I seem to have rubbish social skills and I really need to do something about it as I'm lonely and I'm not going to be able to bring DS up properly unless I can do something about this. Even DP seems to have lost touch with most of his friends because they don't like me.
I'm finding it very hard to meet people at the moment with whom I have much in common, I think because my life has been very unconventional (I come from a very different background to the way I live now)and because I haven't had many opportunities to meet people recently, which is just making the whole situation worse.
The only friends I do have are people who themselves have really good social skills so they've been able to work round my uselessness.
I don't seem to be very good at making friends in the first place. I feel quite overawed by a lot of people, but I know I come across as being over-confident and very opinionated and a bit intimidating. I think I've learned to be less negative, which has helped a bit, but I don't think I've got much better at the other stuff even though I've been aware of it for a long time.
I would like to find out more about other people, but I find it difficult to ask people about themselves because I feel like I'm prying and I often panic and can't think of anything to say. That said, a lot of people I meet now, I don't find that interesting and I'm not very good at pretending I'm interested.
Quite often I sort of hear myself talking and know that I'm just showing off like a kid about things I've achieved. It turns me off when someone else does this, yet I don't seem to be able to take a step back.