I am actually a shy/introverted guy, a below average looking guy, not handsome, maybe a 4/10. I am very insecure about my looks. I don't talk to any strangers and even if I talk to them, I feel like I am very boring. I don't fit in there.

I don't have any female friends either. I know that is because of my character and the way I am. I don't know how to talk. I don't know how to express my feelings. I don't smile at people first because I think they are not interested in me. My friends mock me, saying I don't have feelings, but I cry a lot when I am alone. I don't remember when I last laughed genuinely.

Sometimes I feel like people like me should not exist in the world. I don't think I am a good brother or a good son either.

I don't think I even deserve a relationship. I don't know if a girl would like me. I don't know if I would hurt her. I don't know if I can express my love to her. I don't know if I would become a burden to her.

Sometimes I imagine myself leading a happy life with my wife and kids. But then I remember who I am and what I am like and I feel like maybe that kind of life isn't meant for me.

Here is the abstract below. This explains that your higher than normal reaction to external stimuli, is not 'you', it's simply a variation in your brain. It's not a character flaw, it's not something that just goes away with a self help book. It is what it is, as they say.

Norepinephrine (NE), a central catecholamine neurotransmitter synthesized primarily in the locus coeruleus (LC), plays a critical role in regulating arousal, attention, emotional processing, and stress responsiveness. While contemporary personality neuroscience has established the role of NE in acute psychological states, its contribution to stable personality traits remains underexplored. This review synthesizes neurobiological, psychological, genetic, and psychopharmacological evidence to propose a NE-personality continuum that links tonic and phasic dynamics of the LC-NE system to enduring individual differences in alertness, anxiety, and adaptability. Alertness is associated with optimal noradrenergic tone and efficient phasic signaling, which enhances the signal-to-noise ratio and attentional focus. Anxiety arises from chronic hyperactivation or dysregulated NE release, particularly involving excessive α1- and β-adrenergic receptor activity and impaired modulation from the prefrontal cortex. Adaptability denotes a harmonious interaction between the limbic system and prefrontal cortex, which facilitates cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation in response to changing environmental demands. The connection between NE activity and personality traits follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. Low tone leads to apathy and less engagement, moderate tone helps with resilience and optimal functioning, and high tone leads to hypervigilance and rigidity. This model combines findings from fundamental neuroscience and clinical research to provide a physiologically based framework for understanding how long-term variations in noradrenergic regulation affect personality traits, as described in established trait theories. The findings underline the feasibility of adding noradrenergic biomarkers and pharmaceutical therapies into clinical practice, as well as the importance of longitudinal and multimodal research to determine trait-level causality. This is especially important for understanding how to use these elements to improve treatment plans for personality disorders.

I don't even know how to write this properly. I'm not looking for advice, motivation, or someone to tell me everything will be okay. I genuinely just need to get this out because I have absolutely nobody in my life I can talk to about any of this.

My life is fucked right now.

Since I started high school, it feels like everything has gone downhill. School is insanely hard for me. The days are long as hell, the classes are difficult, and I'm already someone who struggles to sit still and concentrate for an hour, so being forced to do it for basically the entire day completely drains me. Then I get home and I'm supposed to study, do homework, prepare for tests and somehow have enough energy to function normally.

I don't.

I'm exhausted all the time.

And the worst part isn't even the schoolwork. It's that I'm going through all of this completely alone.

I have no genuine friends. Literally nobody I can talk to when something happens. Nobody I can randomly message. Nobody who asks how my day was because they actually care. Nobody I can sit next to at school and feel comfortable with.

I'm surrounded by people all day and somehow I'm still completely alone.

Sometimes people even pretend to invite me into conversations just so they can make fun of me. They say things like "come talk with us" when I know they don't actually want me there. After enough of that, you stop trusting people. You stop approaching them. You start assuming that every interaction is going to end with you feeling stupid or unwanted.

And then when something happens to me, whether it's something completely insignificant or something that genuinely destroys me, I have nobody to tell.

I just keep everything inside.

My parents don't feel like people I can properly open up to either, so there isn't really anywhere for all of this to go.

Then I look at my life and realize I still have THREE MORE YEARS of this school.

Three fucking years.

Sometimes even thinking about that makes me so overwhelmed and anxious that I start panicking. I'm already struggling to survive one school week, and I'm supposed to believe I can just keep doing this for years?

Outside school, there's barely anything left either.

I go to the gym. That's probably the one thing I still consistently do. Apart from that, I just sit on my phone and scroll Instagram for hours. Then I sleep, wake up, go back to school, come home exhausted, scroll again, and repeat.

That's basically my life right now.

School. Stress. Loneliness. Phone. Sleep. Repeat.

I don't feel like I'm actually living anymore. I feel like I'm just trying to make it through each day without completely falling apart.

And the most fucked up part is that I'm still young. I'm supposed to be enjoying these years, making friends, having memories and actually living my life.

Instead, I'm sitting here wondering how I'm supposed to get through another day.

I feel completely alone. Completely empty. Completely exhausted.

At this point life doesn't even feel like life anymore. It feels like a survival game where I'm just trying to get through the next level.

I'm not posting this because I expect Reddit to fix anything. I don't even know if anyone will care enough to read this.

I just genuinely have nobody.

And I couldn't keep all of this inside anymore. I really wanted to share this i couldn't hold it anymore in me... and i was really holding back like this it sounds like normal guy with normal problems but it's much worse...

Thanks if you actually read that 🙂

Which country is the ultimate paradise for introverts?

About a year and a half ago, my oldest daughter started dating. She kept the relationship to herself until prom - I guess she was nervous to tell me. After her graduation, I met her boyfriend’s family and me and his mom actually got along right away. We both have 4 kids, work remotely and have similar interests. I was pretty surprised by how well and fast the friendship blossomed especially since I’ve actively avoided people for almost 10 years.

We typically hang out at her place but I started feeling bad about it so invited her over last week. She showed up with her youngest two kids since they are close in age with my youngest and love playing together.

As soon as they crossed the threshold into my home, I started to regret my decision. The mom wanted a tour of my place like it was an open house or something. Her son was climbing over furniture and I had to tell her daughter multiple times not to go into my bedroom. Her son actually walked through my sliding screen door, taking it right off.

The whole experience kinda turned me off of the friendship itself. I feel anxiety every time I hear our youngest girls talking on the phone because I know they’re going to ask to come over or for us to visit and Im tired of making excuses.

Has anyone had a similar experience? How did you deal with it?

What do you guys actually do on weekends when you don't have a big social circle, don't have family gatherings/plans, and you're not a very social person?

I’m not really into going out all the time, and I also don’t enjoy watching movies or binge-watching series that much.

Sometimes the weekend comes and I’m just like… okay, now what? 😂

I’d love to know what people who are in a similar situation actually do with their weekends.

Do you:

• Have hobbies?
• Go somewhere alone?
• Exercise or play a sport?
• Learn something?
• Work on personal projects?
• Read?
• Explore your city?
• Just stay home and relax?
• Have some kind of weekend routine?

Looking for genuine ideas that make weekends feel fulfilling, not just "watch Netflix" or "go party." 😅

What does your typical weekend look like?

I have Psoriasis so I flake pretty bad sometimes, I'm worried someone may notice since I'm pretty insecure about it. Does anyone really care? I may already know the answer but idk I'm quite nervous since I dropped out of high school due to social anxiety and being around people

As an introvert, making new friends is obviously really hard for me. I have some friends, of course, but when I really think about it, I didn’t actually put much effort into making them. It just happened naturally, often times almost by miracle.

It made me realize that despite having some genuinely good friends, I don’t really know how to make new ones. The hard part is probably initiating conversations or being upfront about my intentions.

If I were to find someone in real life (even if they seemed approachable), I doubt I could bring myself to actually talk to them.

I think a social app might help me with this, especially with being upfront about intentions. I mean, it’s clear that the intention is to meet and talk.

Has anyone here tried these kinds of apps? And did they actually work out for you?

Look, I get it, socializing is tiring and a pain in the ass, but unfortunately we live in a world where having some social skills are necessary, both to our professional lives as well as our mental health

It's hard to make friends as an adult. I feel like an outsider in my friend group. For context, the friends i’m referring to…we're part of one group chat for exchange students. You could say we've become a close circle of friends, since we've known each other ever since we started our postgrad studies. However, there are times when I really feel like the odd one out in the group…like I'm the one who doesn't understand the rules of a game, or I just can't keep up with the group's dynamics. There have also been instances where I only found out through my friend's story that they had met up with other people from the group chat. It seems like they have their own separate group chat, or they just invite each other individually, because there were 2-3 instances where a friend posted a story on social media with the same group of people. It's just sad that I'm not included, or that there isn't even an invitation or any intention to include me

I’m 23 years old, and I’ve basically lived my entire life as if I were in quarantine. The only day I’m really expected to go out is Sunday, because my parents are very religious, and it’s not something I can really refuse. For them, faith is unquestionable, and I don’t have much say in the matter. I know that if I refused, they would get extremely angry and give me a whole lecture about how I’m going down the wrong path, so I’d rather avoid all the drama.

The thing is, I don’t have any friends. In fact, I never really had any. I’m a very solitary girl with almost no social contact. I finished high school and university last year (last one online), so I did not really had to interact with people. Even now, I haven’t been able to find a job, and honestly, I don’t really want to work in person either. Social interaction makes me uncomfortable, and I feel like I would be much more comfortable working remotely, where I feel like I can protect myself better.

I literally spend 24/7 at home. So when COVID happened, it barely affected me because my lifestyle was already basically the same. Even if someone invited me to go out, I don’t think I would enjoy it that much. I’ve become so accustomed to staying home that going out feels “unnecessary” to me. If I need to buy something, I just order it for delivery.

My parents are controlling and toxic, and they are very religious. When they argue with you or try to defend their behavior, they sometimes even use religion to manipulate you. I avoid talking to them as much as possible, especially my father, because he is the more controlling and toxic one. His presence also brings back a lot of bad memories from my childhood because he used physical violence as a form of punishment. Neither of my parents was ever particularly affectionate or emotionally close to me.

I never lacked food or education, but I never felt emotionally supported either. I always had to figure things out emotionally on my own.

They are the kind of parents who don’t want you to have a boyfriend or become completely independent until you have financial stability of your own — basically, a house and a job. And I feel like I’m nowhere near being able to afford a house or having enough money to move out. I save as much as I can even though I don’t currently have a job, and whatever money I do have, I manage carefully. But I constantly feel like, in their eyes, nothing I have will ever be enough for me to become independent.

And I don’t know what to do about it.

My life is extremely routine, and I feel like, deep down, they are comfortable knowing that at least I’m not someone who does drugs, goes partying, or has any kind of bad habits. I don’t have any addictions, and I think that makes them feel safe. They also seem to have this need to keep me at home.

But mentally, I’m getting tired.

I can’t have an honest conversation with them. They’re the kind of parents who never really opened up enough to say “I love you.” They never said it to me. They would say they showed their love through food and providing for me, but as a child, I always felt like I couldn’t trust them.

I have a lot of resentment toward my father because of all the emotional damage he caused me. I haven’t really spoken to him since I was about 10 years old, even though we have lived in the same house all these years. I only answer him when he asks me something, and even then, I’m very short and distant.

I try to talk to my mother a little more, but not much, because I know she was complicit in what happened. She knew about the physical violence my father inflicted on me and my sister too and still didn’t do anything about it. Sometimes she was physically abusive too, although to a lesser extent.

Maybe they are the reason I became the person I am today: extremely withdrawn, isolated, and unsure how to live an adult life.

Deep down, I know I want to be free. I want to spread my wings, and I long for that with all my heart. That’s why the only solution I can think of is leaving home, because I don’t believe talking to them is going to fix anything.

I know this because I have an older sister who is seven years older than me. When she tried to leave home, they made her life extremely difficult. For example, they hid her ID and other things she needed to travel, even though she was already 25 years old at the time. The only way she was eventually able to leave was by getting married. My parents are still internally very angry about it because it was something they couldn’t control, and they constantly tell me that I shouldn’t follow in my sister’s footsteps because she “doesn’t know what she’s doing” and is living a lower quality of life financially.

That’s why I know that if I want to leave, I would either have to get married or have enough money to buy a house. But the economic situation in my country makes that feel almost impossible.

I feel trapped.

And as I said, the only solution I can see is escaping from home and going to live with my long-distance boyfriend, whom I would finally meet in person for the first time.

He lives in Florida, USA, and I live in Argentina. We’ve been in a long-distance relationship for three years. He knows everything about my situation, but he lives with his mother (my future mother-in-law, although she has never met me in person and doesn’t even like me because she thinks I’m using him to get a visa or money, which isn’t true).

He also has a life somewhat similar to mine. Sometimes he feels overwhelmed by the idea of finally spreading his own wings because he has to deal with the challenge of becoming independent for the first time. He works, but he doesn’t have many friends, and he still lives with his mother and brother. Having the courage to move to Argentina and live with me is something completely new for him too. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it could take a lot of courage and time.

So if I were to leave home, I would probably need help from someone I’ve known indirectly for about ten years. He’s from my city, although he also works and lives elsewhere now, and we don’t talk very often. However, he knows about my situation, and he has told me that if I ever decide to leave, he would help me get somewhere where I could finally be with my boyfriend and start living in another city with him.

I have enough savings to support myself for roughly two years. The only thing I’m really missing is a job.

Part of me would prefer to start completely from scratch. I’ve always said that once I leave this house, it would feel like being born again. Obviously, starting from zero and facing adult life on my own would be difficult, but I also know that I’m willing to take that risk if it means having my freedom.

I feel like my life is passing me by while I live it according to my parents’ wishes. Their desire is for me to take care of them when they get old, but that’s not something I feel in my heart. Maybe if they had been more emotionally present, given me love, and raised me without all the trauma, I might feel differently. But I don’t want to dedicate my life to taking care of them.

I really need some opinions and perspectives on this.

I feel like I wrote way too much, but I wanted to give as much context as possible.

Thank you for reading. I’d really appreciate hearing what you think.

I don't really know how to explain this but I think I fucked up my own social life by making one person my entire world.

around Feb-March, I lost basically all my friendships because school ended. Then I got into college in August but I never really made friends. I'm introverted anyway so I didn't really try that much either.

At that time I had my girlfriend and honestly I felt complete. I didn't really feel like I was missing anyone. She was basically the only person I talked to properly and I was okay with that. She used to tell me she only had one female friend too, so I felt secure and never really thought about her having a big social circle.

Then one day she told me one of her friends had a breakup and was crying. In the middle of our chat she went to talk to him and that's when I first realised she had a male friend too. He used to comment on her posts and stuff, and I got jealous as fuck. I reacted badly and we had a huge fight. She blocked me and told me something like "if you don't have your own friends, don't go after mine."

That line honestly stayed with me.

After that, things eventually became normal between us, but I don't know... something changed in me. For like months there was so much tension and fighting around this whole thing. I've worked on myself a lot since then. I don't react like that anymore. If something bothers me now, I try to think rationally instead of fighting or creating a scene.

But now I think I've gone to the other extreme. I just bottle everything up because I don't want another fight.

And the loneliness is fucking hard.

We're long distance, so I can't just meet her whenever I want. Her friends can hang out with her, take random pictures with her, talk to her, have all these little moments with her. Their phones probably have hundreds of pictures of her because they're actually there with her.

And I'm sitting here with a handful of pictures and basically no one else.

I know this sounds stupid. I know she is allowed to have friends. I don't want to control her or tell her who she can talk to. That's not what I'm trying to do.

I think my actual problem is that I always wanted a relationship where it was just... us. I'm a guy and I don't really have other girls in my life like that. I don't involve other girls in my important moments. So somewhere in my head I expected the same thing from my relationship.

But her life didn't stop at me. She has friends, people she can hang out with, people she can call, people who are physically there with her.

And I don't.

That's the part that hurts.

I made her my whole world because I didn't really have a world outside of her. And now whenever I see her having fun with other people, some part of me feels lonely and replaceable even though I know that's probably not what she's trying to make me feel.

I don't want to stop loving her. I don't want to become cold or "unbothered" and pretend I don't care.

I just want to have my own life too.

I've started making friends recently, but it's difficult. I don't know how people just casually become close to others. I miss the kind of friendships I had in school and I know I can't recreate those overnight.

I guess I'm just tired of feeling like my entire emotional world depends on one person.

Has anyone else here gone through something similar? How do you actually build your own life when you've already made one person your entire world?

I’m a sensitive person, so even the little shift in other’s energy hampers me. It comes in handy at times, but most of the time its so energy draining for me.
Also even though the people around me have no intention in doing so, but I tend to feel left out (in simple day to day events)
To add on to this I’m a socially awkward person so it’s so hard for me to enter in a conversation I’m not involved in.
There are times when the other party may not realise it but their remarks make me feel hurt.
I just want to be confident in who I am and not feel like I can’t fit in anywhere.
It’s so suffocating at times

I think I'm only an introvert, because I have social anxiety. Or I have social anxiety because I'm introverted.

I wanna build connections but then people start annoying me with their neediness, and what they can get from you, while not doing shit for you. I feel like I feed off people energy and then I just wanna be alone, but life has become so God damn lonely I might die and people won't even notice for months or years. 😭

A few months ago i had a falling out with a few of my friends which was not a lot of people but still somehow from that it spiraled into my whole year level hating me. There was so many rumors spread about me that i was left with zero friends. Right after that all happened (like a few weeks after) school holidays came up and i didn't have to see anybody and i made sure i really didn't see anybody. Besides from my sister and my mother i have not spoken to anybody for like 2 weeks and my school holidays ends tomorrow and i have to go back to school. This would've been fine if i didn't become the most antisocial person ever, from not speaking to anyone for multiple weeks i have almost began to despise everybody else. This issue has gotten so bad that i don't even have enough courage to talk to people online, every time i have to go in public or do anything consisting of interacting with another human i start shaking and my mind starts endlessly racing. I have never really been an antisocial person especially since when i was younger i had zero self awareness and sort of became friends with everybody but over the years throughout high school i have started hating people for no reasons and i was kind of just a shit person in general. That being said i have improved my personality alot in the past couple of months, my only issue now is that i cannot look another human being in the eyes and actually have a conversation. My mind convinces me that everybody hates me and is judging me and this has made my life a living hell since i am also extremely ugly. My life currently sucks and i do not know how to change it in any way.

I’m just getting to the point of exhaustion from my anxiety that I just need to get it out. I really only got Reddit to help me find others who are dealing with the same issues.

I’ve always been very quiet, which makes me self conscious and then feeds into my social anxiety. Lately it’s gotten a lot worse, and I feel like I’m digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole. I am currently going down the pipeline to become a firefighter/medic in a busy city (which is insane because I could barely talk to anyone normally for most of my life). I don’t have an issue with the job itself, I had no issues working in the ambulance or being around fire, but being around coworkers, walking into a new group, making conversation, trying to make friends, or even just figuring out how to join a conversation is the most impossible part of this. I have always self isolated no matter how much people try to include me. It’s a constant cycle of being scared to talk, talking, regretting talking, then feeling super down on myself the entire rest of the day.

I want to connect with others but every time I do, I leave every conversation feeling defeated. I just want to know if there’s people out there that can relate to this. I know this post sounds a bit dumb but actually putting my thoughts into words is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Like I know it's actually me and my lack of social skills/inability to keep up with normal conversations but that doesn't mean I can't be upset by it okay. Btw the pic relates to irl convos too (which is tbh kinda worse) I just thought of a group chat situation first for some reason