conversations with dad

Just got off of the phone wtih my dad...It's safe to say that that was the longest POSITIVE conversation that I've had with him in a long long time. Yes, things are so much better with him this year than last year, but sometimes things are still a bit shaky. Usually he will get on me about not meeting people or going out much, so I automatically go on the defensive about it. Sometimes he will criticize things that I want to do or plans that I have (see the wall map idea that I wanted to put up with pins for all the places I have been), or just be critical in general and tell me that he thinks that I'm doing things wrong, or whatever. I did get a little on the defensive when he was asking me about my social life, but he kept telling me that he wasn't getting on me about it, that he was just simply asking. That he knows it takes a bit and that it's not easy...I know that I shouldn't automatically go on the defensive, but just from past chats, it's like my defense mechanism. Meeting people and making friends IS hard in a new place, but I WILL do it...I will look up singles events and JCC events and go meet people..I know it can't hurt, I'm just scared, and I don't really have anyone here to push me to do it, and although I'm alone, I'd rather be alone and just floating than alone because I was rejected.