I have a default of dreading social interaction, even doing things with people I've known for over half my life, but I have noticed that there is a pattern wher

I have a default of dreading social interaction, even doing things with people I've known for over half my life, but I have noticed that there is a pattern where I dread something before doing it, and then I enjoy it. So the dread is irrational. You know what's worse than people thinking you're weird, or dumb, or dorky? So many things. A million things. Words only hurt if you let them. (Of course there is a limit to this idea, but not in this context really.) So whatever the dread is directed toward, it's a fake idea. A lot of times people try to address social anxiety by giving advice like "people don't think you're weird, they don't even think about you". There is truth to that, but also, people will think you're weird if you act weird. So you have to get used to the idea that people are going to think that about you, if you're a weird person- and weird people know who they are. (Funnily enough, if you don't care whether they think you're weird, you'll start to act less weird.) However, the downside of not caring what people think of you is that you have no interest in being the life of the party or anything like that. So you can actually travel through the other side of this situation back into not being social. Ultimately the key is being able to control your own thoughts, to interrupt the fear thought and shut it down, recognize it for the nonce that it is. I'm not sure what the process is for getting to that point, but you need to be able to do it.