[embeng4096]

Wow, I really relate to this. It got to the point where I was reading self-help about social skills and such, and tried to follow the "always say yes" like you did and "never eat alone" type fluff advice. People had lots of good things to say about me, and I even tried doing things like writing those things down in a gratitude journal or taking screenshots of the texts, etc, to help shift my mindset (unsuccessfully). I still have the low self-confidence and people-pleasing you talk about to this day.

To your last point, I'm feeling much better when not pushing myself so hard to be social but the question I'm grappling with now is somewhat selfish but about how to make sure I have support? E.g. I had a friend who just went through a cancer diagnosis and a lot of us friends and his community rallied for him. It also made me wonder about what happens if I get very sick, or lose my job and don't have a professional network to reach out to or personal/friendship support, or just if my car breaks down at 1am or something, or just being very lonely without real close friends.

How are you reconciling this sort of thing in your own life?

[Aerbil313]

To be honest, I don't have a good answer.

Indeed, I don't have the friend network since I stopped forcing myself to be social. Most people don't call again if you don't answer their calls for a few months [1].

I too witnessed people calling their friends for help in hard situations (like car broke down at 1am) and wondered who I could call if that happened to me.

I have a family and extended family who are very supportive. That is my social safety net, and they would help in any serious issue like money, car broke down at 1am, etc. This is a part of our culture where I live (It's not the US.) If you don't have that, it gets trickier.

For example, if you live in a different city than your family (which is a historically new phenomenon) you can't rely on them for car breakdown at 1 am situation.

Setting aside family, I think, for life-and-death issues (e.g. cancer) even people who know you at a superficial level (e.g. classmates, colleagues) would be willing to help, at least where I live.

For middle sized issues (car breakdown at 1am) I could call exactly 1 friend in my hometown, and 1 another in the city I study. They are close friends who like me as the person I am. They are content with our low-effort low-contact friendship. If you want advice, I think if you meet enough people (that's the hard part ofc) you'll eventually find one of these. Funnily one of these friends is extremely social, the sort of person you'd expect to greatly succeed in politics.

For smaller matters (e.g. an assignment in college) I have to admit I refrained from asking people for most anything ever since I stopped being forcibly social. This did lead to some (small) losses over time.

I live by the principle of "never ask any more than you gave to a person". Though it's not uncommon to see NT people who barely know each other confidently ask for small favors, offering nothing in return, simply because they don't have the social anxiety that I do.

1: I know it's rude. But iykyk the anxiety.

[embeng4096]

I also feel similarly about owing people things. I think it does tend to bind people together to have a history of giving to each other and receiving but like you mention, it can be anxiety-inducing as well.

Thanks for the advice, I know there's not really a "perfect" solution, I was just curious about how you've approached it in your own life so I appreciate you sharing.