To me, this doesn’t sound related to “anxiety” per se, instead it sounds like you react very strongly to negative situations (especially negative social situations) and thus go out of your way to avoid even a small chance of encountering such a situation. I’m definitely like that (to some extent). I sometimes call it “neuroticism”, although the term “neuroticism” is not great either, it encompasses lots of different things, not all of which describe me.
Like, imagine there’s an Activity X (say, inviting an acquaintance to dinner), and it involves “carrots” (something can go well and that feels rewarding), and also “sticks” (something can go badly and that feels unpleasant). For some people, their psychological makeup is such that the sticks are always especially painful (they have sharp thorns, so to speak). Those people will (quite reasonably) choose not to partake in Activity X, even if most other people would, at least on the margin. This is very sensible, it’s just cost-benefit analysis. It needn’t have anything to do with “anxiety”. It can feel like “no thanks, I don’t like Activity X so I choose not to do it”.
(Sorry if I’m way off-base, you can tell me if this doesn’t resonate with your experience.)
To me, this doesn’t sound related to “anxiety” per se, instead it sounds like you react very strongly to negative situations (especially negative social situations) and thus go out of your way to avoid even a small chance of encountering such a situation. I’m definitely like that (to some extent). I sometimes call it “neuroticism”, although the term “neuroticism” is not great either, it encompasses lots of different things, not all of which describe me.
Like, imagine there’s an Activity X (say, inviting an acquaintance to dinner), and it involves “carrots” (something can go well and that feels rewarding), and also “sticks” (something can go badly and that feels unpleasant). For some people, their psychological makeup is such that the sticks are always especially painful (they have sharp thorns, so to speak). Those people will (quite reasonably) choose not to partake in Activity X, even if most other people would, at least on the margin. This is very sensible, it’s just cost-benefit analysis. It needn’t have anything to do with “anxiety”. It can feel like “no thanks, I don’t like Activity X so I choose not to do it”.
(Sorry if I’m way off-base, you can tell me if this doesn’t resonate with your experience.)
(semi-related)