Welcome to the forums.

There's no easy answer to your question. I think we all have our own insecurities. But we can work on them, cope, overcome. If your user name means something, and it means what I think it means, you might want to slack off on those particular influences for a while.

I'm not looking for an answer, I'm looking for a discussion that can hopefully keep me amused for awhile, Didymos Thomas thanks for the reply kept it short to the point and gave me something to read

But seriously why do you think I'm cursed to over-analyze people to the point of taking offense to harmless gestures?

and sorry if my name offended you somehow.

Oh, the name doesn't offend me at all. Actually, I'm sympathetic to the cause, so to speak.

Do you feel like you over-analyze other people, or yourself?

I know a guy who has social anxiety disorder. He's just critical of other people, and as such he doesn't like crowds and being away from home where he would have to be around people. But he's not nostalgic, and there's nothing wrong with him.

I find that everybody here is nice, nobody really hates anybody else here.

The answer to your question lies in the brain, but I'm not the one to go into detail. Sorry.

It's all about balance. There's some people who are hyper-aware of others around them and observations of human behaviour, then there are people completely oblivious and of course a whole scale of people in between.

They all have strengths and weaknesses. Someone who is very observant and critical of others is going to end up being critical of themself because they often think everyone else scrutinizes people in the same way as they do, which obviously isn't true. But they'll also be more acutely aware of changes in others demeanour and react better to shifts in social flow. The poeple who are oblivious often have a high self-esteem or ****yness (rhymes with rockyness) - because they don't observe or be critical of others, they don't do the same to themself. However, this has it's drawbacks too as these people will often be blunt or offensive to others, or not have much consideration regarding the impact of their actions and words. They're also less likely to be able to change their behaviour when it's bad, because they're less aware of it.

In my opinion, you always have to look & strive for balance in your surroundings and in yourself.

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

Just as an aside, 13% of the american population has social anxiety disorder, according to a friend I know who has it.

I think it has to do with how thinking works. If thinking relies on logic rather than emotion we can come to rational conclusions about others, but with emotions getting in the way, being overly critical and comparative to others and oneself, one can come to irrational conclusions of situations.

For example, an emotion may be shyness and cautiousness(I think thats an emotion), which in turn evokes skepticism in a situation. But since it was the emotion that influenced the skepticism there is better chance for irrational conclusions of others. If logic were to be of majority influence in the skepticism then rational conclusions can be reached, and therefore logical reactions to a situation.

If perhaps somebody were to read the statistic of 13% one may have emotion of oppression come to the irrational conclusion that the person meant 13% a joke because 13 is an unlucky number. But simply not having emotion be of majority influence would allow for logic to make the logical influence that the intention of the stat was to make anybody who is critical of others feel welcome knowing that it is like the most diagnosed disorder out there.