Another Problem To Add To The List

2004-04-25

I already feel like a social hermit who trails behind Bigfoot. No one really knows my name. I am most likely identified as Bigfoot�s girlfriend. It wouldn�t bother me so much if it wouldn�t be for the fact that Bigfoot is the most sociable person in the world. He will talk to anyone all the while I stand few feet behind him, watching quietly. I hate myself for not being able to speak up and wish to God I was just invisible. We were sitting at the dinning table yesterday and people kept coming by, chatting with him casually. I sat slouched in my chair, staring at my plate. With each person I felt more panicked. I felt like everyone was watching and expecting something from me. It got harder to breathe. I put my hands in the pocket of my hoodie and suddenly began to dig my nails into the skin of my hand. The greater the panic got, the harder I dug in. I pulled, pinched and scratched the skin, hoping that maybe it would come off and with it all the things I hate. Bigfoot, realizing that something was wrong finally decided to head back to the room. I walked slowly by him with my head down. My hand was red and swollen with trickles of blood coming down. He saw it as I extended it to open the door. I half wanted him to notice it, and expected some kind of a reaction. He glanced at me with a questioning look and asked if anything was wrong. I shook my head and nothing else was said.

I�ve always had a mild social anxiety. More often now I refrain from any gatherings or groups. Yet this has been getting progressively worse and now it is affecting how I feel, even when I�m alone. Sometimes I think how hard can it be to go up to a group of people, start a casual conversation and befriend everyone. I see Bigfoot do it all the time. Then I realize how aware I would be of my accent, my fumbling words and the wrong things I might say, and such a small task seems undoable. I am slowly coming to accept my destiny of ending up alone with only a dozen cats to chat with. The only thing they�ll be sneering at is my lack of care for them.