Avoiding Social Gatherings

[savi83]

Hi everybody,

I used to go out a lot until I started to see a pattern where I'd enjoy myself for the initial part of it. The first drink and then I would start to find myself becoming bored and disconnected from the others. I'm not much of a drinker generally.

I haven't seen an old friend in a while, and they have suggested meeting up for drinks. I have declined as can see that it will be the same.

Can anyone relate to this?

Thank you

 

[SusanLR]

Hi everybody,

I used to go out a lot until I started to see a pattern where I'd enjoy myself for the initial part of it. The first drink and then I would start to find myself becoming bored and disconnected from the others. I'm not much of a drinker generally.

I haven't seen an old friend in a while, and they have suggested meeting up for drinks. I have declined as can see that it will be the same.

Can anyone relate to this?

Thank you

Yes. I've never had many friends but I've tried going to social gatherings with them and that disconnected, not really enjoying trying to be a part of it always happens. They say it isn't healthy to be isolated, but, being uncomfortable and trying to put a mask of fitting in only makes me feel down. Don't see how that is healthy either.

 

[Danny 74]

I have hundreds of friends but over the years have perfected the art of avoiding all of them.. Just ignore people they will soon get bored of inviting you anywhere....!

 

[Suzanne]

There is a social gathering next sunday and I am not attending. Only two people know. My husband, because it is only fair to prewarn him and he has my blessing to go and a sort of friend who said to be brave and she would look after me, but I responded that I have tried to be brave for years and now, that bravery has gone.

Can't cope with feeling alone in a room full of people and a sense of my inner self being stunted.

 

[Amy Susan Rose]

I used to go out a lot until I started to see a pattern where I'd enjoy myself for the initial part of it. The first drink and then I would start to find myself becoming bored and disconnected from the others. I'm not much of a drinker generally.

I could have written this; describes me to a tee. Bored and disconnected (wonder if it has something to do with the alcohol) Also overload:Last week I went out for drink with a friend and had to leave due to the two tv's on in front of me, ACDC blasting on the jukebox, noisy pool game and her jabbering in my ear nonstop! Realized I'm better off staying home with my books and computer and occasional movie. Coffee's (and coffee bars), I find, are more my style. A lot more quiet.

 

[Aidan49]

I hate social gatherings. Full of small talk.

 

[Bella Pines]

I hate social gatherings too and small talk. I have about a 6 minute tolerance before I want to throw my drink into someone's face to stop them talking about inane things. There's so much more to the universe than complete strangers kicking a ball around or running in a circle and passing a stick.

So yes, I attend the bare minimum so that if I go through a lonely phase, I have maintained enough cursory friendships to rekindle, or I appear normal at work. But mostly I think of plausible excuses like "I have to get home to my loving family". Then I tell my loving family that I have to attend a work function and freeedom! I go somewhere alone to wind down and sort out the sensory overload. Then I'm fresh to begin again. I should so join the borg...

 

[JoyChaos]

i agree with having fun for the first hour then getting incredibly bored and wanting to go home. I also get overloaded. Its literally too much i just cant stay. I find a couch and promptly turn off

 

[Judge]

For me it's a kind of "loaded question". While on very rare occasions I might actually enjoy having mingled with people I know, it doesn't preclude the likelihood of having a nasty tension headache by the time I get home.

Social gatherings in general take a lot out of me, whether I rarely enjoy them or more likely loathe them.

 

[Questella]

When I got to social things, I just spend the entire time watching my kid and doing not really anything else. I'm supposed to be watching my kid anyways, right? Hey, he gives me a good excuse to not be hanging around being social at least and I don't want to avoid them if there might be kids he can play with. He's only 4 atm and none of his social encounters involve much more than running around, chasing kids, seeing what they're doing, play-fighting, etc. Must be nice not to be expected to converse with peers.

I often end up watching everybody's kids to some degree. If somebody gets hurt or starts crying, I'd rather see what happened personally than the kids all having stories about what happened, because yeah I'm going to have a hard time trusting their say.

Watching the kids is infinitely more interesting in all that grown-up chitterchat anyway.

 

[umbrellabeach]

I used to go to social gatherings when I had a chance, thinking maybe it would be different this time and thus be fun or I'd have a real conversation, but that has never happened and I always came home - sometimes several hours later, thanks to my parents' lingering - feeling like I'd wasted an enormous amount of time I could have spent doing daily tasks, working on a project or otherwise being productive. So I don't go to social gatherings anymore. I don't see the point.

 

[Tyrantus1212]

I hardly ever had any friends and I don't drink; but there have been some social gatherings I've been to, like school awards. I wasn't very good at small talk at such occasions, I can admit. I often felt like I was the one attempting to initiate the small talk in order to stop feeling lonely, and then it just felt forced. Otherwise I felt like no one ever initiated any conversations with me. In some cases my attempt at small talk would just result in someone responding with "hmmm" or "ok", and only now am I learning how to stop talking when someone responds this way. Many of the conversations I've had with people in school seemed forced. I always felt like a training wheel whenever I tried to mingle with my fellow students no matter which group of students that was. Again, forced. I used to wonder why no one wanted to hang out with me, back when I did not yet fully understand just how different I was.

Sometimes I actually did want to be a lone wolf but once that lasted too long I started to want to feel the opposite; that's how it was in the past. Later on it turned into constantly NOT wanting to be a lone wolf, and that made way for a lot more forced behavior. It became extremely bad in college; and wow, it seems like half of the posts I make somehow bring out that college experience - but I'm not gonna get into that here, there's zillions to tell and it'd be off topic.

Anyway, due to the fact that I got fed up with being lonely later in life, I felt like making small talk with people was a step stool to making friends. The way I did it though...boy was I wrong with a capital W. But that's a story reserved for its own thread which I'm thinking about posting soon enough.