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You used to love hanging out with people and now you just hate socializing, and you don’t know why? Or you just never liked it but you want to enjoy it instead and make new friends? Well, get comfortable, and let’s dive in!
What can I say…
We can love or hate it, but the fact is that there is no way to avoid socialization or social interaction at all in the modern world.
Unless you decide to live alone somewhere in the mountains. Which actually sounds pretty appealing…
Anyway, I bet you would agree that life would be much easier if we always felt completely comfortable with social interaction so that each time we could get the best out of it.
In this post, I’m talking about all the possible reasons you hate socializing — and giving you a detailed step-by-step plan on how to eliminate them or work around them.
This post is all about why you hate socializing and what to do about it.
🤢 Reasons why you hate socializing
So why do you hate socializing?
Go through the list below thoroughly and try to analyze what you feel while making attempts to socialize.
Any overlapping?
That’s where you gotta DIG.
- You have low self-esteem. You worry too much about what people think. You are focusing on your flaws and don’t celebrate your achievements. You have bad negative self-talk. You doubt yourself and worry all the time. You don’t allow yourself to be who you truly are in public. Those are some of the signs that you have low self-esteem.
- You have strong limiting beliefs. You believe that if you are not perfect then you are not worthy of love. That no one takes you seriously. That you are not as interesting or attractive or successful as all these people around you. These are just some examples.
- You lack self-discipline and you procrastinate. I recently learned that procrastination makes you lose respect for yourself and it made perfect sense to me. When you give in to the temptation of all those delightful things — eating a piece of cake, binge-watching trashy tv-shows, scrolling through IG for hours — instead of choosing to show up for your goals despite the resistance, you are stepping back in your own eyes. Would you respect someone who says they’re going to do something but keep slacking over and over again?
- You have a different priority at the moment, so socializing feels like wasting time. This happens simply when we are trying to match someone else’s image of us, so we end up doing things that we don’t necessarily want to do. A common reason is also self-comparison and FOMO — everyone is partying and having fun, and what am I? Am I worse? (My advice to you — ditch your phone! We’ll talk about it later in this post, just couldn’t resist.)
- You hate shallow conversations. Is small talk a nightmare for you? Welcome to the club! I HATE small talk. I hate talking about nothing. It feels like a complete waste of time! I love deep conversations more than anything, but when I have to preface it with What’s your plans for the weekend? who wants it anymore?
- You are in the wrong crowd. It might be that people around you are just not your kind of people whatsoever. And yes, it’s true that you can find a common ground with pretty much anyone, but are you gonna enjoy it?
- You have social anxiety. That is a deeper issue that requires hard deep work and most likely therapy.
- The pandemic affected you greatly. Let’s be honest, it had an effect on everyone and we cannot just ignore it. If you went through some hard emotional and mental hardship over the pandemic, I highly recommend getting into therapy. It might solve all your problems. If you just revealed that “homebody” side in you that you never knew about, or your priorities changed, amazing! It means you are discovering yourself and changing, which is a good sign.
Also, what if it’s just not your thing?
Have you ever thought of it?
Imagine going out to a party where you don’t know anyone, hanging out with a group of friends, or hanging out with besties — what would you choose and why?
It might be that huge parties are just not for you. For example, if you are an introvert or a highly sensitive person.
There is nothing wrong with that. Just embrace it and find a way to work around it.🙂
🤔 What to do if you hate socializing (but want to enjoy it instead)
Alright, enough talking, it’s time to do the dirty work!
📝 Develop and maintain self love habits
I want to say that this is the first and the most important point on this list.
You can probably imagine that before going out there and immersing yourself in the blessings of socialization, you have to figure out a relationship with yourself.
And in combination — the most important relationship that you will ever have in your whole life.
Hence, the one you should be working on first, before anything else, and harder than on anything else.
The best way to do it is to develop and maintain self love habits.
I encourage you to read these two major posts on self-love below. They contain all you need to start your self-love journey:
3 negative effects of self-love (you’ll be surprised)
5 daily self-love habits to start right now (+ action plan)
If you never practice self-love, there is a chance you have lower self-esteem which affects tremendously the way you are with other people.
If you are confident, self-respectful, and set healthy boundaries with others — then everyone, even not the most perceptive people, will sense it and will treat you accordingly.
Do this step before anything else and you won’t go wrong.
🙋🏻♀️ Work on your beliefs
Limiting beliefs are those beliefs that restrict you in some way. They usually come from your childhood or previous painful experiences.
Best you can do is replace them with more realistic, positive, beneficial beliefs.
Here is the method that I personally use when I find myself trapped by a limiting belief:
- Take a piece of paper and draw two even columns.
- In the left column, write down a list of limiting beliefs — all that you can remember.
For example, money doesn’t grow in trees, any relationship is hard work and suffering, etc. Try to involve all the life aspects: finance, career, family, relationships, health, fun (and any other you find necessary). - Now, in the right column, for each of them write an opposite belief. Try to make them sound energizing and encouraging.
- Read your new beliefs from the right column three times a day (when you wake up, during lunch, and when you go to bed).
After a while, you’ll start feeling the difference. I would love to hear about your experience so don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or contact me directly.🙂
Another good way to work on those is affirmations, which are basically fixing your negative self-talk. Check out my post on affirmations:
87 powerful affirmations for self-love and healing
I also found that taming your inner critics works pretty well when it comes to working on limiting beliefs (inner critics are actually what supports and sometimes even creates the limiting beliefs).
On top of all that, you can try this trick: Observe your thoughts and emotions for a couple of days while interacting with people, and try to see if there is something that annoys you a lot in others.
Ask yourself: Is there anything that other people do that really annoys you for no reason?
Like wearing bright, loud clothes? Or expressing their opinion freely? Or showing off their wealth?
The key is that it might be something that you don’t allow yourself to do.
Work that out, analyze why you are not allowing yourself to do these things (these are more limiting beliefs), and how to allow yourself. Even if you are not going to do them, it’s important to know that you are allowed.
It’s pretty hard to enjoy socializing when you are annoyed with just about every little thing, right?
And then there’s journaling!
Journaling is my FAVORITE tool for literally any kind of inner work. I talk more in detail about journaling in these posts:
An amazing detailed self-love journaling challenge
41 amazing journaling prompts for any creative
♟ Develop self-discipline
I believe that self-discipline is self-love.
I remember, Will Smith recreated his self-talk on camera:
“I know you want that delicious piece of pizza, but I won’t let you eat that pizza, because if you do, you’re going to feel like shit. I love you too much to let you eat that.”
Self-discipline is not about not letting yourself enjoy your life because you hate yourself.
Self-discipline is choosing some uncomfortable restrictions now, to be able to enjoy your life a little later on a much bigger scale.
And the main point here is that the more disciplined you are, the more you respect yourself.
The more you do the things that you said you were going to do, the more respect you have for yourself. Therefore, the more self-love you have for yourself.
And like we already figured from the first point of the list, self-love is exactly what’s crucial to feel comfortable while being around people, interacting with them, and making friends
So really it’s an endless cycle of discipline coming from self-love and self-respect coming from discipline coming from…
By the way, I learned a lot about self-discipline from one of my favorite crafts — writing.
So, do you still hate socializing?
Just kidding.
A change like that doesn’t happen this fast — it’s going to take quite a while.
Be patient, and let’s move on to the next important task:
🎯 Stop worrying about others and focus on yourself
If you are constantly worried about what others think, you might be even making the wrong decisions all the time.
“I love this outfit, but what if everyone thinks that I’m crazy if I wear that? I’ll wear something else, I don’t want any comments.”
Whose decision is that — yours, or everyone’s?
Who is that even actually, everyone? How do you know they are going to think you are crazy? And why does it bother you at all?
Type this in a document in caps lock and hang on the wall:
OTHERS’ OPINIONS ARE NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
Choose your own priorities (and no one else’s) as a guide to action. And follow them unquestioningly.
There are a lot of good thoughts on that in the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert — I highly recommend checking it out if you work in a creative field.
Anyway, have you ever noticed that all the best people come into your life when you just do you, surrender to the flow, and enjoy your life?
That’s the trick.
I have a whole post — one of the longest ones, and probably the most passionate one — on how to stop worrying about others:
How to Stop Worrying About Others and Focus on Yourself
I know how frustrating it is (first-hand) to be letting all that anxiety rule your life and not be able to do anything about it.
I really hope this post will help you because I believe I might have figured out some hacks that work.😉
🙅🏼♂️ Say NO to invitations that you hesitate about
When one of my friends first told me about human design and then read a part of my own to me, there was one thing that I remembered right away and very well.
It was something along the lines of:
When receiving invitations or suggestions, listen to your first reaction.
Listen to your body’s reaction before your brain figures what’s happening.
If your first reaction is “Hmmm…” or “Umm…” or any kind of uncertainty — decline.
Whether you feel hesitant because you don’t really like the person that the invitation was coming from, or the time of the event interferes with your own schedule to some extent, or you know the crowd that is going to be there, and it’s not your favorite one — heed what your body is telling you. It knows best what you need.
If your first reaction is a breathtaking feeling of excitement, a sudden burst of energy, or “Oh wow, yes!” — take it.
(Remember that HELL YES!! otherwise NO rule?)
Obviously, we are not talking about things that you have to do despite resistance to achieve your goals and so on.
Yes, that’s right: You cannot be using this point to fake off from possibilities that are beneficial for your goals.
But it is about choosing to enjoy socializing by sorting out potentially pleasant experiences from the forced unpleasant ones.
📲 Reduce social media time
Now, I know you don’t even want to hear anything about this one, but hear me out.
Social media is the worst trigger when it comes to self-comparison and FOMO.
On top of that, it basically buries your ability to focus on anything.
When you keep looking at other people living their impeccable lives, all perfect and slicked… you can’t help but drag yourself into that self-belittling hole.
And you know what’s the funniest about it?
Is that what those people show on social media is about 20% of their lives!
The rest 80% are the same problems, issues, and struggles, which may be even worse than yours…
Anyways, what I’m trying to say is the more time you spend peeping at someone else’s flashy pictures, the more you’ll feel like:
- your life can never be as fun as theirs,
- they are so perfect (BS) and your life is full of problems,
- they already have so many friends and it’s late for you to even start trying,
So why even hang out with anyone if you are such a lost case?
Right?
👭 Ask friends to introduce you to their friends
From what I ever learned and experienced, the best jobs and the best friends come from… friends.
Reasons why it’s less intimidating and usually works better:
- You might feel more comfortable being around a friend that you know well while getting to know a new person. Therefore, you are more relaxed and open to communication.
- The chances that you’ll get along with your friends’ friends are significantly higher than just with some strangers since you most likely share something in common.
- You are catching two birds with one stone: catching up with friends and socializing (which might not even feel like socializing).
So, arrange a little hang out with close friends in a familiar environment — your favorite bar or coffee shop or even your own living room. Ask them to bring one friend that no one else in the group has met before.
By the way, there is one more tiny tip that helps a lot: try to not call everyone you know your friend.
Save that title for a real one.
When I moved to New York, it was a big surprise for me how here, in America, people refer to a person they met two days ago as a friend.
I got used to it quickly, but until this day every time before calling someone a friend my brain freezes for a second confirming with myself if I actually consider them a friend.
That is because, in my culture, a friend is someone very close and very dear.
Someone who knows your flaws and still loves and supports you.
Someone who you trust.
So when I say friends I mean the real ones.
This post was all about why you hate socializing and what to do about it.
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How To Find Yourself When You Are Lost: Top-9 Tips
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The Only List of Spiritual Practices for a Happier Life You Need (Beginner-Friendly)
