1. I have lost touch with most people from high school and college because it’s hard to make time for a social life when I spend most of my hours working.
2. I never make any new friends because I never leave the house.
3. During the rare instances when I do leave the house, I never strike up conversations with strangers. I’m the quiet person in the corner who feels completely out of place.
4. I’m a bad friend. I disappear when I get sad — and I get sad a lot.
5. I don’t put up with bullshit, so the second someone becomes toxic to me, I cut them out of my world.
6. Most of my family has moved away, died, or drifted apart, so it’s not even like I can hang out with them.
7. Even when I have made plans weeks in advance and should be excited about them, sometimes I freak out about the what ifs and cancel them at the last second.
8. Even when I want to go out, sometimes I don’t have the energy to be around other people, so I lie about being sick or having to work the next day to save myself from socializing.
9. I am terrified of rejection, so I rarely reach out to friends to see if they’re busy. I assume that if they want to see me, then they will initiate the conversation themselves. And then I never end up hearing from them.
10. If I’m lucky enough to get along with someone I meet online, I never know how to take the next step and ask for their number or for them to hang out.
11. I actually enjoy my alone time, so most of the time, I’m not freaked out about spending my weekends by myself.
12. I suck at answering texts. I will think of a reply in my head, assume that I typed it out, and then realize hours later that I never sent the message.
13. I never want to come on too strong, so I never let anyone know how much their friendship means to me and we eventually start drifting apart.
14. I don’t even like people. I don’t know how to interact with them. I only like dogs.
15. I’m not interested in doing what most people my age are interested in doing, which makes it hard to find someone to spend time with on weekends.
16. When people invite me out too late, I turn them down, because I’m already in my pajamas with my makeup off, ready for bed.
17. When people invite me out at the last second, I turn them down, because I hate changes in my schedule and need to know what I’m doing ahead of time.
18. When people invite me out to grab drinks at a bar or a club, I turn them down, because crowds make me nervous. I would rather hang out at someone’s house and eat pizza than hop from place to place.
19. I am socially awkward, so I escape social situations whenever possible to avoid embarrassing myself.
20. Instead of reaching out to the people who care about me and reconnecting with them, I mope about how I have no friends.