Hermits for life! Or until Sunday

Sometimes I hate being around other people.  I can be extremely introverted.  I am so introverted that I would rather sit in my house all day by myself working on my own projects and thinking than venture outside to possibly encounter another human being.  I wasn't always like this, and even now I can venture into the realms of extroversion.  But for the last two months, I have been living in a near hermit state. 

I think it started, the hermit tendency, in India. Like most women, I don't necessarily trust men I don't know. In Delhi, the public space was very male, and not in a good way.  It was the ogling, leering, watch out or you will get groped way. Rather than try to deal with that, because it was so uncomfortable, I would not leave the flat where I was living.  The only time I did was when I had an escort of some sort.  It was a struggle to work myself up to going out even to meet a friend.  It wasn't that I wanted to be completely isolated.  I just didn't feel entirely safe there.  Perhaps it would have helped had I any serious command on the language.  In any case, it also created a sort of Indian version of myself (complete with accent and head bobbing), which surfaces its subdued and demure head only in an Indian cultural setting.  But the scarring stayed.  When I got home, I stayed in my house.  Being in public was okay because there were so few people (India is very densely populated).  But now, any time I move anywhere new, I hide for a while before I can come out and feel like it's safe.  The process is long.  I think I have always had a similar tendency, though it became much more pronounced after India.  I would have to work on it to get it to disappear.

The plus to this style of living is I never have to interact with anyone I don't care to talk to.  I have to seek people out.  Luckily for me, the Bay Area is a place where people collect from my past lives.  So far I have friends from college, high school, art school, and graduate school all represented.  Seems an easy place and time to choose interactions.  I'm just hoping I don't end up in these types of situations.  The place is too big, it seems unlikely... but you never know.