I used to be socially petrified and have been attributed with every social disorder under the sun. Years of hard lessons, growing up and gaining confidence have quelled the worst of it but, looking back, I did some downright strange things.

• Drove around for hours to avoid dinner with my roommates after I lied and told them I had to work.
• Turned off all my lights and television to make my roommates think I wasn't in my room.
• Listened for the sound of my roommates leaving or looking out the window to see that they had left so I could then leave my room safely.
• Eating absolutely nothing that required any preparation, cooking, etc. so as to avoid using the kitchen I shared with my roommates.
• On the off chance that I did eat something that required a plate or utensil, eating it in my room and then washing the dishes in the bathroom sink to, again, avoid any kitchen run-ins.
• Letting my dirty laundry build up for weeks so I could just do it when I went home to visit my mom as opposed to just using the washer upstairs that I shared with my roommates.
• But if I desperately needed something cleaned before I had a chance to wash it at my mom's, I scrubbed it in the bathtub and dried it over my shower curtain bar or with my hair dryer so as to avoid running into anyone in the laundry room.
• Stayed in my room for nearly 24 hours.
• Kept my phone on silent to accidentally "miss" calls and text messages.
• In fact, never answering my phone period.
• In high school, when my only friend didn't show up for our lunch period together, I walked around to the different bathrooms in the school, pretending to go or fix my hair for an extraordinarily long time in the mirror until lunch was over.
• When working at Target, every lunch break I went out and sat in my car or drove around aimlessly to avoid small talk in the break room.
• Changing into my P.E. uniform in the showers in middle and high school.
• Using the self-checkout lanes in grocery stores whenever possible.
• Now, at my new apartment, doing laundry in the communal laundry room at 6 am to avoid awkward run ins with the other tenants.
• Approaching a walkway where I saw several acquaintances I'd only ever briefly met standing in a group, my boyfriend's friends, I decided to walk into a nearby building, through it and out the other side to avoid passing them all together.
• Calling people or businesses when I know they aren't available or are closed so that I can avoid speaking directly to them and just leave a message.
• As a child, my mother would sign me up for sports teams and summer camps to try to get me to interact with my peers. She would do this secretly because I adamantly refused to participate and then when I found out what she had done, I had screaming, crying, hysterical, roll-on-the-floor, rip-my-hair-out temper tantrums because I was too scared to go.
• Taking an extremely late and/or fast lunch break at work or sometimes foregoing it all together to avoid small talk in the employee lounge.
• When I was younger and very briefly a Girl Scout, my Dad sold my Girl Scout cookies for me. I was too shy to knock on anyone's door and speak to them so while I stood back on the walkway, my Dad did all the talking.
• Similarly, when trick-or-treating throughout my childhood, oftentimes my parents would have to say the "Trick or Treat!" part for me while I just awkwardly held out my bag.
• As a kid, when my Grandma or other close relatives that lived out of state that we rarely saw would call our house, my parents would try to get me to talk on the phone, chit-chat and be "polite". They would literally try to force the phone up to my face and make me talk. And I would run around the house and lock myself in a room until they gave up.