Everybody already thinking about an AvPD meeting

no, it'snot a bad idea for a gathering of socially awkward people. if you never met with another one like you, you will not understand. actually what happens when you meet another avies, you lose that barrier and you become more open. you finally met person like you, what should you be afraid of? judgment? you can get lots of understanding, so how is that strange in any sense?

HopelessRomantic wrote:no, it'snot a bad idea for a gathering of socially awkward people. if you never met with another one like you, you will not understand. actually what happens when you meet another avies, you lose that barrier and you become more open. you finally met person like you, what should you be afraid of? judgment? you can get lots of understanding, so how is that strange in any sense?

There's a big difference between "socially awkward people" and those with Avoidant Personality Disorder.

The problem is that what looks good on paper just doesn't work in real life.

Have you talked on the phone with another avoidant? Skyped? It's not easy, even instant messaging where you can edit everything before you send it. The problem is that Person A is unsure and unconfident about what to talk about, and Person B picks up on the unease and thinks it'a about them.

In person, the effect would be even greater. Just because you're thinking, "this person is just like me, they won't judge me," you can't turn that off. Not if you're actually avoidant.

What would happen is, a non-avoidant or two (probably a borderline, they find avoidants irresistible) would show up and take the conversation over. They would see themselves the heroes of the moment, that they make it easy for avoidants to talk and participate, when in fact they would be getting a massive attention hit and would take over all conversations. Seeing themselves as "facilitators," they wouldn't let anyone else get a word in edgewise.

Think it through. You know that's what would happen if anything like this actually took place.

HopelessRomantic wrote:no, it'snot a bad idea for a gathering of socially awkward people. if you never met with another one like you, you will not understand. actually what happens when you meet another avies, you lose that barrier and you become more open. you finally met person like you, what should you be afraid of? judgment? you can get lots of understanding, so how is that strange in any sense?

HP, I tried it once. There wasn't any group for people like that in my city. There was one but it was for mistrated women.
So, I wrote a post in an Spanish forum to make a group. I recived e-mails but I never dare to give the following step.

Not so many time ago, someone suggested to use Facebook and camera instant conversation. I reject it.
The only places I have a contact with people is in this kind of forums.
I used the phone for the first time with my partner after some months of writing with him and I tried to avoid it but he insisted a lot.

Inverse, I am not talking about any cluster B people here who care for you to get adminiration they need. I stopped admiring them when I discovered that these people just need that admiration for surviving and they will do anything to get it. I value people who are genuine, so when I discover fakeness I freak out and don't like the eprson anymore. I knew this avoidant guy who was just like me, and I felt some kind of peace with him, but he also scared me with his issues. I think that I will always love him. But I guess two avoidants can't be together unless they put lots of effort into it, but who wants to do it in real life.

Quite how this notion came to anyone with AvPD is beyond me.
It would quite a disaster, I think. That's if anyone turned up that is.

SSDD-247 wrote:Quite how this notion came to anyone with AvPD is beyond me.
It would quite a disaster, I think. That's if anyone turned up that is.

*mod edit*

HopelessRomantic wrote:Inverse, I am not talking about any cluster B people here who care for you to get adminiration they need. I stopped admiring them when I discovered that these people just need that admiration for surviving and they will do anything to get it. I value people who are genuine, so when I discover fakeness I freak out and don't like the eprson anymore. I knew this avoidant guy who was just like me, and I felt some kind of peace with him, but he also scared me with his issues. I think that I will always love him. But I guess two avoidants can't be together unless they put lots of effort into it, but who wants to do it in real life.

I think two avoidants can be together, but they have to be exceptionally patient with each other. It takes massive effort to tolerate anyone if you're avoidant, a huge commitment to being okay with being outside your comfort zone. The benefit of two avoidants is that the jagged edges match up.

If you have two avoidants with attachment issues, and one needs to have a break, the pain of abandoning someone is aligned by the fear of being abandoned in the other. Then when they can reconnect, it seals right back up again. Oppose that to an abandonment/dependent combination, which will never work out. The dependent person will dig trenches into the abandonment issues the other has, and when they get back together, the dependent person will be all patched up, but he abandonment person will still be in shreds. That's the thing you're talking about.

However, this is completely off topic. It's a huge leap to go from two avoidant people trying to negotiate between each other, and a group of avoidant people who have the fleetingest impressions of each other getting together in a group setting. In my experience, avoidants do better the fewer the people are involved. One on one, okay, three people is a crowd, any more than that is sheer terror.

I, too, value authenticity. What's scary is when someone has no idea what their personal identity is, so they are flitting around, latching onto people, pretending they are whatever they see in someone else, every other day they are a new person, fickle and unstable. Like the woman in Runaway Bride who insisted she liked her eggs cooked the same way whoever she was dating had them and had no idea what her favorite variation actually was. Those people aren't faking it, not consciously anyway, because they just have no clue what they are doing. Not faking it is different from being authentic. Go ahead and push your standards up a notch. Look for truly authentic people to hang around with.

inverse wrote:

SSDD-247 wrote:Quite how this notion came to anyone with AvPD is beyond me.
It would quite a disaster, I think. That's if anyone turned up that is.

*mod edit*

Can't imagine what they were thinking posting such a thing on this board.

SSDD-247 wrote:

inverse wrote:

SSDD-247 wrote:Quite how this notion came to anyone with AvPD is beyond me.
It would quite a disaster, I think. That's if anyone turned up that is.

*mod edit*

Can't imagine what they were thinking posting such a thing on this board.

*mod edit*

As we've wandered off topic and starting to argue, this one's being locked.

Lily