Illogical anxious feelings

[joft]

As much as I know these feelings are illogical I can't help having them, especially on a night like new year's eve. I feel like my life is passing me by, I feel like I'm jealous of all the people out partying, and I feel like my entire life is going to be like tonight; sitting in here alone, for some reason wishing I was out there with everyone else.

There's a big new year's celebration in my city with live bands and everything (this is the first year they're doing it) and it's only a few blocks away from me. But I know what would really happen if I went there. I would go from being alone at home with my dad, being forced to listen to whatever extremely lame TV show he's watching in the next room, to being alone out there in a big crowd listening to some really loud music I probably wouldn't like. I'd just stand there, nobody would talk to me, and I wouldn't talk to anybody, and then I'd come home and wish I hadn't wasted my money on a ticket.

I feel like I should be envious of the people out there, but I'm not. I'm just kind of anxious; even though I'm only 19, I feel like so many years have already gone by without having a "social life," and that I'm being left behind by the rest of the world. I'm not really upset about it, I'll probably just play some yahoo chess and try to ignore the fucking CourtTV documentary my dad is apparently watching. Not like it would be much better if he was watching the rockin' new year's eve party. Wooo, exciting.

[Claverhouse]

Yes. You've captured it excellently.

If we participate we lose: if we don't participate who knows what chances we are losing ?




Claverhouse :ph34r:

[garak]

Well you already know that if you were out there you wouldn't really be gaining much. Maybe the problem is that what you are doing right now is not rewarding? I'm sitting here coding, talking with some other nerds on IRC, and randomly surfing around wherever. I don't feel like I'm missing anything at all, because I know this is what I enjoy and what has and will continue to contribute to my happiness and success (being a computer nerd). I also know, like you, that if I was out partying or whatever, I would very likely not be enjoying myself much. Someone yesterday asked me what I was going to do tonight and I was just like, "hah, 'do something'? why?" They know what they enjoy and I know what I enjoy. They're happy and I'm happy. I used to feel somewhat lonely just due to the fact that everyone assumed I was, but I realized that I'm not, and now I get somewhat offended and annoyed when people act like I'm not allowed to do what I want instead of going along with their narrow expectations.

[joft]

So, I just went out for about an hour and a half. Walked my dog around and saw all that was going on, talked to a few people who wanted to see the dog. That just made it worse, now I am envious of all those people.

I still can't explain it. But, I think what I really want would be something like the communication we have here ([mostly] intelligent) except in "real life." It's too bad our culture only provides for public social places as being places to get drunk or something like that. Doesn't help much when it's the norm to bring your own people to socialize with (and you don't exactly have any).

[songbird36]

Your dog was probably better company than most of them.

I'm *so* envious you have one..

[Clara]

So, joft... do you not go to school - are there no clubs (only, you sound like you might rather have had an alternative, to this evenings three possibilities)?

[joft]

I go to a local community college. As a general rule here in the North East US, people usually keep to themselves- it's the land of apathy. Aside from maybe a little bit of small talk before a class starts, nobody really talks to anybody unless they already know you.

I don't really know anything about clubs, at all. I assume there are some clubs around here, except the legal drinking age is 21 and I'm 19. And I assume the point of going to clubs is to drink, and that they don't let anyone in under 21 anyway. I also assume nobody really goes to one alone. But like I said, I don't know anything about them. I also don't have a car.

[Clara]

Ahhmhm-cough-choke *laugh* (what kind of weird place is that -just kidding!)
Ok.
joft, I meant: at school, are there extra-curricular common interest groups - e.g. Sliding on snow/ snowball fights/ snow sculpture (no, I don't really think exactly this kind of organized activity is going on there - is it? - but it would be fun, if one were warmly dressed, wouldn't it? I know it, and I'm as indoors/sedentary as they come.)
Or, philosphical reading/ discussion
Or, "learn to... (something that would be fun because people you want to know better, plan to join, or already have)

[Arcael]

Yes. You've captured it excellently.

If we participate we lose: if we don't participate who knows what chances we are losing ?




Claverhouse :ph34r:
If we don't participate who knows if we will win? When I go on social outtings, I make sure I have a few long time friends with me to hang out with just incase. After I get a little dumbed down (good ol alcohol) I have absolutely no problem dealing with people in general, infact I met alot of my really good friends this way.

[joft]

I already joined the computer/game club, except they only have meetings on a day that I have no classes so I'm not there anyway. My name is basically on their list and nothing else. I've thought about starting a chess club; however, I don't think it would be very popular or amount to anything. Other than that, there's a student lounge; but, all that happens there is people playing cards as loudly as is humanly possible to play cards, MTV or BET blasting on the TV, and the pool table being taken by some people already playing.

Anyway, all my excuses aside, there really are just no comfortable/convenient places or ways to meet people with similar disposition or interests when you're an introvert.

[garak]

What about a job? Since I've been out of school, that's how I've met most new friends and acquaintences.

[Claverhouse]

If we don't participate who knows if we will win? When I go on social outtings, I make sure I have a few long time friends with me to hang out with just incase. After I get a little dumbed down (good ol alcohol) I have absolutely no problem dealing with people in general, infact I met alot of my really good friends this way.
Um, you are from the N-W where alcohol seems to be an accepted mode of sustaining life/conversation/friendships; he, however is from the dourer N-E where the law is more rigorously observed that being 19 ( thanks to that truly incredible old idiot Mrs. Dole's blackmail plan of 1984, under 21-yr-olds cannot drink ) he is barred from alcohol.

In Britain you can start at 16 ( we do have a drink problem here ): only four countries in the world have 21 as the limit, bastions of personal freedom such as the USA, Ukraine, Malaya & South Korea.

ABD (http://publications.iowa.gov/archive/00000277/01/June_6_e-news.htm#Seventh)

See section 7.


As for meeting one's friends or even one's future mate through the limited vagaries of the workplace... ( shudders ).

There's a touch of determinism there.


Claverhouse :ph34r:

[songbird36]

why do you bother C?

[Shai Gar]

because people need to know?

education does not stop at university missy.

here in australia the legal age is 18 but in the confines of our home we are allowed to drink whatever we want whenever we want.

[waxwing]

hey joft....

I've nothing to say except that I hear you. I won't go into my New Year's experience, but I believe it may have resembled yours. Well, at least in as much as I was pensive and alone. Much of my college experience was the same. (yeah, moments of connection are rare and fleeting). Drunken nights designtated for half-hearted attempts to "resolve" ones life and the world....not my idea of connecting. But I wonder, if I don't connect on a night like tonight, I really must be a misfit. Yes, I already knew this, but I guess New Year's and sometimes holidays in general just accentuate my aloneness. I think they make me dislike the world more than I am usually willing to admit.

Okay, I guess I did have a couple things to say. This could so easily turn into a rant.

[Biff_Loman]

Just keep trying, guys.

I lived apart from my wife for eight months in a different city, due to conflicting schooling demands. I went "out" a whopping two times, so it's not like I'm one to talk. Then again, I had a circle of friends waiting for me back home, so. . .

Don't give up. Make finding social contacts a priority, and don't expect it to happen on its own. Be deliberate.

Good luck.

Btw, this New Year's Eve, my wife and I participated in an orgy with two other couples. Sounds a lot better than your evenings, according to my criteria.

[Arcael]

Good luck.

Btw, this New Year's Eve, my wife and I participated in an orgy with two other couples. Sounds a lot better than your evenings, according to my criteria.Damn, where was I when this occured...

[Seraph]

If it makes you feel any better, this is a struggle every INTP goes through. No matter how good-looking and clever you are, your personality type will do more to damage your social life (if you even have one) than anything else. We're a member of the most brilliant, creative type of all, and this is how we pay the piper.

I am on a friendly basis with most everyone I know, but none of them want to hang out with me on the weekends. I stayed at home for New Year's. Sometimes I wish I were outgoing and had a social life, but I realize the only reason I want one is because I'm expected to. Deep down, I would rather be alone. During the rare times I actually do hang out with somebody, I always get exhausted and want to go home 30 minutes in. I want to enjoy it, but I just can't.

Like other posters have said, don't go by others' idea of what fun is.

[coffeezombie]

Btw, this New Year's Eve, my wife and I participated in an orgy with two other couples. Sounds a lot better than your evenings, according to my criteria.

Thanks for the information. I hope you didn't enjoy f*cking one of the other women (or men) more than you do your wife.

[QrioCT]

i dont know if we can gain what we're missing, because we just don't enjoy social life like the Es do. so even if we have the same experience, it would be different. but its not a total loss because we have far better minds(at least thats what i think) than most people.

but i guess we sometimes think we're supposed to get social, dont we? like theres something wrong with us if we're quiet.

[Serotonin]

I have a solution. Make friends with ENFPs. They make the most FANTASTIC friends. I've been very lucky in the past couple of years being able to integrate myself into a loose social group consisting of about 5 ENFPs, 5 INTPs, 3 ENTPs and the odd INFP and ESFP. It really is the NP zaniness that keeps us roughly on the same wavelength. Through four years of all doing science at university this group has gradually come together by way of a common liking for the offbeat. Back to ENFPs, their extraversion drives them to organise random social events, which tend to have stimulating and interesting conversation, and strange games aided and abetted by alcohol. One time at a friend's holiday house we got very drunk, and ended up playing "Murder in the Dark" while making pirate noises e.g. YAAAARRRGH! ME HEARRRRTIES! Hilarious, and embarrassing when you wake up the next morning realising what you were up to the previous night.
But believe me, getting to this point socially has been a very long road. I have essentially disowned the group of friends I had in high school, and it took a good two years of relative loneliness in the first two years of uni (around the ages of 18 and 19) before I started to become social at all. And even then my friendships built up slowly.
So don't despair.... things change. Better still, they "just happen", you don't have to force the change. It's more about being opportunistic I suppose.

[Biff_Loman]

I have a solution. Make friends with ENFPs. They make the most FANTASTIC friends. I've been very lucky in the past couple of years being able to integrate myself into a loose social group consisting of about 5 ENFPs, 5 INTPs, 3 ENTPs and the odd INFP and ESFP. It really is the NP zaniness that keeps us roughly on the same wavelength. Through four years of all doing science at university this group has gradually come together by way of a common liking for the offbeat. . . . . .It's more about being opportunistic I suppose.

Serotonin! Bravo! This is, without a doubt, the best relationship advice I have read on this board, bar none.

Being an INTP with an active social life, and having been good friends with other NPs, I have had a tough time expressing, on this board, how rewarding it can be to have a meaningful social circle.

I mean, not that there's that much deeper meaning in running around in the dark and shouting in pirate fashion, for instances, but such things are the spice of life.

I keep trying to tell the INTPs I know who struggle socially: you aren't weird or bizarre. You are charmingly eccentric.

All humans enjoy social interaction with people of their own kind. Having had a number of close NP friends over the years, I cannot express just how satisfying it can be to band together and practice precisely the same sort of behaviour you describe. And yes, I met them at university (where else?). Anyways - the NP love for the absurd and (needlessly) dramatic enriched our lives considerably. A typical interaction might appear as follows:

INFP friend: Accompany me to Chapters, where I shall purchase a novel by Orson Scott Card.
Me: But - the path is fraught with peril! I refuse to budge from this spot!
INFP: No! No no no! Nothing these days is "fraught with peril." The path is safe, I assure you.
Me: And yet I fear it.
INFP: Take courage, man.
[etc.]

Oh god, those were good times.

I am convinced that the INTPs who make such a big deal about being too introverted, or too quiet, have simply not made friends with people who actually enrich their lives.

[edit] The only problem with having NP friends is that it is very easy to sink into a "conspiracy of procrastination." All too often, either myself, my INTP roomie or INFP roomie would, at long last, get up from his chair to tackle some schoolwork. This rarely went unchallenged: "Are you sure you need to do that assignment now? Star Trek is on in like an hour." We all know what it's like to work up the determination to start a task you detest; it was like dragging yourself out a swimming pool, only to be yanked back in before you got your feet on the deck.

[2nd edit] My social life now is active, but not nearly as satisfying. Our circle essentially consists of three couples: An ESFP and an ISFP, an ESTP and an ENTJ, and myself and my ISFJ wife. Our assorted friends form the typical cluster of associated persons in a wider social circle.

I get along well with the ENTJ, but I don't care for the times when she glares at me (btw, whoever suggested that ENTJs would make a good romantic match for INTPs was smoking grass, IMO).

We generally drink too much. The conversation usually isn't worth shit, but we play a lot of games and usually have S-oriented fun. The orgies are definitely cool, though.

[Mr. Good Beats]

Just remeber it is New Years everyday of the year, and that 75% of the world is made up of extroverts (imagine if the reverse were true and on top of that INTPs were the dominant type, we would still be in, well where ever the extroverts had gotten us to without a lot of help, although the world may be in better state of affairs) so because they are 'mind'less ( I do not mean stupid or anything like that here) the majority can not grasp that we are a species to be honoured, but what do we care.
All this social talk gives me an idea: Would it be possible to set up a social gathering place geared towards INTPs and all who love us?
hmmmm

[Edmond Zedo]

We could call it the "FOR LEASE" cafe.

[Mr. Good Beats]

"For Lease" cafe, that is funny, and would actually be a good name if it were to ever come to fruition

[matthew0028]

All this social talk gives me an idea: Would it be possible to set up a social gathering place geared towards INTPs and all who love us?

We could call it INTP Central.

Or are you talking about a real world place? ;P

[Mr. Good Beats]

Well a real world place in my mind.