There's got to be something fundamentally wrong with me.

I've never had a problem meeting people and making "friendly acquaintances." <--I can't call them friends. I reserve that for the few people for whom I let down my guard and really let in, KWIM?

Anyway, so me: extroverted, funny (at least that's what "they" say), I can get along with and talk to anyone from any group at least on a superficial level. At the end of the day, however, I can be in a room full of supposed "friends," and feel not only completely alone (understandable because we're all essentially alone) but lonely.

I suppose it is partly my fault because I only let people see so much of me. I deal myself out in measured doses. I'm a bit of a control freak, letting people see "this" but not "that," and only on my own terms. Now it's come back to bite me in the ass because I have no real life support system other than my therapist, and I pay her to care.

This behavior of only letting people in my cold degrees is ingrained by 30+ years. I don't know if I'm really capable of changing it radically. Even if I do start to re-engage with life outside of my laptop, I'm afraid that all I'll have are the superficial relationships which I've always dealt with. It's ironic: I'm more forthcoming with relative strangers on the internet than with people I ever might actually meet.

Everyone builds walls around themselves... it's a protective measure, and it prevents us from being hurt.

All communications with other people are built on how much we trust them. As trust is gained, we lower some of those barriers, letting people see more of our true selves. It doesn't matter how open someone is; it would be an odd person who divulged their inner most self to someone whom they have just met.

Basically, I'm trying to say that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you! Letting someone get close to us also gives them the power to hurt us if they are unworthy of that trust. Since I suspect that you feel you should be more open, then try revealing more of yourself to those whom you feel deserve such trust, and never worry about what other people think about you.

Don't be so hard on yourself. Some of us need that bridge to interact with humans again.
well...at least I do.lol