anti-social saturday

I'm procrastinating on getting started with my day (yes, it's 2pm and I'm still in my pyjamas, although, at least I've been up and sat around chatting with housemates a bit and hung up the wall hanging my friend got me from Singapore 6 months ago). I think it's because I'm secretly trying to sabotage my social plans for the day. Some fellow C'landers are going to a C'landian event at a pub and I said I might join them for a bit and I also signed up to go to dinner at a professor's house for recruitment. If I delay going to lab long enough, though, I won't have time for the pub and I'll miss the bus to dinner.

I like the C'landians, but I always feel out of place, because they're all far more extroverted and much more into drinking and they're all a cohesive group and I only tag along occasionally. It doesn't help that this event will be at a pub. I signed up for the dinner thinking I would get to see some of my classmates for a change, but I've since found out that they're all skipping it. At least, the ones I really want to see are skipping. I suppose there could be other people I like there, but if I go I'm trapped for the entire 3 hours, plus a half hour bus trip each way.

I read a fair bit of this site about how to succeed socially today, so I'm feeling even worse about my anti-social tendencies. There were a number of sections that made me feel like I'm just making excuses and wasting opportunities to make friends, but I'm not sure forcing myself to do social things I feel like avoiding is that productive, either.

I did watch a movie with housemates last night, and hang out for quite a while afterwards, talking. And I have plans to go ice skating tomorrow and am going to call someone to arrange to see a movie, and I'm having dinner with the classmates I wanted to see tonight on Friday. So I'm not being completely anti-social.

The reasons I want to avoid these events are definitely anxiety-based, which makes them seem less worthwhile. On the other hand, the people in my class aren't going to dinner because they just don't want to, so why isn't that a good enough excuse for me? I assume that any time I don't enjoy something social it's because of my anxiety and lack of social skills and therefore I should take every opportunity to practise. And now I'm letting it ruin my whole day instead of just accepting I'm not going and doing something actually enjoyable...