Do I have a mental issue?

I am only asking because this condition has really caused great stress and unhappiness.
I find myself overanalyzing every conversation or social interaction with another person. Disclaimer- I do not suffer from social anxiety. I know this because I am extroverted. In fact, I am really attention seeking.
I think I am a perfectionist because I think of social interaction as a game that needs to be won. The way that I judge myself is through other people's responses. If they continue the conversation, then I must have done well and made them think well of me. The weird thing is, when faced with a social interaction, ie "how is Professor Smith?" I can imagine so many different ways that I can respond to this question. Unlike others, I do not know what my conversation style is. I cope with this through picking a mantra. It is kinda weird, but when faced with so many choices, I need a guiding principle for me to reach any kind of consistency in my response. For example, I may decide that today my principle is that "If people can clearly see that you are willing to make friends, they will like you more!" So my response to that question would be "Professor Smith is actually a pretty good teacher (big smile). Who is your english professor?" But in a few days, I would think, wait, this high level of ethusiasm is very unnatural! Shouldn't I want my friends to like me for me? So my principle would become "I should not care what people say, love me or hate me." So my response under this principle would be "He is ok" In a few days I think, wait, people are not inviting me to anything, nobody is texting me first, perhaps I should be more aggressive? But not super aggressive. So my mantra would be "A lady is someone people want to be around. I should strive to be a lady… and so on… This cycle is very pointless and exhuasting. I want to stop but then I would be faced with so many choices as to how to respond to the question "how is Professor Smith?"…
This cannot be normal! Please help me identify what kind of mental illness I have. I think it is OCD but I do not know.
Also how do normal people respond to the question? Do you kind of predict how the other person will respond to your response? And pick the answer that illict your desired response from the asker? That is not something I have tried before, but I kind of want to now. I hope I have not started another cycle……

TL DR: I do not know how to act socially in a consistent way when I am facing so many possible ways to act socially (ethusiastic, pensive, talkative, lady like, etc)

inmaine, Hello and welcome to PC. It is nice to meet you. You are asking some pretty interesting questions. I think that you have narrowed down a few problems that you may have. I am not a mental health professional so I can only guess at this. It does sound like there are perfectionistic approaches and some OCD. I see some sort of anxiety here. It may not be social anxiety per say but there does seem to be a component of that in how you approach things. You seem to have a very methodical way to approach people. I would see a therapist and talk about this with them. It is the only way to get the answers that you are hoping for. Good luck with this.

The community liaisons and moderators are here for you should you need any help in navigating this site. Regards.

Hello inmaine, nice to meet you and welcome. What you are describing above sounds as if you are over analyzing, often this is due to wanting to be perfect or a fear of not giving the right answer. What is it that you are afraid of not getting right and what would happen if you perceived yourself in giving the incorrect reply? OCD is often about wanting to make something feel safe, so it sounds like there is a fear involved in this somewhere. You want to get to a point where your resposes in a conversation are natural and spontaneous. Seeing a therapist would be an excellent idea.

i also believe a t is in order, they could answer your questions more intensively as we here are not doc or t's but can give you some advice as to our own lives.