On opportunities for connection vs limited capacity for being social

Currently I’m struggling to manage opportunities, especially ad hoc ones, for connections and my energy for social interaction.
This causes some internal friction and when I don’t take up those opportunities I feel like I missed out and regret. This is a problem because I’m in a new country and would like to make new connections.
For example, today out walking I bumped into a colleague who I don’t know very well. It turns out we live quite close to each other. We had a really nice chat and she decided to walk back with me. She was very friendly, offered to sometime give me a lift from work and said I should call by if I’m walking past her house. We then walked past my house and my intuition was telling me to invite her in for a coffee. But I felt tired as I already had been on a walk with someone new, and I didn’t want a nice interaction to turn into an awkward one.

However now I feel like it was a perfect opportunity to invite her in and connect beyond a small talk. My brain also assumes that she is now going to think that I keep the distance. And so rather than seeing it as ‘I had a nice chat and have connected with a colleague more than I had done before’, my thought is ‘I missed an opportunity to connect properly and sent a signal that maybe I’m not interested’. Of course it’s easy to say a few hours later, once I had some rest that ‘it would have been nice to invite her in’.

I don’t know how to prepared myself for these ad hoc opportunities. or whether in fact it was right to honour my energy in that moment. Being in a new country, it is easy to think that I need to take every opportunity to make new connections.

Thank you.

Answer:

I’m going to point out something that I say with love: your brain is probably wrong about what she’s thinking. Let her have her own thoughts – let’s focus on yours. One brain is enough to worry about, right?!

What do you think the foundation of good relationships is built out of? Is ignoring or dismissing your needs part of that foundation? Let’s flip the question to this: In what ways was honoring your energy exactly the right thing to do in that moment? What other opportunities might you have created by honoring and caring for yourself?