I had forgotten how diabolical this torment was, actually. Inability to connect with any other person. No interest in meeting new people, despite a persistent, stinging loneliness. It's really fascinating to revisit this state as an adult. And painful.
I vividly remember that phase of my life. I would not want to live it again. It was a combination of shyness, geekiness, being a foreigner in a new land and persistent rejection arising out of the first 3. In hindsight, the big mistake I made was to try to fish in over-fished waters (typical engineering graduate school, where every female has numerous suitors). There exist overstocked ponds, demographically speaking, where you will have much better luck. School teachers, nurses and the like come to mind, but there are many other demographics. The school teacher demographic is a good one: they tend to be bright and idealistic (and many of them are pretty too!).
The good news: I eventually came out of that phase, got on with life, found a wonderful woman (my wife now), and even made decent money ... so there is light at the end of the tunnel. If I can do it, you can do it too.
If you are depressed and have difficulty connecting, focus on yourself. Go play soccer, join critical mass, go climbing, do something you enjoy (keyboards forbidden, testosterone encouraged). Take on a satisfying project at work (though not so big it overwhelms your life). Find male friends, ignore women for now. The goal is to solve your problems, and women can't do that.
Then I go to a cocktail party or happy hour and stand in the corner.
Suits are what make me uncomfortable. Any events that encourage wearing of clothes that require dry cleaning, formalities, pretentious things of that nature are right up there.
Thus says the MBA geek: It's actually possible to have an MBA and to still be a geek. It's not a cure-all or indication of social aptness. I don't know why some people insist upon their stereotypes about that particular degree of education.
One of my most interesting memories from Startup School in April...
I had 2 days where I was totally in my element talking about cool stuff with cool people the whole time. This rarely happens in my regular life. The time flew.
On the flight back, I sat next to 2 women who were reading "People" and emotionally discussing it's content. All I could think was, "Welcome back to the other 99% of the world."
I've actually had much better luck being taken seriously as a techie when I don't dress the part of an MBA. Probably one of the most difficult things is being taken seriously as a techie when people first get to know me for the MBA (prime example, employment interviews). It's really quite the conundrum.
I had a very poignant moment when I started forwarding my Pitt email to gmail and realized it was the email address I was going to have for the rest of my life.
I hope so. That's what I thought when I switched to yahoo mail.
But when you start missing emails because you're getting thousands of spam per day, it's time to move on.
You'd think someone smarter than me would have fixed this scourge by now.