Are You Sure You Know What You Want Socially?

When I look back at how I used to be, I didn't know what I wanted socially. I thought I did but time showed me to be wrong. I was too mixed up to choose for myself. Basically, I thought I didn't like people or socializing, but looking back I just largely felt that way because I sucked at it, had a bad attitude about it, and didn't have good experiences with it. When my social skills improved I discovered I liked being around people just fine.

To this day I'm still not the best judge of what will make me socially happy. Like I'll think I just want some alone time, but within an hour I'm bored. I tell myself I won't have fun going out, and that I just want to stay at home, but when I do go out I usually have a good time (and if I stay home I feel restless). I've built up a record of usually having fun when I'm with people, which would lead me to believe I truly like socializing. But my brain sometimes feels otherwise. Sometimes I have to battle it to make sure I don't act in ways that are against my interests.

Here are some ways unsocial people may be out of touch with what they really want. Yep, some guy over the internet who doesn't know you is saying you may not know what you want. It's one of those articles. I may not always say things in it that you want to hear. It's all based on my own experiences though, otherwise I wouldn't be talking like this.

"I won't have fun if I go out"

This one is a classic. I still get this feeling all the time, though I usually know better to ignore it. We all know how it usually ends. Invariably when you go out you have a good time. Maybe not a perfect time, but you're usually glad you went.

I think the most common reason for this kind of thinking is nervousness and uncertainty about how things will go. Worry often involves assuming the worst. It could just be a more general aversion to doing new things too. It's easier to come up with logical sounding reasons to bail. It's better for your ego to believe you chose not to go then to admit you were unsure of yourself. Often this anxiety isn't acknowledged and you truly feel like you don't want to do something. At other times you realize you're anxious and play a more active, conscious role in creating excuses for yourself.
You may see socializing as something you can only do when you're in the perfect mood and all your ducks are in a row. I used to do this. I'd be eager to go out with my friends, then one little setback or moment of negative emotions would put me off the idea.
You may have fun things vying for your attention at your home base, like that new game you just bought. I try to draw a distinction between something that may really be fun alternative to going out (watching a movie), and something that will take me fifteen minutes to finish and then I'll be bored and looking for something else to do for the rest of the night (checking a website for updates). And really, people are right when they tell you this stuff isn't going anywhere and will still be there when you get home.

Once you've established a track record of not feeling like doing something, then going anyways and having fun, the power of this belief starts to diminish. You recognize it as being false and misleading whenever it pops into your head.

"I'd be happier if I was alone right now"

It's in my genes to like my alone time. Either that or I just have lots of solitary pastimes that I have to be alone to enjoy properly. Whenever I'm out with people, there's always a little voice in the back of my mind telling me that I'd be having more fun back at my apartment. Sometimes it's just a vague feeling of wanting to escape. But experience has shown me I'm often better off not listening to it.

When you don't feel totally comfortable with your social skills or being around people, socializing can drain your mental reserves and create worries that you're doing things wrong. Everyone else seems to be hanging out and talking naturally, but you're filled with tension, feeling like you're barely clawing something together. It's only reasonable that you'd want to escape to a more secure, predictable environment.
I'm better with people now, but I still have a lot of these old insecurities. Sometimes I feel like I'm working so much harder behind the scenes than everyone else. But I really do like being around people. Things always go fine. Vestiges of my old attitude cloud how I truly feel these days.
When I'm alone these days, I'm a lot more conscious of how boring it can actually be. It's fine when I have something to do, but as soon as it's over I feel antsy. I couldn't count how many hours I've mindlessly surfed around the web just looking for something to do. Looking back, so much of my time alone was just a mad search for an activity to fill the hours.
Still, I can't help but crave my space, even though more often than not it's not that great once I get it. I think what I usually mean by 'alone time' these days is, "I need fifteen minutes to check my email and get it out of my system, then I'll be good to go again." or "I just bought a new Wii game. I just need to play it for an hour or two to satisfy my curiosity about what the next areas hold."

"Socializing drains me mentally"

If you aren't around people very often, then the experience can be exhausting and overstimulating. In contrast, being alone seems to recharge you. It can feel like it a natural part of how your body is wired. In my experience, you can adapt. If you're around people a lot more than normal, you'll eventually get used to it. Your brain will become more tolerant to social stimulation. Also, when your social skills get better, talking to people comes more naturally and is less of a mental struggle.

I used to love being alone. That's where I had all my fun. Then I started being around people a lot more. I moved in with my girlfriend. Now I'm not as familiar with being on my own as I once was. I feel under stimulated and like there's not enough going on. My mind has grown accustomed to functioning with people always around. However, if you left me on my own for several weeks I'd quickly become reacquainted with the joys of my own company. How I feel about being social vs. being alone has as much to do with how my mind is adapted at the moment as inborn personality traits.

"I don't like these people / my friends suck"

I used to feel this way about friends or acquaintances at times, though when it came down to it, I usually had fun in their company. It was in my quiet moments where I could let my thoughts run away with me that I would fixate on what was wrong with them. What the hell?

Do you just have a tendency to be too picky about the people you hang around? Do you have unrealistic expectations about how other people will act?
Are you insecure and get people before they get you, maybe by seeing yourself as too good for them?
Are you socially unskilled to the point where you feel left out and different around just about anyone? Do you just not have the tools to relate to most people, and so are inevitably left feeling like they suck and you didn't click with them?
Are you carrying baggage, past hurts, and bitterness that makes you feel negative towards most people, or most people in your peer group?
Are you just unhappy and unsatisfied with aspects of your life in general, and your grumpy thoughts towards people you know are just a manifestation of that?
Are you good at starting friendships, but can't take the heat when the relationship starts to place more demands on you in terms of time and intimacy? Do you fabricate reasons to bail on them?

I used to be able to answer yes to all of those points. But once I got past my issues, I found my opinions towards my social circle lightened up. They weren't so bad, I just felt that they were.

"I just don't like socializing"

Now we're getting more general. Many people think they just inherently don't like socializing. My own experience has led me to believe that when someone thinks like this, their motivations aren't as built into their personalities as they believe. Their past experiences play a significant role in how they feel towards socializing today:

In the past their social interactions may have been unrewarding. Maybe they got made fun of, or felt incompetent. They may have past baggage toward the very idea of being social. They may never have really had fun socializing.
They're not practiced and natural at it. They're not good enough at socializing that it's fun and relatively effortless. It feels like work, and this overshadows any enjoyment they could get out of it.
They simply hate and resent something they're not good at. Like as a kid I hated sports because I sucked at them. They made me feel like a loser and the other kids gave me crap over it.
Socializing may make someone anxious enough that over time they start to hate it for the emotional roller coaster it puts them through.

If these people developed better people skills, and had more good experiences, they'd start to like socializing. Maybe not as much as some die hard social butterflies, but much more than they do currently.

An analogy is knowing someone who thinks they dislike video games. But then you find out they've only played them for a grand total of 45 minutes in their entire life. And they didn't know how to play at the time. And they played on a crappy older system. And they played a mediocre game. And someone was yelling at them and telling them how much they sucked the whole time. "They're not really in a place to declare they don't like games, full stop," you think. "If I gave them a good, accessible game on the new system, and told them the rules, and they gave it a chance, they'd surely come around."

I think socializing is the same way for some people. Except that if you go through your life having made a hasty judgment about some hobby, nothing is much going to happen. But socializing is everywhere. Your attitude towards it has a huge impact on your life. You pretty much owe it to yourself to give it a fair chance.

I don't think this point applies to everyone though. I'm playing Devil's Advocate, but I do think some people just naturally not as prone to socializing as others. People with Asperger's Syndrome or Autism may truly not be interested in others, due to their unique neurological profiles. People with Schzoid Personality Disorder are also genuinely disinterested in socializing.

"I just don't like people"

I've heard this one a lot. A variation is when someone says they "hate people", almost in a boasting manner, like they're proud of how prickly and unsociable they are. Again, the implication is that they're this way by nature. The same general idea as the point above applies, it's not that you hate people, just that your past experiences with them have falsely led you to believe this. Some newer, more positive experiences would reverse your views.

You may not get out much, and so tend to see other people as an abstract mass of idiots. Maybe you're not personally familiar with many social groups, but have a negative stereotype you can apply to each of them.
You may not have a ton of social contacts, and the only people you interact with day-to-day are strangers, family members, and coworkers. Each of these groups has reasons they probably won't provide you with the most fulfilling, ideal social experiences. Only being around them can give you a distorted perspective on what all people are like.
You could have had a past of being rejected, teased, and ignored. So now you're weary and bitter about everyone.
You may be pretty young, and in your life you haven't met anyone you've really connected with.
For a variety of reasons, you may not have the social capabilities to get along with most people. And since you don't click with them, it follows that you won't like them.
You may like socializing when you do it often enough, but if you spend too much time on your own, you can lose touch and forget that most people aren't so bad.
You may think it makes you cool and unique to be an unsociable type of character, or to be cynical about a lot of different types of people.

"I don't like joking around / small talk / (some other specific aspect of socializing)"

Within reason, there's nothing wrong with being annoyed by things like small talk. Like for the other points though, you may not know how to do that particular thing properly, and so dislike it mainly because you find it unrewarding. Maybe you've come to resent being asked "What's up!?", because you always draw a blank and feel like an idiot afterwards. If you learned some good ways to answer though, and those answers led to a fun conversation, you may eventually come to be glad when someone greets you.

"I don't like dancing / clubbing / loud parties / (some other specific social activity)"

Again, there are some legitimate reasons to dislike these things. I hardly spend every weekend dancing to overly loud Top 40 Hip Hop while drinking $9.00 drinks in a place with a $30 cover charge. I think some people say this though more because they did something a few times, didn't really know what they were doing, had a bad time, and never gave it another chance. Maybe if they knew how to dance, or had a better idea of how to navigate that environment, they'd have a fun time.

"I want to have deep, stimulating conversations"

A lot of the time you do literally want this. I also think at times people just say this because they don't think they're good at light, casual conversation. "While at least I'm competent at being deep and serious", they say to make themselves feel better. In my experience serious conversations are great, but they get surprisingly tiresome if you have them too much. You can only talk about behavioral evolution or the meaning of life so much before it gets boring. Sometimes you just want to talk about Family Guy episodes.

Despite all I've said, I don't think everyone has to like socializing. If you don't currently like it I don't think you have to change, or that you have to want to change. I hope that you're making that decision with all the information though. If you know how to be properly social, have given it a fair shot, and decided it's not for you, then that's fine. I feel bad though when people state they don't like something without having really given it a chance. You could potentially like nothing more than to be around people once you've worked though your current weaknesses. Your present attitudes could be holding you back.