I constantly flip back and forth between wanting friends and just wanting to remain a loner for a myriad of reasons. But I just recently found out one of my biggest fears about getting closet to people - having to open up.

One of the most important aspects of friendship is being able to share your feelings with people, and I'm afraid of doing that.

Especially being a guy, I don't want anyone to think I'm a lonely, awkward loser. I don't want to appear like a human being with feelings and fears and problems. If I had anyone to confide in, they'd learn that I'm secretly lonely (and I often lie to myself that I'm not lonely, and that I haven't had any friends in years, I have a very hard time maintaining friends and I drift away from everyone because I don't know anything about friendship. I don't want anyone to know that I'm afraid of being judged, and I hate the idea of people finding out who I truly am - a lonely, awkward person.

I want to be a rock. I want everyone to just see me as a "normal guy". I want to appear cool and collected. I'm afraid of emotions, I'm afraid of intimacy, and I'm afraid of revealing myself.

I don't know what to do.

I can't either.

I think you can be friends with people without them really knowing much about all that. A good friend can kind of respect your boundaries and you don't have to talk about things that you don't want to talk about. There's some reward in friendship in openness to be sure, but that doesn't mean you need to spill the details in full because, really, there's not much to gain in doing so. A friend might know I like a lot of alone time. I might decline their offers sometimes because I'm feeling antisocial, as I explain it. People can accept this. A closer friend I might actually explain to them I have a lot of anxiety around people, but it matches more or less the level of knowledge they should have in order to understand and doesn't go further. It's not really all that personal.

I guess there's a difference between my feelings and my judgments of myself or others. I could explain to someone something made me feel really bad about myself but I don't need to share all the specific judgments because I know they're just temporary thoughts I don't really believe in and I don't want other people telling me to not believe in them because I know that already and I got this.

I have the same problem my friends want me to open up on a lot of stuff.

I think the reason you are afraid of being judged is that you believe that you are more "flawed" than everybody else.

When you keep an emotional distance from other people, you never see their vulnerable sides--you only see the "mask" they put on to hide their vulnerabilities from the world. These masks can come in wildly different forms: A person who is always upbeat and positive could be afraid of accepting sadness in their life. A person who constantly surrounds themselves by a lot of people could be afraid of being alone. A person who always talks about doing exciting things could feel that their life is empty otherwise. And so on. The fear of a weakness isn't always the motivation for people to do the things they do, but it's not uncommon.

I'm sure there's a lot of people around you who have the same fears about themselves as you do. They have just learned how to hide it. There are times when it's better to give people the "normal guy", but there are also times when people need the "no-so-together guy".

Yeah I have the same problem. Can't open up cuz of fears due to high standards and perfectionism. Sucks. It's really stressed out hiding everything all the time. You can't really look like a rock to well when you're anything but on the inside.

I don't open up to anyone anymore because I've done this with a few guys and they believe deep conversations equals to being CLOSE FRIENDS when I did not consider them as one. I really don't mean to be mean, but I am not going to lie when it comes to my feelings. Lying is worse than the ugly truth.

I feel the same way. I don't want to open up to people because I don't want them to see how I really am. So I pushed everyone away who got too close. I'm able to put on a guise where I appear extroverted and confident around people I barely know. If I start to open up a bit more about my low self-esteem, people are always surprised. But then I start feeling vulnerable and start thinking that they think I'm a loser, so I drift away.

I've tossed away many potential great friendships because of my irrational fears and I look back and regret my decision to cut so many people off. It's better to give people a chance and see how they react to the real you. If they accept you and treat you the same, then you know you have a great friend. If their reaction is negative, then you can cut them off and move on with life with no regrets. Don't do what I did and shut people out because of fear. I wish I had handled things much differently when I was younger.

Yup. I can't do it. I'm literally paralyzed.

I can't do it either. They just think I'm crazy.

I can't either. I want to connect on deeper levels, and open up but I just can't.
My friends seem to respect that I'm very reserved though.

I feel exactly the same. I have worked so hard from a very young age to appear normal and tough that the thought of revealing any opinion or fact about myself terrifies me. I can't stand being vaulnerable. I've never had a friend that i can talk to about everything, so i'm not used to that. I want friends to talk to about everything, but i just can't open up. I'm too scared that it will backfire and they will use my weakness.

And as a girl, i know that all girls talk about some really personal stuff with eachother. Like really personal. I would never be comfortable with doing that, which would make me a boring prude and no one would want to be friends with me. Girls can be such *****es, i'm too scared anything i open up about will just backstab me.
Guys have never made any effort whatsoever to be friends, or even have a conversation with me, so i can't have a friendship with guys either. I feel stuck.

Not a good idea in this world.
I opened up too much already in this forum, even though that is the purpose of that site.
Shouldn't have done it, feels like a mistake.

I tend to alternate between this and occasionally oversharing, making people feel sorry for me, and then regretting it. I think my problem may be that I have no one to share all my problems and dark thoughts with, and I just think about them over and over to myself, and every once and a while they come bubbling forth. It's irritating because I think I do pretty well maintaining a facade of normalcy, otherwise.

All my most "open" friendships have been online friendships with guys. They all sort of fizzled out, though.

**** it.
Stay your ground.
Not everyone can be a cold hearted cynic that somehow manages to stay mentally healthy while covering up their true personality all the time. I wasn't able to do that, you certainly can't do it, too. It's okay. People who think otherwise are going to go mental sooner or later anyway. Just look at this forum.

It's literally the hardest thing for me. I don't want people to know how much of a loser I really am. I just give safe answers when asked personal questions. I tell people I play video games so they know I'm a loser, but I don't tell them the real extent of my loserness. The truth is, I don't play video games. I play a video game (wow), but spend the vast majority of my time watching porn, on SAS, watching cam girls, or on twitch. The only place I can be open is on here and people think I'm trolling half the time cuz I'm so open lol.

When I open up to people, they take advantage of me, and tell me right from wrong.

If you don't know anything about friendship then how do you know that the most important thing is to share your feelings? Maybe the most important thing is to just have fun. Maybe the most important thing is to have similar interests. Maybe you should stop focusing on what the most important thing is and just try to maintain.

I want people to see me as normal also. But for me it's mainly because that way people wont focus on me. When people focus on me it drives my anxiety crazy and makes me a mess. So I disguise myself the best I can so that I will be left alone to go about my life without interruption. I'm not sure if I want friends. I havent really thought about it all that much. The last person that I considered to maybe be my friend; I told him about some of the stuff I believe and I think it shocked him a bit. It was some heavy stuff he wasn't ready for. He didnt bring up the subject again and I noticed that he was a bit standoffish when I started to.

some people aren't ready.

The goal is to know when to share and with whom to share it.

Well yes, obviously it is.
I'm just saying that you shouldn't open up to most people, much safer than playing a game of roulette.