I've known it for a while, but just how messed up I am hasn't come to light until recently. I grew up with some parents who had some odd ideas about how to raise me. They're not the worst, but they didn't do a great job beyond I graduated high school and haven't majorly screwed up my life as of yet. I went to private school until I was 15, so I never really had any close friends when I was growing up that I saw outside of school. These things factor in a bit to how I act now.

My current problems are:

• Up until recently (literally less than a month) I couldn't get an interest in anyone of the opposite sex romantically. When I girls the first thing I do is I look for as many flaws in them as I can find and use it as an excuse to never get to know them better.
• The above has changed for the first time when (long story short) met a girl from the internet. I like her a lot, but I can't seem to ever put that in to words that don't sound stupid or make a move on her, due to a horribly large fear of rejection (this extends beyond my romantic life, I've actually not gone to job interviews just because I was too worried that I wouldn't get the job)
• I'm a huge self defeatist. Probably one of the biggest anyone has ever had the (dis)pleasure of speaking to.
• I only hit emotional highs and lows. I never have a happy medium. MWF (the days I work) I'm typically pretty happy to be at work doing something I enjoy. T/Th I sit at home (often by myself, as I only have a handful of friends off the internet) and pick out flaws in myself. Note that today is Thursday.
• I find it really hard to build meaningful relationships with people due to being hurt by most of the people I trusted in the past. I confided in someone a few months back that I have a huge inferiority complex, mostly towards my best friend, and how I'm really jealous that everyone likes him a lot more than they like me. When we saw him later that night, she started having a talk with him about some issues in her life that she chose not to share with me, and promptly ignored me for roughly 2 1/2 hours. She then got a ride home from me and pretended that nothing had happened.
• I've only had one real girlfriend ever, and that was one of those (usually) horrible relationship from a friendship cases. We dated for 3 years, and she lived with me during part of that. When we broke up she started dating someone I thought was my friend in under 48 hours. I don't think I've ever really gotten over it.

These are just a couple of the bigger ones. I can't really talk to people about these in person, because I always get the feeling that they pity me afterward. Any advice or criticism would be great, or even just knowing that there are people out there who can relate to me some.

No offense, but you sound like a pussy. Stop being so laxidasical, get off your ass, and go fight till your on top. Problem solved.

aww. im sorry to hear this how you are. But i ensure you, its not the worse case.. just start opening up to more people and care less about things, it will work..
and im sure you will get some awesome help advice from here.
Good luck op :)

>>1 From what you write, it seems that you are currently suffering from a bout of depression, probably triggered by the negative impact your sociophobia is having on your life. You present all the symptoms of depression: 1) extreme inwards, egocentric attention: spending days at home picking flaws on yourself, instead of for instance enjoying a walk outside or participating in some group activity, 2) selective negative attention: you tend to remember the negative and neglect the positive in the experiences you go through, as for instance in the case of the long relationship you had with your previous girlfriend. 3) tendency to overgeneralize: because you had some negative experiences in your relationships you misguidedly conclude that relationships don't work for you (although if one talked to you or other witnesses one could come up with plenty of positive experiences). 4) your emotional state is affecting your life (for instance preventing you from finding a job, and establishing healthy relationships).

Fortunately for you, depression is presently one of the most treatable mental conditions there is, so you are actually lucky in your misfortune. So I think that if you get to a stage where you can't get out of your home, fear so much social contact that you avoid it all costs, it would be a smart move to check two or three professionals to see if they can help you. You may or may not need medication, depending on how your mood and motivation problems are blocking your daily life, but the goal would be to stabilize things enough that you can go out and actually start solving your problems, which include sociophobia, and low self-esteem.

Regarding your sociophobia, you seem to have developed a typical and effective but ultimately very damaging defense mechanism: imposing preemptive failure in order to avoid the source of fear (girls suck, so I don't need to bother risking rejection, no point in going to job interviews, since I will fail anyway). The only way to address your sociophobia, as is the case for all phobias, is to gradually increase exposure: go meet those girls. Even if they suck in certain ways, learn to identify their positive sides. This can even become a pleasant entertainment: you tend to brood a lot about yourself, brood a bit more, and in an optimistic way about the others. Answer the question: what are their positive sides? Everybody has some, the harder it is, the more interesting the challenge. On that topic, pay attention not to use the internet as a way to let yourself avoid actual social contact. It's great that you make friends online, but make sure you also make them offline, or at least convert online relationships into offline ones. Otherwise you will just go on idealizing comfortably other people while avoiding the hard work of actually dealing with them IRL.

(continued) As for the job hunt, relax about it, and look at it in a more playful way: let's say you allow yourself to fail at interviews for the next six months (chose a period which is comfortable for you). During this time you go to the interviews (do pick interviews for jobs that actually interest you), and just use them as practice runs. Don't sweat if you fail, pay attention to what is not working, but more importantly to what is working, and how you can improve it. In this way at the end of the six months you will have a much better view on how to succeed at interviews, and can go for it.

You also need to address your low self-esteem issue. Things will improve when you get more proficient at meeting others, but always be mindful that you have an intrinsic tendency to obsess about the negative, and neglect the positive. And this is terrible. It's often much more important to notice the positive before everyone else than to brood about the negative. That's how people seize the chances that come within their reach. So train/force yourself to identify positive things that happen to you, things that people do for you, things that you did well, etc. Even if it's not perfect, do mind them, because it's those positive things what you need to work on and improve.

In regards to your parents impact on who you are and your current problems, don't fall into that trap. Your parents may or may not be partially involved in your current problems (although some people develop fine despite terrible parenting), it does not really matter. What counts is that now your future depends on yourself, and it's up to you to build it with your own hands. Blaming your parents is just using a convenient excuse for staying inactive (it's not my fault, so I can't do anything about it).

Finally don't forget that depression is cyclic, so even when things will get better (and they will anyway, because these conditions are cyclic), expect a relapse and prepare for it: if you notice that you are becoming again more inwardly directed, socially withdrawn, and catch yourself selecting the negative and neglecting the positive, grossly overgeneralizing negative stuff, then ring the alarm bell and get ready to force yourself to actively focus on the positive, force yourself to be more sociable. If you can't make it on your own, don't hesitate to reach again for professional help. In time you will gain enough experience on how your emotions work, and will become more autonomous. But as long as it does not work, don't let it wreck your life by not looking for help.

I would suggest seeing a therapist for Bi-Polar syndrome, but changing on a day to day basis isn't consistent.

Sigh, you're an idiot like me. Here's a few tips...
1)Stop being so selfish, there's at least a billion people far worse off than you.
2)Stop being so lazy. If you're going to spend so much time just staring at your own flaws, try actually working to improve yourself.
3)Stop thinking less of others for their flaws, if they're kind, sincere people. If they have a good heart, then you've no damn reason to think any less of them.
I hope that helps. By the way, if you'd like a fellow idiot to talk to, I could give you my email ^-^