Re: Socializing
If I'm being honest, I feel like a lot of people feel this way to some extent. You can't be compatible with absolutely everybody, and maybe the way you interact with others just isn't sitting well with those around you. Socializing and building a reputation for yourself seems to be this kind of magic. You either can do it, or you can't. Charisma isn't something to be taught.
I've found that in some cases, I get a little lost in my own head as to what to talk about next. I was talking to a girl at a party just a month ago, and she was telling me about how her chapter is involved with guide dogs. Not service dogs, but guide dogs. There were so many things I could've asked or brought up, but my brain was racing too much for me to make a final selection. I awkwardly had to walk away and find my own place in the party.
There were so many times within the past year I thought I was the exception to the rule -- that I couldn't have meaningful relationships with others, and attributed it to my blindness. A lot of my friends go to the big, loud parties. It's far too overstimulating for my taste, and without seeing, you get nothing but temporary hearing loss. I beat myself up for the longest time because I wanted to hang out with people, and those parties gave me an excuse to hang out with them, because I was too nervous to ask to hang out one on one. After opening up to some college friends about it, they completely understood and expressed the same issues in their own lives (maybe not the blindness stuff, but the lack of being able to reach out and interact on a less small-talk level). A close friend of mine actually thought I didn't like her because I would rarely text her or not want to hang out. She went on to explain that she herself had issues with connecting with people, and didn't know how to approach the seemingly daunting task of asking people to hang out.
If there were a piece of advice I'd give, it would be to just keep talking. Ask them how classes are going, what's new with them, if they did anything exciting recently -- just anything you can ask. I usually start with small talk, which is where it usually transforms into something meaningful. This isn't always the case, though. If you cast the line and they don't take the bate, you've done all you can do, and then it becomes an issue of that person not reciprocating. Socializing is such a tricky thing, and I'm still not all too confident in my abilities to have meaningful interactions/relationships with others, even those I encounter on a frequent basis.
Believe me when I say this is all part of being human. The blindness doesn't help, but people in general have a hard time with engaging with others.
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