Remember myspace? The old facebook… or am I the only one old enough to remember those days? When I was around 16/17 I kind of developed a phobia of myspace. Logging on, and looking at all the updates freaked me out. Why? Because I was slightly disturbed by all the socialising. I lived in my own bubble, well, a pretty chaotic bubble, but still. I was an angry, cynical, teenager and constantly being surrounded by other humans didn’t interest me at all. I would make excuses to avoid the occasional party invitation because I didn’t like those environments. I wasn’t intrigued by the idea of meeting new people, half drunk and making small talk. I found small talk awkward and dull. I even avoided hanging out with my own small group of friends a few times. Sometimes, I just wasn’t in the mood to be social, with anyone.

One of my ‘lazy’ day outfits. I love this coat but decided to have it altered, I think it looks better now, you’ll see soon

Going to University changed this a little, I met people I felt like I could relate to a lot more. Social situations didn’t make me feel quite as uncomfortable and nauseous anymore. I still remember the first week of Uni though. At the end of it, I felt so exhausted and drained. All that socialising. Meeting so many new people made me feel stressed and nervous. I felt like all my emotions had been sucked out of me and I spent that first weekend avoiding catch ups and activities with people I had only met a few days ago. I spent the weekend in my little shell trying to find social energy within myself, so I could function normally during the weeks ahead.

This must make me sound like such an awkward freak.

I don’t think I’m quite as awkward these days, I definitely have more confidence and I’m better at acting ‘normal’ around people, however, there are still situations when I try to avoid being close to people and certain social events still make me feel nervous. Sometimes, simply speaking to someone I’m not familiar with makes my face go red and I begin to sweat profusely. Tmi? Sorry.

My boyfriend is basically exactly the same, perhaps even a little worse than me. Sorry bf! We both avoid people to a certain extent. For example:

This has actually happened a few times and it often annoys the hell out of me. Sometimes I catch the train at around 1 or 2pm when public transport isn’t particularly busy. Sometimes, I’m lucky enough to enter a carriage with no one else on it. I go and sit somewhere and the train moves along with its journey. At the next stop, a person gets on the train. Now, say this was the other way around, and I was the person entering a carriage with one person inside it, I would go and sit as far away from this other person as possible. However, in many instances, the new person walks towards me and sits right next to me. Despite a whole carriage free, with endless seating possibilities, someone decides to sit uncomfortably close to me. Once this happened with an old man, he came and sat opposite me, so I was basically sitting there, in an empty carriage, with a random person staring at me. I got up at the next stop and moved. Am I the only one who would react that way? I can’t be…

This has also happened in restaurants. My boyfriend and I went to an Indian Restaurant one day. It was empty, so we could sit wherever we liked. About 20 minutes later, a mother with three young girls came in and decided to sit on the table closest to us. My boyfriend and I were slightly surprised, we both agreed that had it been us, we would have sat as far away as we could. In this instance, this was slightly annoying. As cute as those young girls were, they were also extremely loud and a little irritating. I wish they weren’t so damn close the whole time. My boyfriend and I didn’t even feel like we could speak during that meal because we were the only people in the restaurant and we felt like they could hear every single thing we were saying. Perhaps that was just paranoia on our behalf, but I found it annoying.

The same thing happened a few weeks ago. This time we were in a restaurant in the city for lunch. It was a fairly cold day so we decided to sit inside, again, we were the only people in there. About ten minutes later, a group of three women in their twenties came in, and once again, literally sat on the table closest to us. On this particular occasion, I wanted to shoot myself. All three women were gossiping extremely loudly and that was basically all I was listening to for the duration of my lunch.

I don’t get it. Why do people subconsciously strive to be so close to other people? Even when they’re in their own groups? Does it make them feel safer?Someone please tell me my boyfriend and I aren’t the only two who feel this way!