Socializing shouldn’t be this hard. It shouldn’t leave me feeling hung-over and miserable and filled with self-hatred, regretting every stupid misstep. I’m supposed to know how to be around people without feeling like I’m going to throw up out of nervousness.

I feel like I’m a masochist. I crave closeness with people, but I do not understand people. I don’t understand what makes them tick, I don’t understand the tiny social norms that create society. I feel like I’m stumbling in the dark, crashing and tripping and helpless.

I don’t understand how to have conversations. I’m good at talking, but I’m not good at interacting. I monopolize conversations. I am so scared half the time, that I mess up and make some rude gesture without realizing that. I’m clingy and obsessive and I get bored easily.

I recently said the wrong name to my host, because I was seconds from having a complete panic attack.  I don’t even know what is scaring me, but it’s this overwhelming terror that I am not sure what will happen, and my brain just misfired. I apologized, but I broke down crying as soon as I got home.

Covid-19 was intensely depressing for me and lonely, but it was a year in which I had very limited social interaction to worry about. As we emerge, I’m back to feeling like that same frustration of social faux pas ruining my interactions with people, and asking myself why I continue to rage against the tide that only seems to wash me away.

I feel like it would be smarter for me to just give up and restrict myself from socializing, but I crave it so badly. I want human connection and kindness. I am desperate for it, and that makes me vulnerable to predators. I have accepted abusive treatment and violation of my boundaries, just to belong. I’ve mistaken basic politeness for heroic kindness. Worst of all, when I do connect with people, I manage to screw it up.

There’s this Israeli show I’m addicted to, Shababnikim. One of the characters is everything I hate, a religious zealot who is a misogynist and a complete wet blanket without social skills.

In the first episode, I wished for him to drown in the ritual baths.

I just finished the eighth episode, and I was completely wrong. This guy was so much like me, that it hurt. He buries himself in books as I do, he finds people scary and overwhelming. He means well but manages to completely misread the room. He’s also unable to determine when people are being cruel to him, and by the time he realizes it, he’s devastated.

In this last episode, he’s pushed past his limits and he is completely gutted by the cruelty of people he considers his friends, and a social world that makes no sense to him.

Watching this character break down completely, weeping and scared and overwhelmed by social interactions broke me as well.  I am writing this article with the screen blurry with tears. I know exactly how he feels.

We both are looking at the chaotic world around us and wondering why it has to be so hard to interact with others. We are both scared of poking our heads out of our shells, we are both so badly burned by others. We are both so frightened because we are vulnerable and we are confused and nothing makes sense.

And we just don’t get why.

Why doesn’t it get easier?

Why don’t people make sense?

Why do we keep failing to connect?

Why are people cruel to us?

Why can’t we make it work?

I don’t know the answers. However, at least I’m not alone. To create this character, one of the writers must have felt this way. There are more misfits out there, just like me.

Maybe I’ll find some and we’ll all be misfits together. Of course, considering how socially maladapted we are, that might take time.

Still, they are out there and that gives me hope.