Or does anyone here have parents who are not particularly social or who seem to lack social skills?
I was thinking about this the other day and about how it has influenced my siblings and I (my sister and I both have suffered from SA and my brother is not particularly social either).
My father has always been kind of a recluse. He's not a shy person (quite the contrary, he's very opinionated and authoritarian) but he doesn't seem to enjoy going out and being around people. He's a retired Air Force Captain and he's still friends with 2 of his former coworkers who he has known since he was 18 and who he still sees a couple times/year, but apart from that he doesn't have any other friends and couldn't care less about talking to anyone (unless it's about military stuff and politics). He spends his days with his iPad and watching political debates on TV. He only goes out to take care of his garden and walk the dog and he's perfectly happy with that.
My mom is a chatterbox and will talk to people any change she gets. She makes "friends" very easily but she always ends up getting tired of them after a while because they "take up too much of her time" and "ask for too many favors". She focuses too much on people's flaws and then she starts to avoid them.
Basically, I've never seen my parents genuinely bond with anyone.
Although I no longer suffer from SA, I still find it impossible to create a genuine bond with friends. I always feel like there's this unbreakable invisible barrier between me and everyone else.
Does anyone else have similar family experiences to share?