Anita – I can’t remember many specific incidents and I’m still trying to unravel everything despite being 33. I would say it was the notion that I wasn’t smart enough, didn’t work hard enough and when I did make decisions (small minor ones) there was disapproval. All this has managed to come down mainly after I managed to get 3 university degrees and a job. My parents don’t socialize much and I lead a fairly isolated life apart from school. Now when I look back, I think it was the disapproval on my mom’s face. Even now when I want to go out she says don’t without any apparent reason. Maybe, she wants me to help her in the house, but then she never says anything about that. She raised me in a way where I wasn’t expected to and now suddenly there are different expectations. It’s not like she yelled at me, but there was this feeling of not being emotionally close to her. I would not go to her or would think a lot before going to her with my problems unless it was being physically ill. I still don’t go to my parents for any problems because I know they will never understand and they cannot give a relevant solution. I feel my parents are socially inept and they don’t know how to deal with the outside world and we have conflicts about that. A few of my relatives while growing up would judge me and I don’t understand why they did that. I wasn’t polite enough according to them. All my needs were taken care of – food, shelter and education. But, emotionally I was never appreciated and my negatives were magnified. In general, my parents are very negative people and I don’t think they are happy from inside.

As for getting away from them, I’m trying to look for another job but haven’t found one yet. I don’t think I’ll get jobs near where I live, so I’m going to have to move out. Alternatively, I want to start something of my own but won’t be able to move out because I won’t have enough to pay my bills.

Givingroses – I understand what you are saying. I am an introvert as well and yes I do prefer deeper conversations. I do avoid deeper conversations on the first date. I usually talk about my work and hobbies. My work hasn’t been going great and when sometimes people ask me about that, it may trigger some negative emotions with me trying to explain why my workplace is not a good fit for me. But, I try and not talk much about that. If the negativity comes through, it’s totally unintentional and I don’t realize it. I’m also a very anxious person and it can get hard for me to concentrate on something happy when I’m feeling anxious about something. I guess I’ve been sharing quite a bit with this friend because he told me that he also faced similar emotional problems and I have been feeling a bit low lately. I have severe allergies and I live in a highly polluted environment which makes me sluggish and hence more morose. Another friend of mine says that dating hasn’t worked out for me because I didn’t click with someone else. I also think that somewhere people can pick those negative vibes of mine. I don’t know. But I try….

Thanks everyone for the supportive replies. I just checked this thread after a few days. I do feel bad about being single, but what really got to me was how unsupportive my family is about the whole situation. And, it’s not just this, it has been pretty much everything else in my life as well. If there is something that I want to do outside my comfort zone, I was always discouraged or told not to do it. Things like going out with friends at a hard to reach venue, career choices or even minor small decisions that I might have made. I have never really received an environment where I can reach into myself and feel that it is okay to feel what I am feeling or to take a decision because that’s the way I want it. One of my friends got engaged to someone but broke it off because she didn’t feel happy about it. I asked her if her parents blamed her and she said no they supported me. If I did something similar, there would be no end to how everything would be my fault. A little compassion is all I want.

For some reasons I believe things haven’t worked out in my life because I need to learn to be emotionally independent and that would not have happened if things would have worked out. I would have stayed focussed on deriving emotional happiness from external events rather than diving inside of me.