Social Fatique

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I have a job where I have to supervise a small group of people in addition to the other work that I do.
It has taught me a number of things about myself. One of which is that while sometimes I try to put up a facade of being sociable (and sometimes I genuinely want to interact), it can exhaust me quickly.Thus, I can become irritable. This is becoming a problem at work because my staff complains to my supervisor about my lack of desire to interact with them and my irritability. But more importantly, I see this as a problem with life, not just at work.

I am about to join apply to join a group that requires a lot of socialization. It is a group that I was rejected from once before, but I have a chance at again. You might think that after the first time, I shouldn't bother with them again. But, I really want to.

In any case, any ideas on how to deal with social fatigue and the effects that it creates?

Surely someone has experienced this?

Let's get the comments going.

Well, I won't call this advice but I will tell you what I did.

To begin with, I couldn't socialize enough to even bear to ask someone to tell me the time. I mean socializing was really, really painful. Even the least interaction freaked me out and was exhausting. So in other words, I was pretty extreme and often went weeks without speaking.

There came a time when I reached rock-bottom with loneliness (I assume most of you understand how one can be both lonely and detest socialization at the same time). Plus, I could not get a job if I couldn't bear an interview or coworkers or customers. So I grit my teeth and I tried. I swore that I would become more social if it killed me.

First thing I did, I got a job going door-to-door soliciting for Greenpeace. It was the most social thing I could think of. I memorized all the factoids from all the pamphlets. For training, they had me tag along with an experienced fundraiser and watch him or her ask for donations. I took on a whole new personality based on the personalities of the others; I mean I put on an act. I got better and better at it, and grew convincing. I was getting as many donations as anyone else.

Pretty soon, I was feeling exhausted with my social alter-ego. I began sitting around in parks during part of my daily solicitation rounds, then using my own money to top up the below-quota amounts I was collecting. The periods of illicit rest began to get longer and longer, and I was having to donate so much of my own money that I couldn't afford to work there. I quit.

But despite the epic failure, I still retained the ability to put on a social alter-ego. At work, I would put it on for a couple of hours, then invent some reason to be missing for a half hour. I was working in a manufacturing plant, so I was always able to at least go "check something" in a remote warehouse corner. Alone, I did relaxation techniques and de-stressed, stimmed, etc. Then I put on my alter-ego and went back to socialize for another couple of hours. At lunchtimes, I got in my car and drove to a deserted field, parked facing away from everything except the grass, and took a good rest.

The regular breaks allowed me to act social for several hours each day, which everyone thought was 8 hours a day, because they didn't notice the breaks. I thought it was better to do that than to socialize all morning, and be unable to each afternoon. That people would notice. In this manner I was able to keep a social customer service job for three years and do well at it.

This might sound weird, but I hide in the toliets.

When I'm at uni, or at work and everything gets just TOO social, I excuse myself, go to the toliet, put some music on for 5 minutes (probably while body rocking on the toliet), and just let my mind go blank. Then I just get up, go out the bathroom and act like everythings normal. I find just knowing that I can escape the situation helps me cope, and then I don't even spend that long "hiding". It's just a safety blanket thing I guess. I only feel stressed if I feel like there is no escape and I have to stay. I'll admit it's taken me a while to perfect this, but now I have more friends and I am more social, I find that even with people I'm really close with, I have to escape them for a while.

Although I am female so I can get away with being in the toliets for slightly too long, and if anyone questions it I just give them the "knowing look" which implies to girls it's that time of the month or boys to stop asking questions, you probably don't want to know why I took so long, haha