Social life for avoidants is generally a painful experience. Oftentimes we don’t even notice this pain and accept it as the price for being alive. If you’re fighting to survive on a daily basis (“survive” meaning “just get through your day with minimal scathes and bruises”), you really don’t have much capacity to start focusing on your own burdens for relief, but rather you resist them to achieve the greater goal of trying to achieve what you need to achieve.

There are some days at my job when I feel OK. For whatever reason, the conditions of that day presented a minimal social burden (having to deal with less to no intimidating strangers and situations, for instance). There are other days that are absolute hell. In my case, I have this intense inner feeling that is painful and scary to feel or empathize with, so I fight to keep it inside and hidden. I suspect it’s 100% pure unadulterated sadness, and when I touch its borders, I immediately feel close to tears.

The problem of resisting this feeling is that it generally constricts my other behavior. I’m no longer “myself.” I cannot relax and just be me, and I have a feeling that others perceive me as a sad, stiff, and formal person. Other emotions get mixed in there too. I anger easily and may come across as overly proud.

The real price of unaddressed feelings

Today I had to organize a meeting with this topshot head of accounting to learn about his processes. Let me preface this by relating that yesterday, our project manager (my client) organized a lunchtime exercise session that included both us “externals” and regular employees. We had to change in our gym clothes (I’m not used to sharing a changing room with work colleagues) to go run in the forest afterwards. Generally I do not do well in such situations, not because I don’t like exercise, but because I’m put into a new social setting that is somehow more relaxed and different, and there’s more of an opportunity to expose myself in a different setting with strangers.

A guy I work with is much better at this than me. He’s very social and concretely this means he’s able to apply humor at the right “points” of social intercourse (or discussions or however you want to describe it). Me, I’m just stiff and feel very uncomfortable around strangers, especially at this client company where I work. I try to express humor and show I’m relaxed but somehow fail miserably. Others no doubt notice. I still can’t get out of my head the moment I walked out and saw some people I knew standing in a circle together with employees of the client company. When I approached the circle I instantly held out my hand and introduced myself. The others seemed somewhat put off by this, and my own colleagues reluctantly extended their hands afterwards (this indicated no one had introduced themselves before my arrival).

So what is the social code in this situation? Am I autistic for not knowing that actually one doesn’t introduce oneself?

I recognized the name of one woman in particular and instantly said (or blurted?), “you’re from HR. We’re supposed to meet later.” In fact it was true that in two previous meetings her name had come up as someone I had to meet to discuss her role and plans for training, and one of these meetings had taken place directly before I had met her, so partially I felt surprised to see her then.

But what did she do? She put her hands to her mouth in horror, as if to say, “I must have a bad reputation.” Then she laughed. I think the others laughed with her. This embarassed me to the point I no longer remembered the names of the others I met directly afterwards.

Instantly I started to recognize that all this must be another symptom of my social awkwardness, a symptom that has lasted into middle age (despite my experiences; despite everything I’ve learned in life). She ignored me afterwards and I her likewise. Such situations make me very uncomfortable and I honestly don’t know how to remedy them if the other person takes what I do in the wrong way. Luckily someone else has arranged that meeting with her (with me in attendance) but thank God it wasn’t me who had to send the invitation. I suspect I will survive the encounter but we will see how she reacts to me in the meeting - whether she treats me somewhat normally in the course of work or as some kind of stalker.

Anyway, getting back to the meeting with the topshot manager from accounting. After the run we all met for a sandwich and when I recognized that he was someone I also needed to meet, I approached him and by way of conversation I said, “Are you Bill? I wrote you the meeting invitation.” To which he instantly replied, “yes we actually shook hands earlier.” This was true, as he was one of the guys for whom I blanked out after meeting the HR manager. This is why I didn’t match the face with the name, and didn’t have a chance to talk to him as we met.

During my meeting with this topshot manager (in his office) he appeared to be very focused. My colleague and I entered his office and his desk was in the corner of the room. Because of the events during the run of the previous day I was of course feeling somewhat awkward and maybe this came out (presented itself) as the meeting began. Though we were to be a total of five people, there were only three chairs and he didn’t want to meet in the cafeteria (as many do).

As the meeting began I tried to explain (by way of introduction) what we were trying to accomplish (as I don’t like meeting with managers on the client side who are constantly wondering why I’m wasting their time). His entire demeanor reflected somewhat that we were taking up his time. This put me off further and at times when I spoke he simply cut me off. Now, this is about the rudest anyone has ever been to me, either at work or outside of it, and I started to feel slightly threatened. At one point I continued to talk without respectful silence as he cut me off. This is another person with whom I want as little to do as possible, because it shows that no matter how nice I try to be, there’s no pleasing some people (for whatever reason).

So it seems I have already gotten two people to dislike me, people from whom I need help to do my job. For me, this is the “worse that can happen” as a consequence of my social awkwardness and issues.

How I cope

There aren’t many options for someone like me to cope. Being who I am, I will suffer and feel very uncomfortable in their presence. From this vantage point, I want to show them how I could care less about what they think of me, and by extension, how much stonger I really am, compared to how I may appear. As my life in social settings is an unending sequence of pain and discomfort, there are no good options for dealing with these situations; no resolutions followed by peace. Just an ongoing, low-grade pain both when contemplating the memory of meeting them, and having to confront them in the course of the day.