A brief disclaimer: I have never been diagnosed with anything along the lines of anxiety, so I am not trying to speak to a general sentiment here. This is my attempt to explain my own difficulties with interpersonal relations.
Social anxiety makes everyone into strangers, while
simultaneously making strangers safer than friends. For me, strangers are
easy to interact with, particularly in the contexts I usually find myself–when
I’m working, or when they are working, it’s easy because I know what to expect
from someone who comes in to order food or someone who is processing my
requests at the post office or the bank. It still makes me nervous, but I can prepare myself.
Once
I kind of know someone, however, some of the padding goes away. Once faces
and names are familiar, people expect more of me, and different things, things
I can’t predict. People who come into the store quite regularly start
asking me questions about myself, offering information about themselves. I have no idea how they are going to respond
to my responses. These conversations I find much more
awkward, and therefore much more terrifying, than the light small talk
exchanged with strangers.
Then
there are true acquaintances: people I know from church or from work, who know
the general shape of my life and I know theirs. If I know about their
family and they know the name of my cat and my roommate, in some ways it is
easier. But I still have to play the role of the person they know, still
have to fit myself into the parameters in which they expect to see me.
And while I no longer have to quite explain myself every other sentence,
which is a relief, there is a new fear in the form of defying the expectations
they already have. I have to guard myself to make sure I won’t say
something out of character, something that doesn’t fit in the mental picture
they already have. It's not rejection I fear, but lack of understanding--that I will describe something that is so very important to me and receive a blank look in return. Those awkward "oh, okay"s are horrifying to me in a way that I can't explain. I am
constantly concerned with protecting other people’s comfort level with me.
I’m
so grateful for my real, true friends, who have revealed time and again that
even if I let down my guard, even if I just be bluntly obvious about myself,
they will still find something to admire and love in me. These, of
course, are unicorns, precious and few. And still even with them,
sometimes I can’t ask for what I need. I love them so much
that the idea of burdening them, or even inconveniencing them in any way,
terrifies me. What have I
done for them, after all? What do they really get out of this friendship
with me?
Is
it any wonder that I haven’t found a significant other yet? This final
level of friendship, this boss fight of human interaction, would mean a person
in whose company I am always comfortable, whose love and acceptance of me are
beyond doubt. This someone would have to be someone who had been tested
and tried and had proved themselves worthy of seeing my soft, vulnerable self
with no shell whatsoever, and who would never be tempted to take advantage of
that trust. Not only am I terrified of the process it would take to get
to this level, I am doubtful that anyone could ever actually beat it. And yet I long for this person, for this one
human, this exquisite creature, with whom I could share my least, strangest
thought, and know that they understand and resonate with it, with me.
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