things that were of interest to him, and I had to change my dress and grooming to what he felt was appropriate for any given occasion. I was never good enough just being me.

I'll go grocery shopping and if the clerk is nice and chatty to everyone ahead of me, and then is cold when I get up there, I assume there's something wrong with me. If I try to make small talk if there's no one waiting behind me in line, I'll get an "oh, that's nice, bye bye now."

You read suggestions like "if you find someone interesting, ask if they'd like to meet for coffee" but I don't feel I even have enough interesting things to say to fill up 15 minutes. Sure, I can go on about my crappy relationship with my ex or how burned out with my job I've become, but that's not exactly uplifting conversation material.