You sound somewhat anxious and depressed, feelings I know well.
It will help you to have some tools to deal with these problems. CBT and DBT are two such tools, and can help you manage your thoughts and mood. Counselors teach these tools.
Yes I think the ability to be somewhat extroverted (given a short enough time interval) would be good for me... I remember taking the Briggs-Meyer test in 2005 when I was doing pretty good socially and moving up in my career, I wasn't extremely introverted at that time, just on the cusp.
Then, yes, I got more isolated. I moved away from the city where I grew up (Portland, OR) and had friends to a rural setting (to a small farm, which was I dream of mine)... After 5 years on the farm, I had to move out (and am still dealing with all the negative feelings of betrayal by my parents and siblings for how it happened), and I moved even further away.
Ok, thanks for the insight. I have definitely been influenced by HN and in particular a blog post on the Huffington Post[1] where the author states 80% of employers do this. I thought in tech, the rate would therefore be even higher. But now I think that's probably not the case, because of the personality of a lot of devs, the 80% statistic could be totally made up (can't believe I fell for that), and that I probably shouldn't be reading an AOL property for career advice at this point.
Thanks for the tips... I keep hearing how devs are so hard to find and how so many people can't even FizzBuzz, and if I can just get through to a technical interview, I should be OK. So far, that hasn't worked out, but it seems like the best plan.
Thank you for your reply and thank you for correcting me on this misconception. It seems I am putting too much energy into trying to fix a perceived problem instead of focusing on the more pressing concern of actual socialization.
Your time limit advice is solid. I can do an hour, maybe even 2 with fellow nerds before I get too overstimulated. I almost forgot I am capable of this, so thanks for the reminder. It makes me feel better about getting a job since I should have some time to recoup in my cube in between meetings if there aren't constant interrupts.
Maybe a job with constant interrupts and/or meetings I should just avoid.
Reading blogs like Patio11's have always made me optimistic about being able to work for myself (when I looked him up and saw "Bingo Card Creator" I immediately remembered a post from years back that he wrote about bringing that product to market).
If I am marketing myself for a full time job or a freelance gig, it seems like I need some kind of public personal built on social media to back up a resume. I don't have that kind of footprint, and I feel like I need to change that.
If I tweet a bunch, ask/answer a bunch of questions on Stack Exchange, and create some useful library for a fashionable language on Github, does that solve this problem? Or is that a total simplification?
It will help you to have some tools to deal with these problems. CBT and DBT are two such tools, and can help you manage your thoughts and mood. Counselors teach these tools.