URGENT HELP NEEDED! Long-time recluse [M/25] with severe social anxiety going on a date today...for the first time in 6 years. Advice/help much needed!

Alright Reddit, major help needed here pronto.

Here's the deal: I'm a 25 year old male with some rather severe anxiety disorders. I was diagnosed with social anxiety 12+ years ago and have lived with varying degrees of it ever since, but after a long-term relationship ended suddenly and harshly about 6 years ago I've basically become a recluse, isolating myself from everyone and almost never hanging out with friends, going out on dates etc. Not surprisingly, 6 years of nonstop social isolation made my anxiety significantly worse and it built up to the extreme and constant level it's at now.

Now that you've got the history, here's the current situation, and the one I desperately need help/advice with. About a month ago a girl in my area found me online, seems really into me, is extremely eager to meet up ASAP. She's my age, sweet, attractive, seems to share a lot of my interests. I live about 30 minutes from her but have been making excuses for the past month as to why we can't hang out (she knows I have some anxiety, but I haven't admitted the full extent of it to her). Except, unlike in the past when people have tried to hang out or go on dates with me, this time I've actually planned to really meet her at some point, when I'm ready (or even half-way ready), both because I like her and because I really want to try and overcome my anxiety. But I'm not ready yet...I'm still a nervous wreck, have panic attacks even when I'm alone in my room with nothing but my own thoughts to trigger them, and I'm just as terrified as ever at the prospect of meeting up with this girl.

So here's the big, pressing issue...last night she wanted to call me and talk to me for the first time (I hate talking on the phone and am almost as scared of it as IRL conversation) so, just to prepare for that I took a fair amount of anti-anxiety meds and when I was still nervous I added a bunch of alcohol into the mix to try and calm my nerves even more. Pathetically I still didn't have the guts to talk to her on the phone after all that and made up some excuse about not having minutes on my phone, but since she was really upset about this and I felt awful and guilty, in my drunken/drugged stupor I promised her I'd make it up to her by meeting up with her today, pinky swear, no backing out etc etc.

So now it is the morning and I am sober and she is texting me wanting to know when we're going to meet up today and I am in full panic mode. I can't make another excuse or just disappear (can I?) so I have no idea how I'm gonna make this work.

My biggest concerns:

  1. Meeting up with her and having an anxiety attack...we're talking sweating, shaking, stuttering, maybe even vomiting. This thought terrifies me.

  2. Conversation. I'm okay with conversation via text, IM, e-mail etc, but over the phone or in real life, forget about it. I foresee many awkward silences and me not know wtf to say, or being too afraid to say something, or saying something ridiculous and inappropriate instead.

  3. She wants to meet up at her place. She has 8 roommates. So now I'm not just dealing with 1 person, I'm dealing with 1 girl I barely know and 7 total strangers. And it wouldn't be just one person witnessing my awkwardness and/or meltdown, it would be 8.

  4. Judging by her voicemails and e-mails, she's almost certainly going to ask me to stay the night. This makes me even more uncomfortable because it is impossible for me to sleep anywhere other than my own bed (another dumb anxiety trait) and awkwardly laying next to her all night wide awake sounds terrible.

  5. Speaking of spending the night...sex. She probably wants that to happen. She definitely wants something to happen. I have a perfectly healthy libido, an overactive one really, but it always takes second place to my anxiety. About 5 years back I did something WAY out of character and forced myself to go meet with a girl at a hotel...she was really into me and had been for a while, I was super excited about it on the way, but when I pulled into the parking lot dread washed over me and it was nonstop anxiety from then on. I was nervous as hell when we met, tried to pretend I wasn't, and before I knew it she was all over me. Long story short, she took off my pants and what should have been awesome was mind-numbingly embarrassing since my anxiety was so overwhelming that getting an erection was just about impossible. I'd had one the entire day just thinking about it, but when it came time..."NOPE." I had zero problems with this in my first few relationships (before the anxiety got bad) but that was mostly because I was familiar with them and felt comfortable around them. Although I like this girl, I don't really know her that well yet and it would probably take a LOT for me to be truly comfortable around her or anyone else at this point, and until that happens I'm almost positive I won't be able to perform sexually in any way...and if the time comes, I have no idea what to do. As a girl it would be pretty easy..."no, I'm not ready yet" or something along those lines, but coming from a guy this sounds ridiculous and would make me even more uncomfortable about the whole thing and all interactions from that point on.

So far the only solutions I can think of for these 5 concerns are...(1.) Anti-anxiety meds...but those make me stupid, slow, and would really fuck up the second issue (conversation) since they turn all the creative parts of my mind to mush while they're working. Other than that, no idea. (2.) No idea (3.) Somehow convincing her to meet up somewhere else (?) (4.) Somehow convincing her to not stay the night (?) (5.) No idea

Can anyone offer any help? Either help with the 5 things or just for this whole situation in general. I'm not unintelligent, but my brain is so clouded by anxiety that I can't come up with any solutions for any of this on my own other than "run away/avoid it." Oh and if someone could provide help in the next...errr...6 hours, that would be great. I'll keep you all posted as this develops.

P.S. Sorry about the wall-of-text...if you want a tl;dr I guess read the title
P.P.S. Also posted this in r/dating_advice, wasn't sure which sub this would be better suited for and want as much help as I can get :(

Posted Dec 2, 2012, 5:05 PM UTC · edited

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