Able to talk to Internet friends but not real life friends

[EddieMaverick123]

I have been experiencing this every since near the beginning of my teenage years but I find it very easy to talk to my friend from New Jersey who I don't know in RL and find it a lot harder to talk to kids my age in real life. My theory on how this started is that when I was told over and over socially that I have to be "cool" or "this" or "that" I began holding myself back from being myself to others. This has made me lose social experience I think, holding back, and now I am always looking to change myself or make myself "better." I am never happy because of this. I noticed when talking to my RL friend versus my Online friend there is a difference in the way I behave and think. When also told to practice socializing over and over, I do so by calling friends and talking to them (especially the online ones) however the more I pressure myself to practice with this and things in general, I become afraid to practice, start to overthink and develop a phobia towards practicing. (Because I fear the effort I have to put in and fear if I am going to "screw up.")

When talking to real life friends:



More self consciousness

Will feel a funny stomach feeling

Will act unnatural

Might act before I think

Will look at everything from a negative POV.

Will ask too many questions (Even with my best friend)

Socially weird

Will ask random questions

Feel vulnerable to other people around me.

Think other people might be talking about me after acting strange.

Will fear humiliation (this causes me to be hesitant in social situations)

Might feel humiliation

Never feel truly in the moment with RL kids/friends.




Online friends:

Less self consciousness
Will feel calm/confident
Can start a conversation with no fear
Can let go faster of problems/weaknesses.
Socially smooth
Will stay in the moment and feel happiness.
I am fearless
Feel like I am the best player no matter what.



So as you can see it is pretty much one extreme to the other. I been having this for a long time and to this day I still believe it. My mind will use "evidence" in order to make me believe this. I don't wanna live in fear anymore and miss out on friendships in RL. I don't want to fear that people are going to judge/humiliate me. I have been like this for a long time and I know because of this, that I am missing out on friendships. I have recently joined Track and Field and I still can't seem to relate to most of the kids. I just feel afraid and when I go up to them I am either asking too many questions, or it could just end in small talk.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Thank you.

 

[bin_tenn]

This is similar to how I used to feel in every in-person social situation. I still feel some of these things from time to time, but I've been able to improve it quite a lot. What helped me was to focus on being calm and being myself. Not everyone will like you, you can't please everyone, and it's okay to not be accepted by everyone - all of that is just fine! I feel like we're taught from a very early age (by Hollywood and the like) what a "perfect" life is, or what an "ideal personality" is, and so on. It's greatly skewed the way we all interact.

It helps to accept that you won't always "fit in." You will indeed fit in with the right people. Just try to be yourself, keep yourself calm, and don't push yourself too hard. Start with small steps - make small talk for a bit, work on suppressing nervousness, etc. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. It's essentially exposure therapy, and that's exactly how I worked myself out of it.

That's the only advice I really have. Maybe others can chime in with different ideas, so you can try more than one approach. I hope you find that things get easier in due time. Feel free to reach out to us if you need anything else. We have a good group of people here, IMO.

 

[EddieMaverick123]

This is similar to how I used to feel in every in-person social situation. I still feel some of these things from time to time, but I've been able to improve it quite a lot. What helped me was to focus on being calm and being myself. Not everyone will like you, you can't please everyone, and it's okay to not be accepted by everyone - all of that is just fine! I feel like we're taught from a very early age (by Hollywood and the like) what a "perfect" life is, or what an "ideal personality" is, and so on. It's greatly skewed the way we all interact.

It helps to accept that you won't always "fit in." You will indeed fit in with the right people. Just try to be yourself, keep yourself calm, and don't push yourself too hard. Start with small steps - make small talk for a bit, work on suppressing nervousness, etc. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. It's essentially exposure therapy, and that's exactly how I worked myself out of it.

That's the only advice I really have. Maybe others can chime in with different ideas, so you can try more than one approach. I hope you find that things get easier in due time. Feel free to reach out to us if you need anything else. We have a good group of people here, IMO.

Thank you. I'll give it a shot.

 

[Joshua1]

You have to break out of your insecurities. Insecurities will hold you back. I faced these issues personally, I was in primary school made lots of friends. I got to secondary school and i was shy. It was weird, i think it had something to do with adolescence. Teenagers are naturally shy and reserved but there are exceptions. I got to college and was nervous speaking to women, well mainly women that i fancied, despite having many female friends in primary school. What solved it for me is this: Everybody is the same, and goes to the toilet, women get more nervous than men when talking to the opposite sex often. Again there are exceptions. This verse somebody told me one day helped me come out of the nervousness.