People make me uneasy – I never know what they're thinking about me. It's more likely that no one is even thinking about me at all, but that possibility seems even worse. When my neuroses come into play in the context of social interaction, it just makes me very tired.

Faced with someone I admire and want to spend more time with, I feel like I have nothing to offer and want to escape before I say something that will make me cringe at the recollection later. In the company of someone I imagine would enjoy and benefit from my company (because I'm "better" than them on some level), I feel like they're not worth my effort. And of course, there's always the risk that they wouldn't think I was worth the effort either, and there would be egg on my face as I found myself pursuing a relationship I only wanted because it seemed it would be an easy conquest.

Often after spending time with others I spend a significant amount of time afterward thinking of all the reasons I should never see or speak to them again – ways in which I embarrassed myself, jealousies that mentions of their other friends inflamed in me, their embraced ignorances of subjects I find important. My mind takes small things and turns them into very big deals, and shapes everything they stand for into something that affects me (negatively).

I'm aware it's all a neurosis in my own mind. However, this awareness doesn't change anything, because I believe these feelings, as much as they contribute to my loneliness, are authentic – and that to deny them or try to change them would be an act of desperate denial. And of course, by remaining this way I avoid my occasional aches of solitude being replaced by more severe hurts.

I have a lifetime to change my mind. For now, I'm going to do my best to stay away from almost everyone.

Stay or Leave, by Dave Matthews