THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOCIAL PHOBIAS AND COMMITMENT PHOBIAS

A social phobia or social anxiety is where a person is virtually shutting themselves off from the world. They can’t handle being in a public place with other people. In public places such as school, the grocery store, movies, work, they feel as if people are staring at them, judging them and will humiliate them if given the chance. Even though, most of them know, rationally, this is not true. People with social phobias can never just relax in a social situation because they will always feel as if the other people around them are judging them or criticizing them for one thing or another.

People with social phobias usually prefer to be left alone and take themselves out of any type of situation that might bring them in contact with other people. Even going to extremes when it comes to going to the store or grocery, preferring to go in the middle of the night when there is less chance of running into anyone. Even fearing the checkout process brings on panic attacks from their social phobias.

One of the third largest psychological disorders in the United States, social phobia affects nearly 15 million people in any give year. It is one of the most misunderstood and misdiagnosed diseases in the medical, psychological and psychiatric community. Many people with social phobias are labeled as ‘clinically depressed’ ‘manic depressive’ ‘schizophrenic’ having a ‘panic disorder’ or a ‘personality disorder’ all of which are devastatingly wrong diagnoses for the social anxiety sufferer.

Commitment phobia is most often associated with love and marriage in particular. People who suffer from commitment phobia are often the ones who claim to be wanting a long lasting relationship with love and commitment, however they find that what they are looking for does not live up to their standards for some reason and they are not able to commit, most often blaming their reasons on the other person. Commitment phobia suffers often have created a fantasy world in which they have dreamed up the perfect partner and as everyone knows, no fantasy, whether it’s a person, place, job, car, boat etc. will ever live up to the fantasy version and the commitment phobic is left no choice but to run away because it is not what he or she wants.  

The difference between commitment phobia and social phobia is that a commitment phobic person at least tries and goes out there and does connect with someone whereas a social phobic person will not even try to connect with anyone. Their fears hold them back from initial contact with anyone so they can’t even get to the commitment phobic’s level. They will not have any contact with another person. The commitment phobic has made an effort to make contact, however, it will never be what they expected in their dreams or fantasies or live up to something they have held onto since they were young adults, the ideal partner the had found while dating or had a crush on someone or even one of their parents.

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