Trying too hard
Being in and around this scene I've found, with the house shows and the bands and the music and the raves and the close-friends and the more-acquaintances-than-friends.... I find it difficult to "just be myself". I don't meet people well because I'm no good at small talk. The people I do know I often don't have very much in common with them and so conversations are awkward. I always worry I'm going to do The Wrong Thing. So, I wind up alienating myself so that no one else has to bother. (I'm not sure how most of the awesome people I know wound up being "friends" since I sure ain't social enough to have pulled that off...)