complex. i use to act like my sense of self has been crafted in allegiance with my supposed social deficits, so i got attached to my loneliness. letting go of that to actually be close to the people i love means abandoning a way i held myself together, which is painful but deeply necessary. i still struggle to be sympathetic to the version of me ive been at my loneliest and most antisocial cuz that person sucked, but i do not this that person sucked cuz of some kind of deficit that was fixed. i found a more or less coherent way of dealing the social world in front of me which left me feeling bad but being functional, which worked until it didn't, and served me usefully until it didn't. i don't want to be so attached to that way of surviving any more.