Reminded me of a situation I met yesterday, when I went to the store to buy something.
The guys in the store know me because I go there every so often. We don't exchange much, but they do address me as they would most people their age, even though I'm probably some 10 years older than them.
Anyway, there was a sign on the door and I intended to make a joke based on a double meaning of the word. I already knew it would fail awkwardly, and yet I did anyway, because it's better to try and fail than not to try at all... right?
Predictably, it failed. I blame it on the execution, and yet, everything went exactly as expected. Not as planned, but as expected. The interaction was awkward, the joke fell flat, and though the guy understood what I ended up meaning, he didn't seem to get that I was trying to make a joke..... sigh....
Yeah, I'm not a social person, and though in my younger days I managed to "mingle" more or less successfully, those days are long gone.
So I stay at home, and I avoid interaction as much as possible.
I have friends in the city whom I visit about once a year (recently I got to see them about three times in a few months, after two years of none at all.) With them I manage to interact somewhat smoothly, though with some of them interactions are sometimes still awkward.
Add to that the fact that I have virtually ended all online interactions, for a variety of reasons. I'm becoming something of a hermit.
I've, too, made progress, despite all of this. I was a lot more socially awkward and anxious. But I've been trying to get better at smalltalk, if anything. Yeah, I don't have much common ground with most people and I am not good at the kinds of communication that I often see going between them. So I either say something trivial or nothing at all. At least, I try not to stay completely silent. If it turns out there isn't any kind of mutual understanding, I substract myself from the conversation, there is no point wasting my time trying to make friends with people I don't care about.
~bartender... I'll have a cold ginger beer, please.