I have such a problem socializing.

Although it seems I can be so wordy online, I have such a problem truly socializing in any context. My natural response to friend requests is that of extreme caution. I often ignore everyone who comes my way, and I can't figure out why.

Maybe it's just because I don't want to get hurt. Why would I be so afraid of that? Who could really hurt me online?

Maybe it's because I don't want to let anyone down. But how does that fit with the fact that I let people down all the time? I'll constantly say I'll be somewhere, then not show up. Why?

Am I that supremely delicate, that I can't take the kinds of bruises everyone else seems to live through online?

I understand not being able to socialize in real life; I've had 25 years to get comfortable with that particular quirk. I can't talk to most people, male or female, in any kind of normal fashion most of the time. I'll get so anxious that I mutter nonsense syllables in place of English, then beat a hasty retreat, leaving my would-be conversant there in a confused haze. "That guy is just weird. He's so quiet!"

And I am quiet, but not around my wife, the only person I really trust in this whole world. She remarks all the time how she'd love for people to see how I really am, how I am around her; she says they're missing out. So sweet of her. :)

But that's not what puzzles me, there are plenty of shy people in this world. What really gets to me is my total inability to make any kind of tie with anyone else online, in this vast, anonymous bastion of randomness. No one knows who I am, no one cares who I am, yet I keep my online identity squeezed so close to my chest that my figurative arms are going numb. And I've been like this for a long, long time.

There has to be a balance between accepting every friend request (in whatever form) and where I am now.

It's just funny to me, that someone who aches for people to remember him as badly as I do to so effectively and completely shun every attempt at contact.

I'll make a pact with myself right now: if anyone does start to notice me in any real context, I won't retreat, I'll throw myself out to them. If I ever to procure any kind of fanbase (cherish the thought), they'll get every opportunity I can give them to reach me personally. I want to be responding to forum threads, I want to email people back, I want to do online chat sessions (even rediculous, sponsored ones).

Here I am at 25, and I want people to listen. But I don't know anymore what I'd say.