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Social Anxiety Disorder and Dating

M

Michael_25

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
703
Location
Gainesville, Florida
I was diagnosed with SAD a while ago. Consequently, I find it hard to make friends and it's virtually impossible to date. I get very nervous in social situations and often refrain from saying too much as I'm worried about how others will judge me. I think it's part genetic, part nurture. My father was also very socially awkward, and only had acquaintances throughout his life; he never had any true friends. In addition, I was bullied in high school, which, as a result, reduced my self-esteem.

To top of my already dire resume, I'm also not good-looking, and I'm an introvert by nature.

I've tried meetup groups in the past, but to no avail. I never made a single friend throughout all my meetup outings. I've asked out about 5 girls over the past 4 years, and always got rejected with some cock-and-bull story. I've watched videos on Youtube regarding gaining social skills and dating, but it hasn't helped.

So how do I proceed from here? What does a socially awkward guy do to obtain friends and girls?
 
ChemicallyEnhanced, I've tried many meetups at clubs and bars. I do drink a lot and it reduces my inhibitions, so I find it a little easier to socialize. However, I tend to say dumb shit and therefore get quizzical looks from the people I'm speaking to. Alcohol won't gain me social skills; it just makes me look obnoxious and stupid, as I never say the right thing. I'm on diazepam, and have been for years. My tolerance has now rendered it useless for anxiety, all I get is sedation.
 
Michael_25 said:
ChemicallyEnhanced, I've tried many meetups at clubs and bars. I do drink a lot and it reduces my inhibitions, so I find it a little easier to socialize. However, I tend to say dumb shit and therefore get quizzical looks from the people I'm speaking to. Alcohol won't gain me social skills; it just makes me look obnoxious and stupid, as I never say the right thing. I'm on diazepam, and have been for years. My tolerance has now rendered it useless for anxiety, all I get is sedation.
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Hey man,
Regarding your medication Ive been on meds for 15+ years for SAD,GAD and I have been threw that same problem. I highly suggest you have a chat to your GP about the situation with diazepam and ask if you can change over to clonazepam or lorazepam (both work fine, I prefer clonazepam due to the longer half life)
 
andyturbo said:
Hey man,
Regarding your medication Ive been on meds for 15+ years for SAD,GAD and I have been threw that same problem. I highly suggest you have a chat to your GP about the situation with diazepam and ask if you can change over to clonazepam or lorazepam (both work fine, I prefer clonazepam due to the longer half life)
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I've tried Ativan (lorazepam) too. Little difference. I've never tried clonazepam. Tolerance to one benzo just transfers over to another though, right? You wrote that you suffer from SAD, as well. How do you deal with it? Do you have friends? A girlfriend? A wife? My day-to-day life is monotonous to say the least. My only contact with others is cashiers in supermarkets. Besides that, I'm pretty much totally isolated.
 
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I am so sorry to read your sadness. You need to do thing that make you feel confident. Not overly but people are generally more attracted to someone with good confidence.
Looks mean nothing imo. Sure they attract you but someone with a good heart and desire to treat a woman right is far more attractive. A great sense of humor helps, manners go further than most realize.
Someone will come along some day
 
I would get more involved in the community to gain confidence. Can you volunteer somewhere? Join a class-- running groups, exercise class, etc. Just get more exposure so you can build your confidence. If can even be little things, like trying to make small talk with a customer, etc. I gained a lot of confidence working retail because you are forced to talk to strangers. I would look into books for self-compassion. Have you heard of scribd? I can send you two months for free if you wanna try it-- it's basically an all access pass to a library with a TON of ebooks and audio books. I know a bunch of good ones especially surrounding self-compassion and anxiety. After the two month trial it is only $10 per month. Really good deal, imo. Benzos help but they are addictive and not a good long-term solution. The skills, people skills, etc, MOST people have to learn them... it's just going to be a bit more challenging for you.
 
Pretty_Diamonds said:
I can send you two months for free if you wanna try it-- it's basically an all access pass to a library with a TON of ebooks and audio books.
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Thanks, Pretty Diamonds. I would like the ebooks but I'm paranoid about malware. I'm not saying you will be sending me dodgy material. I think that's highly unlikely, but I need to err on the side of caution. Also, thanks for the whole post. I wouldn't mind volunteering at an animal shelter, since I'm an animal lover. I could potentially find like-minded girls there.

I'm really behind the eight ball. I'm now 35 (I was 25 when I joined this site; hence the name "Michael_25"). Most people my age are already married and have kids. I have the dating/sex experience of an 18-year-old guy. I never had a true girlfriend. I've had 3 one-night stands; one friends with benefits that lasted about 4 months; and one "girlfriend", which lasted a month (laughable, I know). I try to chit-chat with cashiers, both male and female, but that's about it. I'm constantly worried about saying something stupid or weird, so when I'm talking to women I just ask mundane, routine questions, because I'm afraid of coming across as weird or stupid. Due to this, most people -- both men and women -- probably think I'm boring as fuck.

Yes, benzos. I've been on Valium since mid-2012 ... they now do nothing to alleviate my anxiety; they cause only sedation. Even drinking doesn't cure my shyness. Also, drinking doesn't give me social skills.

To pofacedhoe: I'm not working currently. I have a undergrad and Master's degree in Economics, but have found zero work in this field. I'm in a predicament. I'm nearly pushing 40 and have yet to establish any meaningful relationship with the opposite sex.
 
Maybe work with a therapist if your lack of social skills is affecting your life negatively?
 
Michael_25 said:
I've watched videos on Youtube regarding gaining social skills and dating, but it hasn't helped.
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You have done what again?
People actually upload that kinda thing & others watch it & try to take note of their "advice" well there really is NO hope for humanity imho.

So how do I proceed from here? What does a socially awkward guy do to obtain friends and girls?
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Mate accept the hard facts of life, 99.9% of people you meet are full of shit, fake, tell lies & wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
As I've got older the more I have learned nearly everyone you'll come across is damaged in some way & they are just human too so NO MATTER how great them may seem at the start over time they will show their true colours & be exposed for the foul creature(s) they really are.

You are best off alone believe me.
 
nuttynutskin said:
Maybe work with a therapist if your lack of social skills is affecting your life negatively?
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I've been seeing a therapist for the last two years. I have gained little from it. Psychology is just a pseudo-science that relies heavily on the therapist's own intuition. One might have one idea, but the other quack down the road has a different idea. It's hard to internalize a therapist's ideas when all you get is nothing but rejection from girls and alienation form society.
 
Michael_25 said:
I've been seeing a therapist for the last two years. I have gained little from it. Psychology is just a pseudo-science that relies heavily on the therapist's own intuition. One might have one idea, but the other quack down the road has a different idea. It's hard to internalize a therapist's ideas when all you get is nothing but rejection from girls and alienation form society.
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It's been a while since I have heard the nail being hit on the head so directly about this . . . psychology used to be in the borderlands betwixt philosophy, religion, science, and medicine and has fallen a long way and I am sure that Freud, Jung, Reich, and many others are in Heaven now jumping up and down and swearing about some of the things being done in their name . . . I would imagine that after an industrial and then an information revolution and more people on the planet than ever before, that the services of people who can really point folks to a happier and more sustainable modus vivendi are one of the most valuable things that people can do for one another, and how so much of it misses the mark by so much is very dismaying.

At least a lot of it seems in most cases to be the people involved not knowing what they are doing due to ignorance and superstitions like the ones that hamper helping patients with unsustainable and problematic drugs usage patterns . . . and much of it could be practitioners, professors, researchers and so on getting off on unhelpful tangents, but there are indeed those who seem to get into those fields for the power and self-righteousness and the ability to control and torment others . . . the most unethical and destructive and unhappy person I knew as a youth is now a psychiatrist spreading the disease and ruining the lives of bystanders . . .

Over the years lots of folks have opined that I have the temperament and background and humanitarian impulses to really help people in a profession of that type, but I looked at the current state of things and what happens to people and it just seemed like I would be spending most of my time pushing a rock up hill and trying to clean up some insoluble messes made by others.

There is a lot of it today which seems to be the pathologising of human experience and human nature. When did being a smart, exuberant and maybe somewhat nonconformist little kid who can irritate dumb, easily-threatened teachers who probably are in the wrong profession to start with become ADHD? A disorder? It all also surely muddies the waters when it comes to figuring out how to help real troubles like those experienced by the PTSD, OCD, and depression folks amongst others . . . all of those really do not seem to be well understood by most of the public to start with, and the impact they have on everything they touch is rather significant and should not be ignored . . . Then there is actual attention deficit in adults which can have some rather negative economic impacts over the years, which seems to confuse the experts as much as it does anyone else . . .
 
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Michael_25 said:
I've been seeing a therapist for the last two years. I have gained little from it. Psychology is just a pseudo-science that relies heavily on the therapist's own intuition. One might have one idea, but the other quack down the road has a different idea. It's hard to internalize a therapist's ideas when all you get is nothing but rejection from girls and alienation form society.
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Have you tried cbt? That might help. Other than that I guess you're just gonna have to get out there and try to socialize with people.
 
What effect has oxycodone had if you tried it? There are other threads around which have expanded on this theme.

With or without caffeine, and maybe enhanced with a gabapentinoid at low doses if it seems to work? I have also heard all sorts of opinions about other 14-dihydromorphinones like oxymorphone in particular, and there seems to be no consensus. It appears that oxycodone is unique in having the strongest combination of morphine, cocaine, and codeine-like effects. The other chemical relatives, like hydrocodone in particular, do have a stronger version of the typical effect of narcotics, when doses correctly, not mixed with improper things, and nothing too off the wall about set and setting, making the narcotic taker love everybody, which can be active, passive or a combination thereof.

Not on a steady schedule which will cause physical habituation, but a specific, situational, treatment of a 100 per cent point-source issue (the inhibition, anxiety, and so on) The narcotic effect will provide anxiolysis, there is a well known cocaine-like effect from the oxycodone going right to the pleasure centres of the brain, probably the modifications at positions 14 and the 7-8 on the carbon skeleton, and the codeine-like oxycodone effect is a subtler narcotic euphoria.
 
Do not feel bad, people who you are just newly meeting or dating, etc. are probably more nervous than you are. Good luck.

DO NOT start taking oxycodone or opiates for social anxiety. Many people start them, then abuse them, and next thing they know they are addicted to opiates.
 
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again til I die cuz it’s changed my life.. DIET. I used to be very bad, could barely go out, couldn’t speak cuz I’d stutter to the point of stopping, shaking, you name it..

I slowly figured out sugar was the biggest problem, not any of the drugs, but simple sugar. Once I cut it out, my whole world changed in terms of social ability. I don’t need to drink 5-6 shots before walking into a social interaction.

I know you likely won’t listen, no one ever does, but if you do I promise you’ll see huge results. Cut sugar to 40g or less a day total from all foods, have the only sweets you eat be fruit, no candy, no soda, no cake, no donuts, you get the picture.

Follow that for a month and tell me you don’t feel a worlds difference..

-GC
 
Good post @Michael_25. Firstly let me tell you, you are far from alone in this situation (I know it feels that way) you, me and many others have some or all of the issues you describe. My Father and brother too have genetically produced general/social and some obsessional anxiety. Obviously this can be made worse as a product of your environment too, some without any genetic input at all.

Like you, I have been able to recognise and clearly articulate as you have, my issues which is the first rung of the ladder. I have over the years, researched both natural and let’s say “unnatural” ways of dampening this (I am never going to eradicate it completely) then made attempts to do things more and more out of my comfort zone. Drop me a DM anytime, happy to help ?
 
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