Nurturing Social Phobia

I enjoy not meeting other people.  I love missing out on conversations with strangers.  I have a great time without other people’s company.

Man is a social creature (or so I’m told), and yet a social phobia has begun sprouting within me in the past few months.  The mere idea of talking to someone seems to  drain me of my energy even before I’m anywhere near a phone to call them or even within their earshot.  I’ve also noticed that lately, I’m much more irritated by other people’s presence than I am entertained or comforted by it.  I’ve always been on the introverted side, but lately its been getting worse.  It doesn’t really bother me per se-  I think I’d be ok living in the cabin next door to the Uni-Bomber (30 kilometers apart in some wooded forest), but social pressure to conform being what it is, I can’t help but worry a little about this tendency.

This week-end, I decided to try to shake off the dark cloud that’s been following me for the past little while.  I agreed to go for a hike in the forest with a few friends.

On my way over there, I saw a fifty-something man hurl a half-full king can out the back of his convertible, into the road-side trees, spewing beer during its entire trajectory, including onto my car.  Strike one against society and I’m still within pizza-delivery-distance of my place.

We all got to the meeting point and started walking through the forest, picking mushrooms as we went.  Within an hour, I was confronted by a man on an ATV with his barking German Shepperd threatening to call the police on my ass if he ever saw me on HIS property again.  I left HIS property thinking of how Native Americans didn’t have a notion of private property when Europeans first arrived in America.  But I was also sad that such a peaceful nature walk had turned into something so violent and ugly:  “Feck off Buddy!!!  I didn’t stumble upon your grow-op- but I now know its here…”  It saddened me because I really felt like the walk was doing me some good and now all I wanted was to crawl back into my hole, preferably never having to talk to another being again.  Strikes two and three.

I have a Social Phobia.

If I’m ok with that, does it still make it a “bad” or socially unacceptable thing?  Then again, if I do have a Social Phobia, do I give a shit what IS socially accepted?

Is the phobia a result of being exposed to too much society?  Will it be “cured” by less exposition to society?

I have been a writer for the past few years.

I think there is more to the word as what we see on the news or media.

These are my visions of how the world is turning