I don't know if I'm alone here, but let me explain.

Socializing has always been very hard for me. I go to the gym and I go to work every day, but I don't leave the house much outside of that (and that's not for lack of trying but that's a different story). Every time I hang out with people, specifically with girls but it even happens with my friends sometimes, I'm so excited that I'm actually getting to spend time with real people that it's basically equivalent to getting high for me. My adrenaline just starts pumping, and it's really a great feeling to be honest, and I actually feel a lot less shy when I'm in that situation and socializing becomes a hell of a lot easier for me. It's really not inherently a bad thing.

The problem is the crash. I get this great feeling from getting to hang out with my friends or getting a date, but it obviously doesn't last forever. An example that comes to mind is that I had my first date in four years over the summer. I was so excited all throughout the night, that even in the moment some part of me was dreading the next day. But even then it went so well, and I felt invincible, until the next day when the crash set in. I went from on top of the world to straight up depressed. Maybe that's not the right word for it, but for about a week I wasn't able to really return to normal. I had completely lost my apetite, I wasn't able to sleep (or if I was, I wasn't able to wake up), I was just completely unable to make myself feel not even happy, just normal. As awesome as that night was, and as much as I wouldn't trade in that night for anything in the world, I felt like my life was better 3 weeks before the date when I didn't even know that the girl I went out with even existed.

I wasn't unhappy with my day to day life before then, but that rise and fall sure made the next few days hell on earth, and I've quit trying to meet people for the time being because I don't want to feel like shit every day for basically overdosing on social contact.

I would love nothing more than to have a lot of friends and get more dates, and I'm really not at a place where I feel like I need either of those things the way I used to think. Like I'm 100% content to keep doing what I'm doing on my own, but it would definitely be nice to have more people in my life. I just cannot deal with the crash. There seems to be no avoiding it, and I hate feeling like that. The worst part is that all of this is assuming everything goes great. This is like my best possible scenario. If I were to get ghosted, rejected, stood up, etc. that would certainly only add to the crash.