The rules are made up and the points don't matter

This is real.

It is and the peephole is the gateway to false negatives. It seems like they're gone, and then they're not! They were just out of spy range!
- The fuckers forgot their car keys and had to dash back in!
- Thats why you have pinhole cameras above your door pointing down the hallway in each direction as well.
There's 2 playing my game!?!??

People who say Lemmy is not a social media site might just be right.
Because apparently the people here do not want to be social they just want the media.

Finally
Asocial media
discussion =/= socializing
I think lemmy and reddit are super different from social media. you can use some of their tools to socialize but most if not all people don't use their real names, most don't even have a proper profile, most people don't follow each other or try to get followers, etc. there's just no "relationship" aspect that is distinct to social media sites.
if anything lemmy feels a little more social just because of the small size, and how you start to recognize the same bunch of people in the comments. but I'd expect that to go away if it ever gets really big one day.

Even worse when you're really hungry but your flatmates are hanging out in the kitchen

Just stroll out as casual as possible and act suprise when they see you. "oh shit, hey" without any clothes on. Repeat this until they relocate their usual hangout spot to another building.
E: or discover your like exhibitionism and your fear of socializing drops (but your horniness rises when you can hear them congregating)

People with anxiety are valid and deserve to have their problems taken seriously

Yes, but this situation isn't necessarily anxiety. It can just be social awkwardness, not wanting to have to say hi, etc.
- of course it’s a comic with fake characters with no objective truth to be found…
  but the artist is a vocal mental health advocate
  …it’s 100% about anxiety 😅
- Social awkwardness can be a part of anxiety.
They make me anxious...
They are and they do, but this example is extreme. Having been on both sides of this, I'd say no one should have to live their life in fear of every little interaction. It's exhausting, and you will never succeed in getting every person to leave you alone anyway. But this doesn't have to be "the way it is." You can actually change and make your life easier. Sometimes it takes help and a long time, but I believe most people can do it if they really want to.
- I don't even have anxiety and I think this is relatable. It's not even necessarily fear, but maybe not having the bandwidth to be social in that moment.
  Spoons, etc
- But where does the comic state or imply that living like this is healthy? The character doesn't seem happy.
- Do you think we should treat people with crippling anxiety by telling them that their anxiety is crippling any time they post on the internet about how crippling their anxiety is?

I don't get it. Are they afraid of possibly having a brief interaction with a neighbor?

They likely have high anxiety, possibly an anxiety disorder. It’s just a relatable representation of that in comic form
- Surely you're not implying that wanting to avoid unnecessary social interaction with overly familiar strangers means you have high anxiety? You could claim they're socially awkward but that's still pretty far from anxiety.

Every fucking time I want to leave some other neighbour comes out first and I have to wait for them to clear out before I can leave.

And they are so slow! Clear the public area swiftly you inconsiderate buffoons!

So you guys hate eachother?
- It's just normal social anxiety.
Wow you hate people more than I do. Just say that.
- The old people always want to talk and I'm too nice to cut them off. There is no other choice but to avoid them at all costs.

Who is speaking in the last panel?

A Portal turret.
- are you still there?
Without checking other comics in the same storyline I would have to guess roommate(I don't know this chatacters living situation), the keyholes in some appartments are on both sides, she is inside her apartment trying to leave, and has been trying for long enough that the roommate is surprised.
Flat mate or partner or family?

Are they afraid to leave their apartment? It looks like they're outside their apartment with needing the key to turn the deadbolt.

Different lock types are more or less common in different places.
I don't know where the artist of the comic lives, but here in the UK for example most exterior doors have a keyhole on BOTH sides, and you need to use the key to lock or unlock it from inside, as well as from out.
- That seems so incredibly dangerous needing the key to get out

Hm, I'm kind of in between. I do this fairly often, not wanting to go out right when someone else is there. But I don't know why, since as far as I can tell it doesn't make me feel anxious to run into someone like in the cartoon.

It doesn't bother me at all to cross paths with someone and I'm fine with saying Hi or just nodding to acknowledge their presence. Rarely does anyone actually try to start a conversation or anything. If they do say anything it's probably just a one-liner and move on. And it's easy to tell if someone doesn't want to nod or say Hi as you pass because they stare at the ground the whole time, and I'm fine with that too, but I don't do that.

But now I'm wondering, so why do I tend to wait until they're gone? Is it really social anxiety? I don't think so? I'm a loner but I have no problem or anxiety talking to people either. 🤔

I'm usually rushing out somewhere when I leave the house and a few of my neighbors are talkers, which I normally don't mind at all. But sometimes it makes more sense to just wait inside for a minute rather than get stuck in a 5 minute conversation.
Not me. I even talk to people in the bathroom.

Regular Scandinavian life.

I need to move to Scandinavia.
- Expensive, cold, and dark. Otherwise sounds fantastic.

I do this for every threat of human interaction ever. I wish I could fix that.

You don't fix it. You just work on it till you can handle more because you want to or you have to.
We aren't so much as broken as just different, as we all are. We all just need to do our parts to work to be part of society rather than perfect it ourselves first.
I'm human, and you just interacted with me.
EDIT: This community has apparently about 11,000 active users. You just interacted with them and it didn't seem to be an issue.
- I’m human
  I don't believe this. I'm pretty sure this computer I'm using is generating random comments as I'm scrolling through here.
- You're not a threat and you don't set my nervous system into meltdown. It's the level of abstraction that I need to interact at all.

My wife is like this. She claims its because the dog is to crazy around them, but its not the dog. I know her. Its funny because when caught with the neighbors she is cordial and will talk and laugh but she just can't get passed her predispositions. I on the other hand will run out if I hear the neighbors as I like to play with their dogs.

Leave, wave "hi" at them and continue on.

Your the guy I'm hiding from.
- Ew
The entire point is that seemingly easy thing just isn't for them. I know because that used to be me at my worst points.
It can be learned however. Now I'm probably the guy they want to avoid because I will smile and say hi.

This is why people moved en masse to suburbs. You go to your car and drive away, rarely even see a neighbor. I've spoken to a neighbor once in the last year and it was because we were both shoveling snow (it was yesterday). We shoveled for an hour in silence but we kept getting closer to the street (she's across the street). At some point we were only about 20 feet from each other and the silence was awkward. At least it was just a 30 second convo.

Wtf? I live in the suburbs and we talk regularly to the neighbours. Is this some weird US-specific dystopia?
- Yes
- Community is hard to come by here. It's bad.
- It's automatic garage door culture. You pull up to your house and hit the garage open button and when you leave it's the same, you just drive away and never see anyone, you close your garage remotely and you're gone. Maybe if you do your own lawn care you'll see neighbors but many people hire lawn care professionals. I don't have a garage to park in. But my wife likes to do the lawn care. So I'm only outside while walking to or from my car. My wife hates the cold so snow shoveling is on me. I'm about to be shoveling more in five minutes :)
I grew up in a suburb and that was the only time I HAVE regularly felt like this. I still wince when I think of the loud Greek lady across the street who shouted my name whenever I tried to leave the house. Egads.

comments did not pass the vibe check oh mein gyatt

Ong wtf. I was expecting more "oh haha that's totally me" or some form of solidarity, but nope
- no cap, it's really skibidi

I need this explained. Is this a bathroom?

Yes. Their violent neighbor broke in earlier and is currently using their bathroom, much to the embarrassment of the protagonist
I think it's her front door and her neighbors are talking in the hall outside her apartment. (The keys doesn't really make sense with her wanting to 'go')
- In Europe you often have doors that lock with keys from inside as well. And no knob/autolock.
  The good part is that there is no "I forgot my keys and locked myself out" because either you couldn't leave without your keys or you left your door unlocked.
  The bad part is when you are late to your engagement because you can't just leave the apartment unlocked/you are locked in and your room mate Julia misplaced her keys and borrowed yours to go out for an hour and she's an hour late already. Fuck you, Julia. Also fire safety.
- Some houses have a deadbolt that has a lock cylinder on both sides because it’s more resistant to breakins. My house is like this and I need a key to leave unless I want to jump out of a window
- (The keys doesn't really make sense with her wanting to 'go')
  I was thinking it could be a gas station bathroom.

That's why I don't leave the house. 😎

For me, it's my roommate and the never-ending rant about 'stupid' things going on at work.

My relationship with my neighbors is that we're great friends to the point that we don't even knock coming into each other's apartments, especially considering we regularly take each other's dogs for walks while the others away.

This sounds like my personal nightmare. I'd never be able to relax knowing someone could drop by any moment. You're way more friendly than I.
- The whole neighborhood, for the most part, consists of friends. It's employee housing for a ski resort so they're all at least coworkers, with the exception of the cop who doesn't do anything but is used as a threat against everyone else by the landlord and me who's an unemployed arguably crazy person who's trying to get on disability for the seizures and is allowed to stay since I sleep on my dad's couch and he gets along great with the resort.
That's sweet

Ahh i cant relate to this one

Never really got this myself. Maybe it's not a rational thing since who gives a fuck?

a r t s t y l e

Can't relate

Skill issue

They are and it's apparently celebrated here in Lemmy to be the worst kind of person without working on it.

Maybe we should seriously stop normalizing anxiety.

Yeah, just stop normalizing talking with people who don't want to socialize.
The problem in the comic isn't the neighbor, it is talking to the neighbor.
Just walk past without saying a word. What are they going to do? Move?
- Just say "Hi !" if you're not an asshole
- There is no problem in the comic. We live in a society, democracy is based on the idea that we want others to be treated fairly, we should start to act like one.
  Greeting your neightbour is a good, easy, positive thing.
expressing struggles with a common disorder is not normalizing the disorder. this is a mean comment.
- It's not about this comic, it's about the pervasive rappresentation of these struggles as cute quirks instead of crippling issues stemming from a dysfuntional society that needs to be changed.
  That's in a never ending amount of webcomics.
  Should I also call them out as being low hanging fruits as well?
We normalize everything now.
- Yeah, that's honestly the future of humanity at this rate.
  Normalizing everything left and complaining about it not being normal enough and for it being normalized at all.