# SA makes me feel like a stranger to my own friends



## topramen (May 8, 2013)

I feel so disconnected from my friends. I've known them since middle school, and I just can't talk to them the way I used to. I always wonder how I was even friends with them in the first place. I think it's a lot easier to be friends with people when you're younger because you don't have responsibilities, so you have everything else to talk about besides stuff like work. All my friends ever talk about is work and being busy and stressed out and I can't relate to them at all because I don't feel like an "adult", like they are. I feel so out of place and inadequate being around them. And their personalities are now different from mine too than when we were all younger. They're very loud, crass, spontaneous, energetic, talkative, outgoing, and I'm very quiet and reserved compared to them and it really annoys them sometimes. I feel like an outcast among people I've known half my life.

This also affects how I talk to acquaintances I've known for forever too. I just literally have nothing to talk about with them, and we have very little in common and they're all so outgoing.

Whenever all my friends are talking I sort of feel like I'm hanging out on the sidelines watching them interact and laughing awkwardly trying to fit in.

I just want to feel comfortable around them again. I feel like my SA is making us drift apart and I feel like they don't accept me because I'm so shy.


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## always starting over (Mar 15, 2013)

Yeah I know exactly how that feels. No matter how well I know someone, I still don't want to be around them 90% of the time, because I hate talking about something that I'm not interested in. It's selfish I guess, but it's not gonna change anytime soon. Even when I think I meet people who are similar to me, they are always louder, more confident, more assertive, and more successful than me. I just become someone that will absorb all their talking and complaining. It makes me not want to be social with ANYONE.

Sometimes I can be interesting in a conversation, but I can never ever seem *normal* in one, unless I'm very drunk. People don't want to be around people like that.


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## NoHeart (May 5, 2012)

Yeah totally, wait... what friends?


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