Individual Avoidance vs Ostracization

I don't really think it makes sense to have the same expectations for how we interact with other people as individuals as we do for a group.  An individual deciding not to interact with someone is not the same as group ostracization, and can result in both differences in magnitude and type of effects. It's important to make this distinction because individuals should be allowed avoid association with a person even for completely arbitrary reasons, but an institution or other large group as a whole should not ostracize people for such reasons. So I think it's useful to try to pick out in what ways individual actions contribute to group ostracization and what ways in which they are simply individual actions.

One difference can be made regarding whether the refusal of interaction is being done on a social basis or a functional basis.  A social basis would involve interaction with someone on a personal basis, like spending time with someone on a one-on-one basis or with friends.  A functional basis would be providing someone a service, such as in the course of a job.  If the latter is refused, then it may be linked with ostracization even if it is only done by one individual, because it increases barriers to obtaining institutional or group resources.  Of course, there may still be more and less sympathetic motives for choosing to do this.  But in the case of ostracization a justification should be required, whereas no justification should be required for an individual social preference. And this is one way the difference between a personal socialization preference and an ostracization attempt can be distinguished.

Another difference has to do with attempts to influence other people's social interactions rather than only one's own.  These can be more or less explicit.  An obvious example of this is the callout post, which generally seeks variously to warn people of the harm a person may commit if they are socialized with or to threaten ostracization of those who associate with the person in the callout post.  There are also more and less sympathetic reasons for doing this, but again it's useful to separate when someone is simply choosing their own friends vs when they are trying to  influence who others choose as friends.  Those two things should be evaluated differently. 

Socializing

I am often frustrated by my difficulty with socializing.  I don't know how common or unusual those difficulties may be, but they can be irritating regardless.  I do know that I'm not so good with socializing if I'm not in the right frame of mind.  Sometimes I have difficulty engaging with others at all, and sometimes with certain social interactions I think it might have been better if I hadn't made the attempt at all...