Yes, I now walk my dog during the night (dark) hours in order to avoid people and have come to 'fear' going out, not because I dislike social contact but because my views seem always to incite others to take offence, even if they don't say it aloud.

I feel that I must be anthropophobic but not because I fear hurt from others so much as that I don't have any wish to hurt others or cause them upset, yet know that it is likely that I will do so.

I have always been an introvert and yet, many times have been the 'life and soul of the party'. That, in fact, is relatively easy to do because shallowness is easily satisfied.

I value intelligent and thoughtful conversation that results from empathy. I find it difficult to attend to the trite, cliche and populist. I enjoy being with and listening to those who cause me to think, to reconsider, to challenge the views I already have, not necessarily in a direct way but simply because what they have to say instigates my own thought processes.

Indeed, in my view, a major problem for the societies of which I have experience is a tendency to focus on 'symptoms' and see them as 'issues'. The result is that our emotional, physical, mental and material resources are continually wasted by avoidance of attention to root causes. So, of course, the same problem appears to recur but, in reality, it was never removed.

Surprisingly, (perhaps), society appears to know this for they constantly refer to 'band aid' solutions - yet seem not to understand what this implies.

I am alone, with the exception of my best friend, a seven year old Groenendael. Sometimes I am lonely, too, but no more than I might be were I to have continual human company.

I am now reclusive but easily socialise with almost anyone and, I mean, literally anyone. Age, background, ethnicity or whatever are not conscious to me as determinants of my acceptance of others. Indeed, I relish difference as opportunity, not deficit.

Yes, the result is that I am extremely vulnerable and advantage has been taken of me so many times that others have advised me to be much less trusting. I won't, I prefer to take Hemingway's advice that "The best way to find out if someone is trustworthy is to trust them."

In the end, my vulnerability, if such is its real essence, is my strength. Of course, I may be wrong. I often am or so others seem to believe. I don't mind because I know that I wish no harm to anyone and don't apportion blame. It means that I can live with myself with or without others. In the main, I simply choose no longer to engage with the distractions, false narrative and judgments of others.