Wrong friends

Marcus555 wrote:There is something troublesome about this comment. Standing up for yourself shouldn't result in conflict. Not if you are doing it right.

What is missing is people not being used to it. They don't respect my opinion.
I've seen people with respected opinions, they are not argued with even when they are wrong.

Could it be the manner in which you are presenting your opinion?

Do you have any friends or family who you can talk with about this issue? You may benefit from an objective opinion from someone who knows you and has seen you interact with others. There's only so much advice that can be given here without seeing the complete picture.

It's actually over very stupid arguments that the other person knows that they are wrong but they just respect me so little that they think they can win.
I don't think that this is that important, it happens fairly rarely.

Have you ever had a diagnosis?

No, the situation hasn't caused me enough problems for me to go to a doctor. I'm not going to, unless I get into a severe depression or something that could impact my life seriously.
I don't fully match the symptoms of any of the personality disorders directly, avoidant seems close to what I have but it is not that serious.
I also have problems reading social situations, for example people invite me to some event and I turn them down because I don't like the event, and then later it occurs to me that they just wanted to know me better. Things like these make me very sad.
It appears that I'm bad with the whole social dynamics thing and maybe that is causing the low self-esteem.

You don't have to fit neatly into any specific PD categories. I don't. At the very least you sound dysfunctional. I would say you already have problems that are impacting your life seriously. Posting online can only get you so far, especially if you've never been to see a mental health professional. Try a therapist. Some counseling of some kind. You could be surprised at the outcome.

Honestly, I don't know...
It's like somehow I'm really bad at social situations. I always look weird. This is one of the sources of my low self-esteem. I either do something out of place or say something out of place, or just look weird. It's always something very small but it stands out. For example, saying "have a nice day" instead of "goodnight" at 20:00 when it is accepted to say "goodnight". Then I spend the next few days analyzing what I did and thinking how people now perceive me as stupid and now hate me, and how I've ruined any future chances for developing a friendship with them.

eofix wrote:I'm putting extra effort to stand up for myself but people are not used to it and I just get into conflicts.

I think I understand this.

I generally won't stand up for myself and avoid all conflict at all cost. But when I do try to make an effort I think I go about it in a way that's over the top and full of frustration and it never goes well. It's hard to gauge, simply because I don't trust my own assessment of myself, but I assume that's what's happening. But what I feel like is that when other people stand up for themselves they're respected. And, when I do it, I'm viewed as difficult and all sorts of other colorful names.

Bingo! For me, I find that the recognition factor is one of the key things that I am missing in my social makeup. When I was little, there were kids who wanted to be my friend, but I was totally clueless, and didn't know how to follow up any of the social cues that came my way. Then, as I got a bit older, I got a little bit better at it, but ended up letting many incompatible types of people in my life because I honestly didn't know that they were incompatible for me. Now, that I'm in my early 50's, I am still working on trying to recognize what a good friend is vs. a bad friend. It doesn't come naturally to me, but I am slowly beginning to see a difference in how I feel internally when I am with a more compatible friend vs. one that is just not right for me.

Marcus555 wrote: Making friends is not about finding them, but recognizing them.
^ Whoa. Did that come out of me? damn, maybe there's hope for me after all.

A problem I have is that a lot of people openly hate me, often for no apparent reason, at least not apparent to me.
I was able to identify one of the things I do that cause this:
In group situations I tend to socialize with people that respond to me well and then completely ignore the other part of the group, which leads over time to them strongly disliking me.
I've been trying to fix that, but I've been trying to identifying other things I do that might cause people to hate me, but often I have no idea.
Do "regular" people experience this ?