Does fear hold you back from socialising?

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I also have trouble with contributing in a conversation, not because I don't know how to do it, but because of fear. Often when somebody says ''hello, you all right?'' or something to me, I go ''yeah, not too bad thanks, you?'' and they don't answer, as though they didn't hear the word ''you?'' That confuses me, because I thought NTs were socially-orientated and so would hear any voice being spoken to them all the time, and you expect the word ''you?'' in a social comeback and so would reply ''yes thanks'' or something like that. Maybe NT's ears aren't open all the time.

My ears are always open. It's extremely rare if I miss something someone has said. Like sometimes when I'm with somebody and they're looking over their shoulder for a few seconds at something, and I say something, they often don't hear. But when I'm looking over my shoulder and I'm with someone and they speak to me, as bad as my hearing as, I always hear their voice speaking to me, even if I'm not listening to what they're saying, I still turn round and respond, or if what I'm looking in the other direction at is important, I'll go something like ''hang on a minute'' or something like that. My ears are always open, and never ''not hear'' a voice. If I hear their voice but not quite catch what they are saying, I still turn round and say, ''pardon?'' or something like that.

Maybe it's a common social rule that you don't always have to respond to everything that is said to you. I always thought that would be rude. Even if I don't like what the person is talking about or whatever, I still at least say ''yeah'' or something, just to inform them that I have heard.

This is what makes me the most socially phobic. I'm so scared of saying something and not being heard by the other person, but perhaps another person in the group has heard and looks at me thinking ''pfft, he/she didn't hear you!'' then I feel silly for some reason.

I agree and sympathize with a lot of the posters here; fear can be a pretty big hamper on one's social ability. In my case it's mostly from a long-held belief that other people are either uncaring, are too busy to warrant bothering, or downright insane (I know I'm wrong, but it's a hard to kick tendency) so I barely bother talking to people in the first place. On the off-chance someone else talks to me I tend to do pretty well, but on the times a conversation ends on a sour note it just makes a footnote in my head for my reasons to avoid talking to other people, hence- never initiating conversation.

I dread socialising as I rarely find the conversations of interest or relevance as my lifestyle is unusual, and my interests "too serious" . As an older person without children / grandchildren. etc and no longer "working" , not interested in soaps or reality TV etc , fashion , movie stars etc I have just as little to contribute to a conversation as others have to interest me.
I guess its that I'm useless sat chit chat and what is more don't see its purpose.I'm better at one to one conversations.

I am the very same way and then people will comment on how quiet that I am which only makes it more difficult to start a conversation. I am the worst in a small group like going to lunch with a few people and I am a single mother and don't have a lot of time to get out other than work. Once when I was in college I had been in several classes with the same group and I started taking prozac and out of the blue I started talking to everybody and telling them my life story, all about the divorce that I was going through at the time and personal things like people love to hear and they were all interested and I was the center of attention the entire evening. I stopped taking the prozac because it actually caused severe anxiety where I could not be still. I don't what those people thought about that.

Hi Joe90

For me also fear is a big thing that prevents me from speaking up in a group or even at a single person.
At work i speak up when i feel i have something to say and know something of the topic or have a question.
No need to say i talk a lot less then the rest..
But it gets easier when you get older and wiser and think more with rest than out of fear.

But fear still rules my world; it seams like i am always trying to make the neuro typicals happy and feel very stupid when i see/feel i made "a mistake" (again) in their eyes.
But i think fear always comes from something/somewhere. For me it's a lot insecurity that comes from a lifetime of mistakes and being misunderstood.

the human arena of socialization is just a buggers muddle to me.
people say what they think that they should say rather than what they really think.
do they value their opinions less than how they come across to the people who they really do not think much of?
how desperate is it to say "wow" to something that is completely disinteresting to them? how much does it cheapen the value of admiration when one fakely "admires" every thing they see in order to not offend.
why even enter discussions about things that are of less than zero interest to you?


i really could not care less whether anyone else approves of me. i am sure of myself on my own. i consider people who have a feeble and negative opinion of me to be wrong. it does not matter how many people agree with them, i still think they are wrong if they disagree with my life.

they can not tell me why i am wrong just as i can not tell them how they are right.


i wish i was not a robot. people have so many rich and deep interactions, but i can not join in because i can not be like them in a living way. all i do is appraise. i never actually feel the things that the people who i am interested in feel.

..

Fear is what has, and is keeping me from socializing.Not only that due to my low self confidence and self esteem.

Not anymore.

But i dont understand what im supposed to say or do.

And i get annoyed very quickly with all the mindless talk of people about pointless stuff i care nothing about.

I just dont get it.

apperently people like to do stuff together?, i find i do stuff best alone. maximum focus no distrations.

Im missing something most definitely, and im not sure what.

Working a job is hard, trying to socialize with other people is harder, almost like torture.

I have the fear of rejection. I pledged for a Catholic sorority two years ago, but was rejected because I "didn't put myself out there enough," which confused me. I thought that I had been socializing with them and participated in the group discussions during the weekly prayer meeting. I was the only pledge who didn't make it in to the sorority.

What made it even worse, was when someone slipped an acceptance letter into the group under my door that same night for my roommate.

No one told me that my membership was in jeopardy beforehand, so i didn't see it coming. If they had concerns, why didn't they talk to me about them so that they maybe could have been cleared up. I didn't even know that someone couldn't get in to the group unless they were say really nasty and causing drama like on those Real Housewives reality shows.

I didn't know I was on the autism spectrum until last December, so that explains why I seemed off to the sorority and why I've had such social difficulties over the years.

I don't have any real friends that live in my city right now and am lonely. I'm afraid of screwing up a possible friendship though and am afraid of trusting people.

It isn't the first meeting of someone that gets me nervous so much as trying to maintain a friendship. I have experience with friends who smothered me with attention, so I don't want to be like them. My mom has pointed out to me before that I can come off as not that interested in a friend. She'll ask me questions about them that I won't have the answers to. I honestly do care about my friends, but don't know how to show it.

I'm also bad when it comes to choosing friends. I'll hang around people who I get along with, but discover that I don't even like them that much or that they make me uncomfortable and I'm too chicken to inform them of my discomfort.

I know that there were people I met in college who made offensive comments about my religious beliefs as a Catholic, not to me specifically, but just about the Church in general during conversations, when they knew that I'm a devout Catholic and was a theology major at a Catholic university, which they attended as well.

If they wanted to engage in dialect on Catholicism in a respectful manner with me fine, but that usually wasn't the case. I don't have a problem being friends with people who have other beliefs and I'll respect their differences, but that doesn't mean that I'm okay with them being rude about mine.

I fear initiating conversation, especially in a 'normal' place (like restaurants, bars, shopping places) with people I don't know, but I do much better at organized activities, since I start with something in common with them.

My main problem is I can't figure out an opening to start with, so I end up saying nothing quite often out of fear of rejection.

There are a couple things I've been working on to help me socialize better:
1) Try initiating conversation with people even if I am scared. Sometimes I have to rehearse an opening line and a couple responses ahead, but if I have that, I'll have the confidence to continue the conversation if I make it that far. I generally do this when visiting cities I don't live in, so that way I can build up a resistance to rejection (because I know it will happen) without having to deal with the full social consequences of rejection.

2) Sometimes I 'pretend' to be someone more confident and socially adept. I think of it like a role to play, like I were acting. I figure if I lack real confidence (something I'm working on building), I can try and emulate the actions of confident people. I hope in time it will turn into real confidence.