# How and why I have decided to accept my social anxiety.



## mobile363 (Apr 11, 2004)

Well, I'm about to leave to my new home which is about 3000km away. Im hoping the change will do me good. Seems as though the events leading up to this day have been very dramatic in an inner, personal sort of way. 

I guess it all started when I had my first real "friend" in 5-6 years and we started hanging out. At first it was very wierd. I was always anxious, never said much, but after a while, me and him could talk a lot amongst ourselves. Then I started meeting more of his friends and we all started hanging out together. I used to get real anxious all the time for no apparent reason. Instead of becoming part of their social group, I was more content sitting back and observing their behaviour. Why? To learn social skills? to learn about society's members? Just cause I was anxious? I dont know. 

Over the following weeks, I got bored in their presence and never really hung out with them much unless they called me and wanted to get together. I gave into peer pressure really easily. Seemed to have a great deal of control over me. 

I seen their social group as a trap. They weren't bad people. In fact, I enjoy hanging out with them, but to become one of them just seemed impractical for me. Instead of focusing on a social life and social group, I found out im more content exploring new things, learning new ideas, meeting new people and such all on my own. I say this because their social group seemed like a little soap opera amongst themselves and it seemed to become all they really cared about in life. 

To me social anxiety is a personality trait. I don't think I can change it, but only accept and hope that I will naturally change on my own through new experiences.

I feel like im entering a new phase in my life. Soon to be living in Toronto and I'm going to have a blast trying to experience as much as I can every minute of the day. Hope to meet new people from this forum too because I understand there are a lot of people here from Toronto. 

Social life is far too competitive for me. At least it is right now. I know way too many people who have like dozens of friends, lives to keep track of, names to remember, ages, etc, etc, etc. I know that might sound a bit blunt, but my head just can't seem to store information like this, thus why i'm probably not good at keeping friends.

Anyways, no real triumph over social anxiety, but rather an acceptance.


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## On the way (Feb 9, 2006)

Self-acceptance (of introversion) is a big piece. congratulations. 

I'm glad you didn't join that clique. Sounds like they were dumb.


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