84 Days

I had anxiety today.

I said something that got taken the wrong way.

It seems you can’t be too careful.

It was in response to someone in a running group I’m a part of sharing news that one of the half marathons I was going to do later this year had been postponed. I said that I expected a news announcement to come out at this time as it would be the point that people would have to begin training. This was taken to mean I meant training schedules were the priority, not saving lives, which wasn’t my intention.

As someone who is shy, quiet, reserved, I generally at the best of times panic about speaking to people. I struggle to explain myself. I am nervous about talking to people. An incident like this sets me back months while I struggle to regain my confidence in speaking to people again.

I was already feeling a bit out of sorts in this running group, as I saw someone from this group on a dating app I was using at the time months ago and he seemed nice, so I swiped right. He didn’t. And I think he knows I swiped right on him as before lock down happened he seemed to be avoiding me like the plague.

I don’t know how to be around people. I struggle to understand people. I miss cues. I don’t always know when people are joking. I can’t read people.

This puts me at odds with people, which is why I struggle to talk to them and feel awkward when I do.

I have a habit of ‘be rejected’ each day. Each day I try and strike up a conversation with people. I obviously do this virtually now. It has helped me overcome my social anxiety, but I am always going to have some degree of social anxiety. I probably have only about 20% of the social anxiety I used to have, but there was once a point where I couldn’t live my life because of my social anxiety. It led to me losing a job because of it.

I think I am just going to keep my head down for a while.

In debt news I get ever closer to being debt free. That is the bright light on this day.