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I don't get it. Are they afraid of possibly having a brief interaction with a neighbor?
Yes, we are.
...why though?
Reminds me of a favorite line from a song, "I don't want you to romanticize falling the fuck apart"
Just going to stick my reply on the top comment here, but may touch on some of the lower comments to help out.
Answering yes to the question "Are they afraid of possibly having a brief interaction with a neighbor" is going to be unique to the individual. I saw some mention of anxiety disorder down there, and while that may be the case for some, I wouldn't label myself with that and I see this as a good opportunity to caution against over generalization for these grey areas of life.
For me personally, I have a full time career that primarily involves interacting with people 95% of the time. When I get done working for the day... I'm all interacted out. So yeah I may not enter a room or exit my apartment when I know it's going to require more social interactions. I'm just tired. It's honestly easier for me to just wait a couple minutes so that I don't have to restart my decompression.
This was a useful perspective for me. Thanks.
Also while I dont have social anxiety, I do have Autism and was diagnosed more specifically with Aspergers. This means that I really dont like dealing with people in general, not in an anxiety wag but in a let me do my own thing type of way.
Because then you have to make pointless small talk and pleasantries, and I need to save all of those for the boring people I don't want to talk to at work.
Come to Germany. We don't talk to each other in public. Ever.
Smalltalk with the cashier? Hell no. It's just "Card or Cash? " "Card." "Receipt?" "Nope. Bye." "Bye". Every time.
Walk past each other on a tail. Maaaaaybe it will be a "Hello". That's it. Every time.
It sounds like a magical land.
"sorry, I'm in a rush"
Ya but, you don’t have to do that. Nobody cares if you walk by them in the apartment corridor without acknowledging them
…why though?
Anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by significant and uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear such that a person's social, occupational, and personal functions are significantly impaired.
Expressing your struggles is not the same as romanticizing them. You should self interrogate why you assume they are the same
Because a lot of people I know and see are like "lol I'm a mess" without seeming to do anything to address the situation.
Though that's aggravated by the capitalist hellscape that makes getting health care difficult.
But also I'm less generous about this because it's frustrating to be on the receiving end of someone's crippling anxiety.
And this comic is a cutesy, romanticized if you will, representation of it.
interrogate harder because “I feel impinged on by people with anxiety” is not it lmao
No, it's "I don't think you're doing enough to deal with your problems" first.
This is a pretty common mentality we have to deal with. Someone that doesn't have our problem, downplaying how big of a deal it is because they have never had to put much thought into it. It's a physical difference in the structure of our brain. While we can learn ways to cope with it, we can't ever "get over it". We find ways to minimize triggering it, and ways to ride it out with the least amount of stress. And one of the ways that helps is sharing our struggles with the rest of our community for support, and trying not to care about outsiders shitting on us as we do so.
without seeming to do anything to address the situation.
seeming
A lot of the struggles and progress in this area isn't going to outwardly visible unless they decide to share that with you.
I'm aware but worth pointing out. It's easy to forget. Also to forget that our personal experience is not universal.
I had really bad anxiety in my youth. I'd get nauseous. Staying inside alone made it worse. So much worse. Taking the plunge and actually going out, talking to people, engaging, regularly, that lead to progress. Even if it meant throwing up in the bathroom sometimes. But that probably won't work for everyone.
But I guess some part of me has a visceral reaction that's just like "you're making it worse! You're just hiding from the problem and it's never going to get better this way! Just go outside and nothing bad will happen, and you'll stop freaking out eventually!". But that's not everyone.
But yes, to your point, a lot of the time it seems like they're not even trying, and I can't know their inner world. Sometimes they're not, sometimes they are.
I don't think it's an accurate assessment to say "everyone is doing their best" though because some people certainly are not.
Trauma.
They likely have high anxiety, possibly an anxiety disorder. It’s just a relatable representation of that in comic form
Surely you're not implying that wanting to avoid unnecessary social interaction with overly familiar strangers means you have high anxiety? You could claim they're socially awkward but that's still pretty far from anxiety.
There are other reasons to want to. But social anxiety is pretty common, so it's generally a safe assumption.