03/27/08: So much good advice here...

the same sort of stuff the unafraid, rational part of me is thinking all the time. But I guess hearing it from others makes it harder to second-guess it.

I know everybody's got to be capable of dealing with messing up and facing rejection if they don't want to end up like... me, I guess. But I still wonder if it's a good idea to set myself up for rejection with someone I see every day. If it goes badly (and odds are it would, thanks to my being the way I am), the repercussions could be enormous.

Xur couldn't be more right about the importance of making yourself interesting. That's where so much of my self doubt comes from. I just consider myself so damn boring. I never seem to have the time (or should I say focus?) to devote to doing anything that would make me a more interesting person. I know that you can make up for your own lack of interesting things to talk about by being good at getting others to talk about themselves, but I have so much trouble there. I just don't know how to say. I've been working on this with a therapist for half a year now, and I now don't feel utterly terrified about talking to new people... for short periods of time. But being around the same person for several hours, and having to find something to talk about that whole time, panicking each time a bout of silence hits and realizing I've already asked everything I had put on my mental list? I know it shouldn't be such a struggle. Conversation should just come relatively smoothly, if you're with someone that 'fits' with you. It just seems that shutting myself away from the world for so long has made me not fit with anyone. I often feel like I'm the physical embodiment of uncomfortable silence. And I know it's not all in my head -- when I hung out with this girl and some other people a few weeks ago, I heard the usual "You're so quiet" comments that I've been hearing for so long, the sort of thing that made me give up on a social life in the first place. People seem to interpret my taciturn nature as anger or disinterest.

Eh, don't listen to me. I'm fully aware that I'm just making excuses. I do appreciate all the advice you've all thrown my way, though I have three decades of experience that indicates I'll not act on it.

I wish Aron was here. He's got nothing on me.

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