It's all in the deeper layers of your brain. Look at all the "popular" people you know - individuals with lots of friends, a pretty busy social life, etc. What

It's all in the deeper layers of your brain. Look at all the "popular" people you know - individuals with lots of friends, a pretty busy social life, etc. What makes them like that? Easy: when they interact with people, the things that light up in their brains are all sorts of pleasure centers and reward sites and parts of the brain that generate positive emotions, and stuff like that. I don't know the proper names for those things, but you get the gist, I'm sure. Even when just thinking about social interactions, before they even get up and go out and do it, the simple thought of interacting with people generates the same reaction in their brains. So they are motivated to start doing it, rather than sitting passive. How about those with few (or no) real friends? When interacting with people, there's no such reaction in their brains. No reward sites, no positive emotions, nothing. Or, even worse, negative emotions are generated. And yes, that may happen even as that person feels "alone" - those are different processes, not mutually incompatible. The solution? This is one of those rare instances when self-help books and New Age literature and stuff like that actually works. "Change starts with yourself", "positive thinking", heck even "love thy neighbor". All those stereotypes, in such a situation they do apply pretty well.