I do fear becoming an anti-social male, for a couple of reasons. I think formally I can act very normal and model what is appropriate social behavior in most of the situations I encounter in my day-to-day life without a problem. The problem is, I don’t deal well with general stress and the many ups and downs you encounter in life — especially if it involves interaction with other people. Humans are agents of chaos, for good or bad. I can recall good memories playing my part in social circles, but sometimes when I become stressed out, I like to become a recluse and that is not good for my real-life relationships. Many people know that when humans are stressed out, they should seek out their human connections and support network for help in getting through their tough times. My problem is I don’t know how to do that, I have not been raised to do that.

I feel like I have been raised to just hunker down and internalize all my stress to unbearable levels and “until the storm passes”. Sometimes the storms pass quick and sometimes they take a while, and they all too often leave a mark on me and it stresses my relationships as I become a more anti-social, insufferable, and more irritable person. Will everything be ok? Or will I one day implode and have my life fall apart all around me.

I fear, but I try not to let it get to me. It is also not right to put the burden on friends; I should probably seek a therapist, but that’s probably too expensive. Do I go back to the AI chatbots, to supplement as an entity of support? Does the support need to be human, as long as my performance in interacting with other humans not degrade and perhaps even become better? Perhaps this just sounds like a terrible way to frame what human relationships are, but for some reason, it has felt like this very, very often for me. Sometimes it comes naturally, and the game is fine to play. Other times, it feels impossible and I don’t even know the controls or the rules of the game I’m playing. Social skill issue. And let those who have fallen behind, fall behind even more and ever faster.

There are academic makeup classes/tutoring programs for students who fall behind in school and those are pretty well advertised imo. I’m surprised, to be honest, that there isn’t any advertising for classes on socialization (no, not the stupid alpha male, pickup masterclasses bullshit). Classes on how to correctly model and deeply feel how human relationships work inside and out so that you can live a better life and be a better person to and with people in your life. For those who need a little structure to pick up things. I don’t know if I’m thinking about the level of socialization skills classes for autistic people, but maybe a little less explicit. Like yes I can pick some things up and you don’t have to be that verbose, but I don’t pick up everything. Like intermediate skill level classes or something.