I am an involuntary introvert.

I was watching a documentary on the evolution of video games, and I had this strange moment where I had to turn it off and try to calm myself down because I was getting very upset. I think it started when they were talking about the community of gamers and how it has grown into a subculture of its own based on the rejection from the everyday society that occurred during video games growth from the 1980s through the 2000s.

I couldn't help but feel this overwhelming sense of sadness and loss and though I tried to calm myself down using my normal calm breathing and meditation, I continued getting Very upset. It came to the point that I was in tears and crying.

I came to a realization. I am an involuntary introvert. Now, what do I mean by that?

What that means is when I was younger I was an extrovert.

I enjoy being around people going out doing things having fun playing with friends and other human

beings. In my later experiences in school, I experienced negativity to whom I was, rejection of my

participating and Bullying because I chose to be myself. Because of those experiences,

I moved away from people. I felt that if I allowed myself to open myself up to people, I would get rejected

and I lost the ability to connect with people. I became an introvert, as in I shied away from people

and looked for solitude rather than interaction because I felt safe. Depression played a heavy hand

in this. Now when I went away to school and college, I actually was able to connect with people again

and I began to grow a social life. I was able to interact with people, come “out of my shell” and

reconnect with the extrovert of my personality. When I graduated from college and I came home and

my social life that I had in college, was no longer with me. I started to resort back to my introvert ways.

Having learned how to be social in college, I was able to go out and form tenuous friendships and

through my work environment I was also able to get a sense of no longer being an introvert,

yet there were times when I would lose my connection with those that I considered friends and

continue to revert back to being an introvert. So in my heart, I wanted to go out and be an extrovert

with other people and socialize but the fear of rejection was so strong, it forced me to be unable to

connect with people the way everybody else is. It has come to a point that now I'm older, I no longer

have the same options for socialization that I used to and because of changes in my life I have no longer

able to connect with people on the same level so I have become an introvert because I'm afraid to put

myself out there for fear of rejection and non-acceptance. Though I want more than anything to interact

with people and to socialize and be part of a community, but my fear of rejection so strong that I can't

make myself connect. When I do I'm so scared of being judged that I literally don't interact with people

or I do the bare minimum of interaction just so I feel like I'm there but I don't put myself out enough

that people actually feel like they can communicate with me. In essence, I'm literally allowing my fear

to cut me off from the simple interactions that everybody has on a regular basis. My social ineptitude

has gotten to a point where I am afraid to talk to people unless it is an actual interaction from like

purchasing something from a store clerk or when I do get into a conversation I feel I have to or pretend

to be someone I'm not in order to function in modern society. I literally am an actor in my own life

because I am so scared of being rejected that I can't even be myself in my own life because I have to

act like I'm the same as everybody else just so it doesn't draw attention to how scared I am of being

rejected.