Originally Posted by punkworld

It just doesn't work like that.

I have the same thing as he does. It didn't get as bad as it is now until my late teens. Before that, I was a fairly popular guy, always having people around at my place, tons of friends. My current relative isolation is not the cause of my social problems, but the result of them.

An example. Going to a store and buying something, to me, is like hell. I have done it thousands of times, yet every single time is hell all over again. It doesn't get better, no matter what. Every single time I have to do it, my heart starts pounding, I start sweating, I am barely able to talk at all, etc. Yet I have to do it almost daily.

Another example. When I go to dinner with two female friends I have both known for over a decade, I am barely able to even speak with them. I have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours talking with one of them, and know the other quite well too. Yet, these days, I am hardly able to say more than a few words when with them.