The rules are made up and the points don't matter

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well, you suffer from social anxiety, than yes, it's normal

Tarquinn2049

I suppose it depends on your definition of normal. But I specifically didn't say it was normal for everyone, I said it was normal social anxiety. Which only affects around 10% of people. Still a pretty large number, that's about the same as being left-handed. And yet you likely know more people that are left handed, because the odds of meeting someone with social anxiety are, of course, much lower even though just as many exist.

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When it became a fad to brag about it and not to work on it and interact socially like our species has done for thousands of years.

It's fine to not be social all the time and to have anxiety. This. And all this conversation in here about how normal it is to despise your neighbors enough to hide inside just because they are outside... Is not that. And it's normalizing a fear and lack of interaction that doesn't help people. It just makes it easier to feel right about your specific quirk.

2ugly2live

That's why I don't leave the house.

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That would be "normal social anxiety symptoms" or even "normal for social anxiety" where normal applies to the symptom discussed. Here your use of normal supplements the "social anxiety" which I do understand is more prevalent than people would really acknowledge but isn't exactly normal.
Even more so for zero contact, no coping mechanism social anxiety that has you saying rude things about others existing in shared physical space.

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I’m human

I don't believe this. I'm pretty sure this computer I'm using is generating random comments as I'm scrolling through here.

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You don't fix it. You just work on it till you can handle more because you want to or you have to.

We aren't so much as broken as just different, as we all are. We all just need to do our parts to work to be part of society rather than perfect it ourselves first.

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Is "normal social anxiety symptoms" really meaningfully different than ""normal social anxiety"? Isn't that implied?

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without seeming to do anything to address the situation.

seeming

A lot of the struggles and progress in this area isn't going to outwardly visible unless they decide to share that with you.

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Ah this is a classic language misunderstanding. "Isn't necessarily" means "possibly not [thing]" or "doesn't have to be" or "may or may not be" but doesn't have much bearing on probabilities.

That's how people usually use that term in English anyway.

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Also while I dont have social anxiety, I do have Autism and was diagnosed more specifically with Aspergers. This means that I really dont like dealing with people in general, not in an anxiety wag but in a let me do my own thing type of way.

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The entire point is that seemingly easy thing just isn't for them. I know because that used to be me at my worst points.

It can be learned however. Now I'm probably the guy they want to avoid because I will smile and say hi.

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It is not implied. In fact I doubt most people would consider social anxiety to be even a clinical term and it is often used a catch all for minor anxiety towards social interactions that can be difficult.

Following up someone saying they hide inside when neighbors are around and that they think they are buffoons for not moving at the speed you want because of a lack of self control with "well that's just normal social anxiety" validates and normalizes behavior that is neither valid nor productive.

My grandmother was an English teacher and she would tell you it's not ok to leave things implicit as you leave the comprehension to the reader when that is the purpose of you as the speaker.

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That's simply not true. I agree that it seems to be social anxiety depicted but you misunderstand that phrase. That's basically just saying it could be something else, nothing to do with likelihood.

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No one's bragging about anything. We're just trying to have a good laugh and relate to some problems we encounter in our lives. Nobody explicitly told you that we aren't trying to solve this problem. I don't know why you would make the assumption that we weren't.

It just seems like you want to shit on people going through something for the fun of it. Do better.

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But where does the comic state or imply that living like this is healthy? The character doesn't seem happy.

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I'm aware but worth pointing out. It's easy to forget. Also to forget that our personal experience is not universal.

I had really bad anxiety in my youth. I'd get nauseous. Staying inside alone made it worse. So much worse. Taking the plunge and actually going out, talking to people, engaging, regularly, that lead to progress. Even if it meant throwing up in the bathroom sometimes. But that probably won't work for everyone.

But I guess some part of me has a visceral reaction that's just like "you're making it worse! You're just hiding from the problem and it's never going to get better this way! Just go outside and nothing bad will happen, and you'll stop freaking out eventually!". But that's not everyone.

But yes, to your point, a lot of the time it seems like they're not even trying, and I can't know their inner world. Sometimes they're not, sometimes they are.

I don't think it's an accurate assessment to say "everyone is doing their best" though because some people certainly are not.

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Hm, I'm kind of in between. I do this fairly often, not wanting to go out right when someone else is there. But I don't know why, since as far as I can tell it doesn't make me feel anxious to run into someone like in the cartoon.

It doesn't bother me at all to cross paths with someone and I'm fine with saying Hi or just nodding to acknowledge their presence. Rarely does anyone actually try to start a conversation or anything. If they do say anything it's probably just a one-liner and move on. And it's easy to tell if someone doesn't want to nod or say Hi as you pass because they stare at the ground the whole time, and I'm fine with that too, but I don't do that.

But now I'm wondering, so why do I tend to wait until they're gone? Is it really social anxiety? I don't think so? I'm a loner but I have no problem or anxiety talking to people either.

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You speak on behalf of others that have stated the opposite and you speak to my motives incorrectly.

I don't wish for people to normalize this as the end of the symptoms cause it creates a world where people who are suffering as well don't have others to look to for having to go through the struggle of bettering oneself. People are in here normalizing the act of the anxiety and not the stress of rising above it.

I'm responding to the conversation as it is happening in here. You are responding to how you wish it was because it's easier to blame the squeaky wheel.

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