If you recall last time, I was preparing to go to a couple of meetup.com groups. One was for SA and the other was for a board game and trivia meetup. The board game one got pushed back an hour so I decided not to attend the SA one. I could've made both but I would've had to leave the SA meeting an hour early and I didn't really want to draw any extra attention to myself by doing that. I found out later that a third meetup.com group was meeting that same day. This was a CBT group and, luckily for me, it met in the morning.
So I made it to both the CBT group and the board games/trivia group. For this I should be proud of myself, but it seems I can only focus on the petty negative stuff that happened. The CBT meeting was really cool cause I learned a lot about CBT that I didn't know before like how you're not supposed to move onto the next step in your exposure hierarchy until you're completely comfortable with the step below it. I told the lady that my goal was to be in a relationship so she said a specific goal would be to approach girls to ask them out and go on dates on a regular basis. That seems impossible at the moment. 
I told her about the trivia meeting I had later that day and how I was worried that I was going to get lost on the way there, wouldn't be able to find parking, wouldn't know what to do once I was there and would look really stupid just standing around. When I said this she's was like "Yeah that's social anxiety all right." I was so relieved when she said this because I still have doubt about whether I actually have SA or not and having a licensed therapist say that was really important for me to hear.
While there were a lot of positive aspect of the CBT meeting, I chose to focus on one specific negative thing that happened. We were asked to think about the kind of things we could put on our personal gradual exposure list. I was trying to think of all the little things that give me trouble and I thought of how I can't seem to talk about any of this anxiety stuff in front of my dad because he thinks there's nothing wrong with me. The group leader said that was something I should see an individual therapist for. I felt so stupid.
The leader also said that this might've been her last meeting because she was pregnant and wouldn't be able to continue with the group. She said she hoped that another therapist would step up and lead the group and that she might pick the group back up in a year or so. I doubt I will have conquered all my fears by then so I'll probably be back. When she told us she was pregnant everyone else said congratuations or something to that effect, but I couldn't say anything. Yet another negative thing I'm dwelling on.
After seriously considering not going to the pub trivia event, I decided to go if only because I knew I would really beat myself up if I didn't. I sort of got lost on my way there by missing a street I was supposed to turn on but I didn't panic or get too upset and I was able to find the place anyway. I also found parking without too much trouble though I did have to park a couple blocks away. It was absolutely packed just like I suspected and I did have to stand there looking like an idiot for about ten minutes before I was able to find some people in my meetup group. I introduced myself to everybody and one of them asked what I did for a living. I told him I had just been laid off and that I was looking for work. Now a normal person would ask the guy what he does for a living back, but since I don't have any social skills yet, I completely neglected to do that. 
When we played I made a significant contribution by answering a lot of the sports questions and even a few of the other ones. However, sometimes I was too anxious when I knew an answer so I would say it out loud before the host was done reading the question. That could've gotten us disqualified but no one else heard me I guess. That happened twice and I was so embarrased about it. It also seemed like the only time I talked was when we were talking about the trivia.
Hey at least I went though right? There's going to be another trivia event at another bar next week and I'm going to try to attend that too. I guess the more I do this the more comfortable it'll get.
