When it comes to being social, I don’t work properly.

I went to lunch with my co-workers recently.

And it was a disaster; I mean, I was a disaster, socially-speaking. 

I sat in the middle of this long table, surrounded by 15 of my colleagues, and it was awkward, because I didn’t know which conversation to join in with, I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t have anything to say. So I mostly just sat there, stiffly smiling, wanting it over with, to be able to get away. 

And it was NOISY – with the clatter of cutlery, the scraping of chairs, and everyone raising their voices, everyone so much more talkative, and confident, and LOUDER than me; like, literally, their voices boomed and carried across the room, whereas mine simply did not, people struggled to hear me. Which was embarrassing. 

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I just can’t do it – I can’t be social, I can’t be normal.

There’s something not right about me. 

I just don’t seem to have what other people have, that desire to connect, which propels one to strike up a conversation,  and to have a good time socialising. 

When I’m in loud, large-group situations, I experience no urge, no need, to speak. I’d rather just sit there, silent. 

Am I like this because I have a highly sensitive nervous system? Did the general cacophony of that busy restaurant lunch hour cause me to ‘shut down’ because it was simply ‘too much’? 

Is it shyness? 

Or is it just-the-way-I-am: silent, private, solitary?

Maybe it’s some combination of all three. I don’t know.

What I do know is: 

This is the story of my life – this perpetual inability of mine to fit in, to be sociable, to connect with people, to be myself, to be comfortable in company, to have a conversation without petrifying, mortifying, cringing, fidgeting, awkwardly smiling, to show myself, to reveal anything, truly, of me.

BROKEN, yes, really.