Day 642

Full disclosure: In social settings, people avoid me. They don’t want to make eye contact with me, nor do they want to talk to me. I’m not approachable. The thing that sucks (for me) is I have no idea why this is. 

I went to two corporate dinners this week. On both occasions I felt like an outcast. Conversations were going on all around me but I wasn’t part of any of them. Not really. Heads were turned away from me. At no point did anyone turn to ask me a question or make eye contact to welcome me to the group. 

I’ve been in other group social situations where I am talking to someone, 1 on 1, and another person will come up and initiate a conversation with the person I’m already talking to with zero acknowledgement of me or the conversation that I was already having with that person. Rude yes, but also demoralizing. 

This is killing my self-esteem. It makes me want to retreat into myself and go live a life of solitude. My reason being that if there is no one else around, then there is no one who can ignore me - it would just be me, alone, but alone on my terms. 

What is about me that turns people off? Do I emit some kind of dark energy? Am I an asshole? Or maybe there is something off-putting in my physical appearance that I can’t see. Whatever it is, I’d sure like to know. Even if there is nothing I can do about it, at least I’d know why it’s happening. 

The larger problem is that because I am actively ignored, I already avoid social gatherings. I just don’t have any desire to be in a room full of people with conversations happening all over the place only to have no one who wants to talk with me. It’s depressing. I’d rather be alone. 

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