I don't think I consider myself a true agoraphobic. I have the creeps being outside my home, crowds bug me, sometimes just sitting on my front porch where someone walking by will give me pause but I don't think I am agoraphobic. I am a self-proclaimed shut in.
My upbringing has some to do with it. While other kids played with friends, went on summer vacation, talked on the phone we spent our summer months sequestered to our country home hidden away from the rest of the world. My parents did and still do not have friends that visit their home. My dad has a few work acquaintances but that's it. They did not have a phone or Internet until just a few years ago.
I went into the big world naive, vulnerable to suggestion, trusting. There was no malevolence or ulterior motive in my childhood. Quickly I was snatched up as an easy target and given a crash course on the seedy underbelly of human nature. I was disallowed by my husband to leave without permission, to make friends, see a doctor and to be perfectly honest it wasn't all that devastating. I found comfort in confinement to some degree.
A little aside. I have a distinct inability to pick up social or conversational cues. I can't read a person's face and guess what they are feeling. I have a tendency to interrupt others, misunderstand things, and I am terribly gullible. I take everything said at complete face value. I am ill equipped for face to face social interaction.
Suddenly my life changed and I was free from it all. I didn't feel free though. Suddenly I not only had the ability to come and go as I pleased, I had to in order to get by and raise my kid.
I am not afraid of the outside world, I just feel like I have a pretty decent snapshot of what is out there for someone like me. On rare occasion I will engage in social interaction. Sometimes I make myself invite friends over, or go for my midnight walks to the store, just to prove to myself I can do it if I chose. I have made a very select few friends since my newfound "freedom" but most days I spend my time indoors, rearranging furniture, reading until I can no longer see the pages (my eye sight was affected by another health issue but I haven't bothered to see the optometrist for a new prescription.
I'm not jaded or afraid, I don't think the world is out to get me, I am just unfit for the outside world.

I start back to school in the fall and I will be back outside daily again. As much as I realize I need the career change away from a field I am no longer healthy enough to be a part of, a small part of me resists the notion. I hate sitting on my ass collecting a marriage retirement check (aka survivor benefits) yet I know eventually I will rejoin the real world, be back into the day to day grind (anxiety and heart willing) and secretly pine for the days I could stay in my home all day.

So here are the questions. How does one that has willingly chosen to stay inside learn to be comfortable with the outside world? How does one so socially inept go through the day to day without falling victim to the evils of others' intentions, without constantly inadvertently offending others, or at the very least fake having some modicum of knowledge about social cues? I don't have these answers.