My AvPD Diary

I got back from my two-mile walk feeding the ducks and swans to an odd voicemail from the bloke I met twice from up North.

I’d already blocked him, but my phone has the irritating feature where blocked people can still leave voicemail messages. Whoever designed that clearly enjoys drama. Still, I suppose it’s nice in a strange way. It’s reassuring to know that even someone with slightly stalkerish tendencies is thinking of me.

The message started with a woman saying my name in a little sing-song voice before giggling. Classy. Then my ex-friend chuckled and said he’d obviously realised I’d blocked him, which was “a shame” and “not good.” He added that if I wanted to get in touch, I should, but he’d understand if I didn’t.

I’m passing.

The whole thing felt like I was supposed to be the punchline to some private joke. It also seemed carefully designed to make me feel a bit jealous. How childish. And how embarrassingly obvious.

It unsettled me enough that I left my friend – the one I hadn’t seen for ten years and who got back in touch with me a few months ago – three voicenotes about it.

She isn’t online all the time, so she replied the next day to say she had a friend coming over and would answer me “later.”

“Later” turned out to be the following day.

My brain immediately translated that as: Rejection detected.

When she finally replied, she was laughing at my dramatic voicenotes about how tempted I was to respond to Mr Desperado. I know she was probably just busy, but part of me still thought she could have replied the day before. Am I being unreasonable? With Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, it’s sometimes impossible to know.

Naturally, my tiny act of revenge was to react to her messages with appropriate emojis and then not reply. It’s now four days later and we haven’t communicated since.

Apart from a sentence here and there to some shop assistants and saying hello to people while I’m out feeding the wildlife, I’ve spoken to exactly one other person this week.

I was putting the bins out when one of my neighbour’s sons, who’s in his late twenties, came outside smiling.

My first thought was, oh you’re good looking, pity you’re not 30 years older – my second thought was, oh no. A conversation.

So I just asked, “It’s blue bins this week, isn’t it?”

He laughed and said he hoped so.

I have this habit of acting cool, aloof, and possibly just a bit miserable. It’s a defence mechanism. If I say something funny and nobody laughs hysterically or tells me I’m adorable, I’ll immediately conclude that I’m completely worthless. So, with a slight frown, I simply replied, “Oh well, we’ll find out tomorrow.”

Silence followed. Rejection. Still, it wasn’t as bad as being the one who’d made the effort to start the conversation only to get very little in return, leaving me feeling abandoned and disliked.

I’m wondering what I’m going to do come autumn. I’ve almost finished decorating my lovely social housing bungalow, which has kept me busy. But then what?

Every day is much the same. I get up, drink coffee, do the housework, go for a two-mile walk, watch and read things, nip to the supermarket, and that’s about it.

I’m thinking of going back to my doctor and asking about Schema Therapy, which apparently is showing promising results for people with AvPD. But I feel beyond help, and I’m not even sure I’d want real-life relationships anyway. Conversation is so dull. I also wonder why I can’t just do it on my own – therapy can only do so much. I need to think about it.

I also started chatting to a woman on a forum. We exchanged about two messages before – horror of horrors – she tried calling me on Facebook.

What the hell?

I did actually try to answer, but thankfully my microphone wasn’t working. A genuine technological miracle.

So we switched to voicenotes instead. She has some difficulties that make it hard for her to speak completely coherently. “Blimey,” I thought, “someone who makes me sound articulate.”

I started to lose interest in our chats but then told myself I should at least give it a proper chance, so I sent her a two minute voicenote (hers were about the same length), but by the following afternoon when she hadn’t replied, I blocked her in a strop.

My online friend, whom I’ve never met, has just replied to my email. For the third time – in response to her emails to me – I asked whether she’d had any spiders in her house. For the third time, she completely ignored the question. Clearly, the only sensible response is for me to go silent as her punishment until she answers it.