Since being on medication and getting a job I enjoy, i have realised I do quite like being among other people.
And I've lowered my tolerance levels quite naturally, as I'm working with people much better educated than me. That usually only comes with long term forced contact, as in my Leicester friend Tezza, who had a heart of gold but shockingly naive beliefs and every other sentance contained an imaginary word or a malapropism. I ended up going to tea with her every Saturday night before I became too ill to do so.
When I moved back home I believed myself to be genuinely unlikeable.
I said so to my counsellors and they told me - sincerely - that they were sure this was not true.
But of course I knew me and knew that it was.
Since then I've started to like me a little more, but am still quite baffled to find some people I like just don't warm to me. In real life. Sometimes I feel a bit like Tiger - trying to say something when everyone else is over it, or that any subject I introduce is ignored because I said it. Mostly this is paranoia and I find if I relax and get over it then people are friendly afterwards,
as if nothing has happened. Because of course it hasn't.
I do try, and in some situations and with many people I can be accepted.
But even in those, I know I am appreciated for my positive qualities and my negative ones are simply passed over.
In the majority I am not amusing or endearing.
And in the minority I may as well have leprosy.
Dana & Limey can confirm my poor social skills, so it's not self-flagellation.
Oh wait, was I supposed to be asking why I was single?