<human>: Can you summarize the given text in a few sentences?

I've been a shy person all my life, opting not to participate in friendly conversations with others and at times ignoring calls or confrontation when I'm worried someone might be angry at me or I might be uncomfortable. I've mostly gotten away with the latter because nobody's ever really called me out on it.

I've had some interesting experiences over the past year or so that have caused me to question whether or not this is a mean thing to do and as a result I've made an effort to be more assertive and open with others about problems, or at the least not to ignore them and to deal with the issue. Maybe I've just been growing up.

But because of this, I've come to notice that a lot of people are like I used to be - they run away from conflict or flat out ignore calls and texts from people that they might have upset or they sabotage themselves because they're too afraid to deal with the actual problem, creating a different problem that they *can* handle - namely, one they can safely run away from. The nature of the relationships don't even seem to really affect their choices, either - whether it's close friends or ex-co-workers that they'll never see again.

This is extremely frustrating,  since the only way I can really interpret it, is that whoever is doing the avoiding or ignoring or running is being selfish and inconsiderate, failing to take into account the other person is a human being that (perhaps?) deserves more than that. I think this is what they think because this is how I used to think.

What's your take on this? I know some people don't really mind doing this if it's a stranger and some argue since we all have so many friends or whatever else otherwise it's not a big deal, but when I think of the way I want to be treated, it'd be nice if people weren't so cowardly or self-interested and instead of hiding simply grew some metaphorical balls and dealt with their problems.
<bot>: Why are so many people afraid of conflict and use an inconsiderate method of ignoring people until the situation only gets worse?