Addiction

I was supposed to leave here at about noon today, perhaps a little earlier. Instead, it's now 7:15 PM and I'm still sitting in Carlisle, PA. I've blown off work for a day, putting me in a position where I have to drive all night (with a two hour nap, or less) to make a delivery. And for what? I hesitate to describe it as merely being addicted to the Internet, though it's possible that's all the problem is, but I have a different hypothesis.

I'm addicted to people.

Even before I took this job, in which my level of human contact is nearly nothing, I spent very little time with people. It proved to be impossible to get a group of furs together in Pensacola to go out and do anything or even to just come over and hang out. Online, I keep trying to find people to talk with, though since I have so little experience actually interacting with others I constantly worry about screwing something up, pissing someone off, and not even knowing what I've done wrong to make someone ignore me. Even if I'm not on a messenger (like now), I end up regularly browsing various social news and other similar sites, mostly for the various comments sections.

I only wish I could figure out some sort of productive course of action. Obviously, not getting online would be the simplest answer, but then I wouldn't have any interaction with people at all, since I have to use the web to set up even my few offline meetings with people. I'd just have my phone and the three or four people that call me once in a while. I ended up taking down the "call me" button because, out of the months it was up here, just one person used it and it was someone who'd gotten a new phone and couldn't find my old number. Another obvious solution is just spending less time online, but self-control and moderation are two things that I'm severely lacking in. I know that these are all things I should probably talk to a psychologist about - and I'll probably show one this post if I ever do see one - since I truly have no idea how to handle it.

Were it not so late, I'd probably write something a bit more eloquent, but I've taken half an hour just to type up this much. I need to get a nap in before I go driving tonight.

Anxiety

One thing that I really, really dislike doing is interacting in real-life with people I don't know. Why? Because even in the simplest of situations, I can't seem to figure out how to not piss people off. Take, for example, checking in at the warehouse here. This place requires drivers to check in on the CB radio. I hate using the radio. It took me five minutes just to get up the nerve to try paging the guard once, then I never got a response. Several other drivers checked in after that without a problem. I tried again, didn't get a response, then repeated myself as other drivers had, only to get a snappy "Hold on a minute" instead of the polite responses that the other drivers had received when they did the same thing. At this point, I was shaking in the seat; I really, really do not handle that sort of thing well.

I'm checked in now, but I'm still twitching as I type this, ten minutes later. -_-