Looking for a friendship

Greetings fellow avoidants

I'm new here and suffering from AvP. My goal is to find like minded people to socialize and share experiences with. And where's a better place to find anyone more understanding than here?

A little bit about myself:
I'm male and 30 years of age. My interests include music, piano, animals, games, internet, tv and fitness. Currently unemployed with an education in economics.
I've been in therapy with medication for depression and self harm since 15 years ago. But just recently been officially diagnosed with an avoidant personality disorder.
I'm trying my best to improve my life, but therapy didn't help much so far. I believe that positive social contacts would have a much bigger impact. For the past 10 years I was living in a self chosen state of social isolation with little to no friends.
Extremely introverted, overly sensitive to what other people think, mostly silent in social situations but a good listener, afraid of rejection with feelings of inferiority, recently unable to find fun in activities I once used to enjoy.

If you're also interested in improving your social skills or just feel lonely in general, I would be happy to receive a private message from you!

Hey there good to have you here! I do feel we are in pretty much the same situation (32 years here and pretty much no social life). However I have accepted the fact that I wont have any friends or girlfriend because of my AVPD. This way I dont get dissapointed everytime I try to achieve some sort of friendship, but I will happily send you a message and chat about life in general if you feel like it

It turns out that I cannot send any PMs until I have 3 or more posts that also need to get approved first.

You wrote that you accepted that you have no social life. That's exactly what my therapist told me to do. But I've always wanted to be normal, that almost took away all my motivation to improve anything.

Aren't you sad to live a life like that? Do you have anything else that keeps you happy? Maybe an animal pet or passion for a hobby?

Not wanting to get disappointed is one of the big reasons that we are avoiding in the first place. Avoiding things that could potentially also make us happy.

I can honestly tell you that it felt good to receive a little bit of your attention. And I hope it's the same for you.

What's your opinion or experiences on therapy and the possibilities of treating AvPD?

Welcome


Yeah see I'm an avoidant, I'm not going to jump straight in and send a PM

Haha I realize the controversy or irony of my approach

However I do believe that most uf us actually secretly crave a friendship, but are too vulnerable and therefore scared of trying it. And this is supposed to be a safe place with people who understand you and take extra care, unlike the cruel and selfish world outside.

Thanks for the welcome

hello, welcome to the AVPD forums.

Feel free to send me a pm if you want to talk about avpd or just something else.
I don't really crave friendship as much as I used to. i haven't had somebody that i can call a friend for about 2 years now, and before that I always felt like I didn't belong with the people I called my friends.

The thing I crave in life is a partner, only have had one relationship for about a month, like 7 years ago. Too bad my inhibition to share my emotions with others (especially those I care for), is keeping me from even meeting a potential partner.

Or not so secretly

Not so long ago I would have deleted my thread for being questioned like that. It may not be intentional critique on your part, but it would have seriously made me doubt myself. A real avoidant wouldn't openely admit to needing and looking for a friendship, right?

But you're free to think whatever you want And it doesn't drag me down anymore, since the majority of responses I got was positive. IMO it was already worth the risk of opening myself up to ridicule.

(I'm new here, Google brought me here on this painfully rainy, dark workday, and I thought I posted something, but don't find the post...so sorry if it's a duplication)

Hey there,

I have most definitely AVPD as well, craving for real, deep friendships, or at least buddies who can understand me. I believe I have some, but we moved to Switzerland a year ago with husband, and my friends are only there on fb chat for me, and I feel sometimes, that they are similar, but not the same...
We have a very rich social life, guests all the time, but I usually just suffer from it (with very few exceptions), and feel exhausted, and I tend not to find my place in my life...

You know, I just want some understanding people, not aggressive encouraging or criticizing, etc. Or at least sensitive people, who try to be there. I didn't realize it was so hard to explain (and I secretly want to have movie nights and such fun evenings with really similar-minded fellows :P )

So feel free to write me or have a chat or don't know, how these things go...(obviously I'm anxious about all this, I feel like I'm the only person in the beautiful world of Internet, who is afraid of posting anonymously on a forum...)

Critique? I'm sorry, I definitely did not mean it like that.

Why not? I think we are all here because we are unhappy with our situation and there is no shame in wanting a friendship.

I don't think I wrote anything negative but I'm sorry if it came across that way - I guess I can be kind of harsh sometimes. Definitely not my intention though.

BreakForTheLight: No, I am sorry! I get triggered easily and automatically assume the worste because of my hypersensibility. I assumed sarcasm or passive aggressiveness when you just tried to make a joke about the 'secretly'. Glad we cleared that up thank you!

pindakaas: The moderators need to authorize your first posts to make sure it's not spam and it will appear after they approved it. You can't even send a private message until you made 3 posts. I will send you a PM since I'm also more comfortable with more privacy!

AboutToCrash: I'm glad too! And feel free to PM me... I promise I'm not as *****y as I seem

Pindakaas: welcome to you, too! let me guess, you're originally from the Netherlands?

Hi BreakForTheLight, thanks for the welcoming words :P

Yeah, it seems I managed to mislead the people here with my nick: I just love peanut butter and the Dutch name of it sounds so nice to me, so I stuck with it :P Unfortunately I'm not from the Netherlands, I go to Amsterdam in October for a trip though

It doesn't really matter where I'm from, but feel free to write me if you want to

Does anybody fancy the chat option here? How does it work/is it any good? I don't have enough posts yet I think, but it might be an option for me in the future, IMing is more effective I think.

haha yes you fooled me Gosh I miss the "real" pindakaas...

I've never used the chat here so can't comment on it.

Bloody hell, Its like a dating site on here??

Why not? Why does it bother you?
Is there anything bad in two people meeting each other? Can't someone come over his or her avoidance and dare to do things? It's easier with a person who is similar to you and share things with you. Avoidance is not a condem. I'm more and more convinced of it.

I feel happy when people here can meet each other.

I don't expect you to understand what AvPD is being that you have BPD or what ever diagnoses you have given yourself this week. But to explain in a way you might understand

See it as severe Social anxiety, that might be easy for you to understand.

We (that is those with AvPD) have a fear of social interaction. Now I'm not saying social interaction doesn't happen. All I'm saying is we are very guarded to who we are, giving only enough away of ourselves not to fire up the ever constant thoughts that tend to look at all our actions under a microscope.

and i guess I'm just shocked, that those who say they have AvPD tend not to display a core issues of AvPD and give everything out except their phone number right off the bat.

Azul, I'm an Avie so its only natural that i'm going to be suspicious of anyone who doesn't display core issues.
I'll let you PM everyone with your thoughts of me!

It seems I somehow pushed your buttons Snap66, and now you triggered me with your comments. If you're having a bad day, then feel free to talk about it. Don't worry I won't date you. If you want to keep it to yourself, then what are you even doing here?

Please don't fall into passive aggressive negativity. Feeling bad doesn't give you the right to attack other people. Or you know how they will think of you in the future.

It's not a contest about who feels the worst. Who would want to win that anyway?
If it makes you feel any better, then insult me all you want!
After this response I stop caring anyway.

giving out everything but their phonenumber?

I don't see anyone here in this thread share that much information right off the bat. plus aren't people on here to talk to likeminded people. It's even over the internet so you can be as anonymous as you like. Also, for me, it's alot easier to talk to someone on the internet than somebody in person, sure the anxious feeling is still there but it has been muffled quite a bit.

besides that you're talking about Avies like we're all the same, it's only natural to be paranoid if somebody doesn't display core issues associate with AVPD? It's an anonymous site so people might act differently then they would if they were not talking over the internet.

Snap, I'm gonna give my opinion each time I consider it right. It has nothing to do with you. Don't consider it as personal. I have my right to disagree with people here, including you.
I'm not the one sending pms to anyone about you. Thry are thrbones who send me pm.bc they don't understand your treat to them or to me.

I'm an avoidant and I fight each day for living with this. Perhaps, I only have traits....I don't know...I've been diagnosing again.
Please, don't take it personally.