[HN Gopher] Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, ...
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Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you
improve?
Recently, I cannot help but notice how shy and socially awkward I
might be at times, which is quite frustrating. To be fair to
myself, I am not awful in social situations in that depending on
the context I can be seemingly confident and calm, especially when
I am among people I know and the context is familiar. When it
comes to new people and places, everything changes dramatically. My
voice changes, my posture changes, everything changes. I can start
being awkward in all possible senses. The discomfort gets to the
point where I blush and this physical state of vulnerability and
self-doubt of course makes things even worse :) I understand that
all of that relates to self-esteem and phychology in general
therefore my question. It's common to advise hitting on the gym,
which I just started doing last week. Funnily, the gym is the place
where I last noticed my awkward behavior :) If you have managed to
deal with that and improve in that regard, what is your success
story?
Author : dondraper36
Score : 174 points
Date : 2022-03-26 18:49 UTC (4 hours ago)
| missedthecue wrote:
| I took a toastmasters class for two years and it is the best
| thing I've ever done. It has genuinely been more valuable to my
| life and career than my undergraduate degree.
| dominotw wrote:
| Most comments here are pretty simplistic like telling a fat
| person to workout/eat less to lose weight. I assume you aren't
| looking for that kind of advice. those things only work for a
| short amount of a time and you revert back to your old
| comfortable self. Its so much less work to think of yourself as a
| shy person and call it a day.
|
| 1. Stop thinking of yourself as shy person. As soon as that
| thought comes to your mind squash it immediately. Never ever
| complete that thought. That thought usually comes as a pressure
| release self compassion mechanism under stressful social
| situations like walking into a new place.
|
| 2. Focus on the opportunity instead of the obligation. Once you
| have quelled that thought replace that thought with what you
| might get from this social iteration, like potential date.
| Contrary to popular belief shy ppl get immense joy from social
| interactions.
|
| 3. Shyness is ego gone haywire. Get your ego under control, its
| ok if you tried to talk to someone and they just ignore you. Get
| your ego under control. No one really gives a shit about you and
| ppl have very very short memories. Redirect that thought back to
| no 2.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Since, you're asking for personal reports, I may as well chime
| in.
|
| I've managed to improve my ability to feel at ease when
| confronted with new people and places. This is something I did on
| my own, but like others have said, seeking professional expertise
| may help you achieve your goals more effectively, or may uncover
| things that need to be addressed in other ways.
|
| It may help to identify which specific parts of social
| interactions make you uneasy. For me it was feeling like I
| wouldn't have anything to say in response and that an awkward
| pause would ensue. I often second-guessed myself and felt like my
| responses didn't have worth. If your situation is different, the
| rest may not apply.
|
| The first changes I made were to view my situation as temporary.
| Instead of framing myself as a permanently awkward
| conversationalist, I framed my starting point as a challenge to
| build new skills. While some people learn these intuitively, I
| had to consciously build them[1]. By framing my challenge as a
| skill-building journey, I was able to make progress by seeking
| out specific information in order to build this skill.
|
| There were three techniques I practiced to help me build this
| skill. Topic vectoring[2], open-ended questions, and question-
| statement balancing.
|
| Topic vectoring is a simple heuristic for picking an appropriate
| response. A conversation response can go "up" a level by speaking
| more generally about the topic, go "down" a level by drilling
| down to a specific detail about the topic, or move laterally by
| shifting to an adjacent topic. Conversations progress by
| incrementally accreting small topic shifts. When too large of a
| topic shift is introduced, it is hard for the other
| participant(s) to follow along. This includes shifts that compose
| multiple directions. When I'm reaching for a response, I use this
| tool to pick an appropriate one.
|
| You've most certainly heard of open-ended questions before.
| Practicing open-ended questions was a skill I made a point of
| developing by monitoring my proportion of responses and adjusting
| as necessary. Good questions are conversational expanders. They
| require little from the querent and little from the respondent.
| They can feel like a good layup when done right.
|
| The same goes for question-statement balancing. Too many
| statements, and it begins to look like I just want to talk about
| my interests, and too many questions looks more like an
| interrogation than a conversation.
|
| All of these skills fit together in a way that make me feel like
| I know how navigate conversations much better than I did before.
| Quickly, it's important to describe what they are not. They are
| not memorizing a bunch of conversation prompts. They are
| heuristics that can be practiced, employed tactically, and form a
| cohesive toolkit. I strive for balanced conversations where other
| people feel heard and engaged, and I can walk away feeling the
| same way.
|
| Best of luck to you on your journey whichever path it takes. :)
|
| 1. There is probably some amount of neuro-atypicalness at play
| here, but that's not something I've explored too much.
|
| 2. The resource explaining this may be lost to the sands of time
| and it certainly went by another name.
| [deleted]
| kevinh456 wrote:
| "everything changes dramatically" - Practice each little bit one
| element at a time.
|
| Posture is a great place to start. Just practice making sure that
| you keep a confident posture. Standing up straight. Shoulders
| back and relaxed. Head looking forward and alert. Focus on
| keeping your posture. A lot of how people read "confidence" is
| noticing these cues. It will become second nature if you
| practice.
|
| Check out "power posing" also. Works for some people, doesn't
| work for others. Totally works for me.
|
| For your voice, what is it doing? Probably going up higher?
| That's because your muscles in your neck are tightening up. Gotta
| keep them relaxed. I bet you'll find when you get your relaxed
| posture in place that your voice will change less also.
| perardi wrote:
| Practice. Practice practice practice. Which sounds daunting,
| but...
|
| ...now, I realize it's unfair to map physical appearance to
| awkwardness, but...let's take a look at me in 2008 versus 2021.
| https://imgur.com/7sR0qKt Can you infer I might have been
| awkward? Because I was awkward. Always had been, and in a lot of
| ways, I am still am.
|
| But I am vastly better than I used to be. And it was practice.
| Slow, slow, slow practice. I started at the gym. Built a little
| confidence. Got a job where I was required to be in more
| meetings. Built a little more confidence. Moved to a new city.
| Built even more confidence. Joined a sports league. Built yet
| even more confidence. It's a slow process of leveling up and
| being out there and exposed to the world and learning to live in
| it.
|
| And as you get older, I find for me it's gotten easier. People in
| their late-20s and 30s are not the back-biting den of snakes they
| were in high school--everyone begins to realize they have their
| own faults and foibles, and you begin to accept that other people
| are always going through things too. And, conversely, you begin
| to realize you're never the star of anyone else's internal story.
| People are paying far less attention to your awkwardness than you
| think. So...roll with it, find some hobbies you like that involve
| other people, and just keep practicing.
| n0mn wrote:
| And lots of chicken breast, right? I'm amazed at your progress!
|
| I worked with you 12 years ago. What a small world!
|
| Can confirm, he was awkward (but also talented)!
| perardi wrote:
| Absurd amounts of chicken breast.
|
| (Illini Media?)
| n0mn wrote:
| Yep! Good times.
| perardi wrote:
| Oh god, I can remember how awkward I was. You'd think the
| hits to the head in rugby and the drugs would erase some
| of those memories, but nope.
| creata wrote:
| > I realize it's unfair to map physical appearance to
| awkwardness
|
| Doesn't seem like you do (given that you do exactly that in the
| same sentence).
| gpas wrote:
| What a transformation! I'm speechless. It's like seeing a
| caterpillar turning into a butterfly. The second pic screams
| confidence and personality. Thanks for sharing your progress,
| you are an inspiration.
| jitl wrote:
| Took acid and went to raves did wonders for this. Still
| introverted and whatnot but a lot less of a recluse.
| kinghtown wrote:
| I used to be really shy with trust issues.. If I'm to be brutally
| honest I still am at times BUT doing a lot of psychedelics,
| though especially MDMA, have given me some insight into social
| behaviour which I do act upon with success. I feel confident to
| chat up anyone and handle people. Public speaking is no big deal,
| either.
|
| People want to feel good. Really, don't underestimate this.
| You'll go a long, long way in this world if you can bring
| pleasure or happiness to the people around you.
|
| Now, I'm not suggesting for you or anyone to be an entertainer or
| a constant joker, or to work hard at making people happy (but
| also though.. why not?) but it's important to keep it in mind
| when interacting with anyone that they feel pain, are mortal,
| have fears, their heart is beating just like yours. It's not all
| about you. They don't notice, or even care, about every little
| mistake or misstep. They are too busy avoiding pain and and
| trying to do what's right or best in any given moment, or trying
| to get what they want. Being shy around people is honestly an
| extra burden on them and is unfair when you think about it.
|
| It may be easy to see this behaviour as selfish but consider
| their alternative to avoiding pain and trying to do what's best..
| it's kind of a bum deal.
|
| Just relax, learn to trust people with your ideas and they will
| appreciate the invite, even if it's not always accepted. You're
| not being watched.
| papandada wrote:
| Well, I didn't really get less awkward and nervous but I stopped
| feeling bad about it, since I'm human. Also, I'm more intentional
| about what I want to do and not what I'm supposed to do.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Noticing is the first step! A therapist can really help you as it
| sounds like a part of you is experiencing anxiety. Essentially
| you have developed a learned behavior and you have to unlearn it
| by replacing your habit with a new one. Part of that is say
| exposure therapy (meaning, just go out and meet people). It also
| helps to develop a framework and set of scripts for what to do
| which is where a therapist can come in handy (also for how you
| process the situation). We teach these things to kids with autism
| all the time.
|
| If you need a script the easiest thing to do and understand is
| that people love to talk about themselves.
|
| 1. introduce yourself 2. ask their name 3. ask how they are or
| how their day is going 4 .... 5. continue to ask them questions
| as they appropriately come up.
|
| Question 4 can be context dependent.. are you at a party of a
| mutual friend? Are you at a meetup? Basically use the shared
| environment to bootstrap the conversation. So a question could be
| like, "how do you know so and so" etc...
|
| When I feel shy, I always seek out someone else seemingly shy and
| strike up a conversation that way.
|
| It doesn't have to be perfect. And maybe take a friend with you
| who has more social awareness to help you. Tell them what your
| goal is.
|
| Also if someone notices you are blushing and feeling flustered
| etc.. and asks you what's wrong, just take a breath and say that
| social situations are difficult for you but you are learning to
| work through them. Lots of people will be understanding. I say
| this as an adult. Sometimes you can be around immature folks who
| do not help the situation but those are people you don't really
| want to be around anyway.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| If OP is making the effort to ask, I'd also toss out the option
| of finding a life coach.
|
| In my personal experience and opinion, therapists seem to be...
| less aggressive / more tolerant of neurodivergent behavior, in
| a way that I didn't find as productive.
|
| I was looking for someone who I could tell "I want to X" and
| would help me make that happen, less "I feel bad about my
| inability to X".
| chousuke wrote:
| That "and" of the "Just go out and meet people" is the part
| that my brain struggles with.
|
| I can walk out of the door just fine, but my brain stops
| functioning when I try to think of things to do from there. I
| can likewise handle meeting new people if I somehow end up in a
| situation where that happens. It's just doing that
| intentionally that I have so far been unable to accomplish.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| The "doing that intentionally" bit is something I think you
| sort of have to roll with; some days are good, some days are
| bad.
|
| I've all sorts of strategies, but if I have no explicit
| purpose at some event I struggle with getting out of the
| house, and I'm just not enough of a dog person to get a dog.
|
| But if you go out on the good days -- which is all really
| anyone does! -- then people will remember you if you only pop
| in to some event briefly on your bad days.
| sjg007 wrote:
| I would pick things that align with your interests. Go to a
| museum, go to a play that has an intermission, go skiing,
| pick up a club sport, meetups, cooking classes, book signing,
| improv class, music class, fishing class, board game
| nights...
|
| Lots of things to try.
| chousuke wrote:
| Everything I can get my brain interested in is a solo
| activity. I feel like whenever I try to even think about
| doing something that requires me to initiate contact with
| people, some unconscious part of me "resets" my thoughts
| and they just get stuck in a useless loop. On the rare
| occasion that I manage to override that and go somewhere, I
| am unable to engage with people even though I _want_ to.
|
| I don't _hate_ interacting with people; quite the opposite
| in fact. I just for some unknown reason am seemingly
| completely incapable of initiating interaction with
| unfamiliar people (and even initiating anything with people
| I know is rare for me to do).
| wpietri wrote:
| I would encourage you to spend time in those spaces with
| no intention to interact. Just go and spend time
| observing your thoughts and feelings. If you feel like
| you don't have much vocabulary for your emotions, two
| book I really recommend are Brene Brown's "Atlas of the
| Heart" [1], where a researcher names, describes, and
| compares the various emotions, and "The Emotion
| Thesaurus" [2], a writer's guide that includes a lot of
| description that can help with pattern-matching.
|
| Once you have a handle on the feelings and what triggers
| them, I think you'll get some insight into the currently
| unknown reasons. I'd be you'll also have theories on how
| to work around it, but if not, a good therapist can help.
|
| [1] https://brenebrown.com/book/atlas-of-the-heart/
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-
| Character-E...
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| Decades of practice. What comes naturally to the neurotypicals at
| age 14, may take until middle age for a geek to learn by trial
| and painful error. Unfortunately where interaction with the
| attractive gender is concerned, awkwardness and painful error may
| be judged very harshly indeed, these days.
|
| Accepting yourself as you are is required. Get over thinking you
| need to turn yourself into someone different. It took until about
| age 30 for me to fully accept who I am.
|
| An occasional change of environment does help, since you can
| leave all that rejection - judged as the geek outsider - baggage
| behind and can start with a clean slate at your current social
| skill level.
|
| A little bit of alcohol in social interactions can also help. I
| was strictly a nondrinker, but at one neurotypical type party I
| took the hint and had a few drinks. Not enough to get drunk, but
| enough to get comfortable.
|
| On the other hand, if none of the above really apply, and you're
| just an introvert, then learn to live with it. You'll never turn
| yourself into an extrovert and you'll never really enjoy
| "working" an unfamiliar crowd to make new insta-friends. That's
| OK.
| alecbz wrote:
| Some advice a friend once gave me is to "pretend" you're more
| social than you are and kinda act the part, even if it doesn't
| feel like it's "you". Eventually it will start to feel more
| natural.
| franze wrote:
| focus on what you can give, and give
|
| instead of what you need.
|
| its all in your head.
|
| #drunkhn
| dijit wrote:
| I was put through Assertiveness Training.
|
| That's a key phrase that you can probably google, there are many
| places that do it.
|
| My course was quite intensive and took a while, but in the early
| stages it was defining what "assertive" means as opposed to
| "aggressive" or "passive". Once you identify what's different it
| can be easier to assert yourself.
|
| Another part of the training was to make eye contact with
| strangers as you walk passed them, this was to get you used to
| making eye contact with people so that you could make eye contact
| during conversations comfortably.
|
| It worked for me, I'm probably too assertive now though, as the
| way confidence (and assertiveness) work is that having more of it
| makes you have even more of it in a self-fulfilling cycle.
| Osiris wrote:
| I find it easier to talk to people when I have shared interests
| so I started watching my local NFL team so I could talk about the
| game. I also start Jiu Jitsu and motorcycling.
|
| All those things give me something to talk about with other
| people. When they show interest it makes it a lot easier to open
| up.
| wetpaws wrote:
| Fake it till you make it.
| scarmig wrote:
| Not saying this is the best approach and it won't be a popular
| opinion, but drugs--particularly alcohol--were key to me breaking
| out of my shell.
| specproc wrote:
| I'd agree that this helped me a lot, but I'm still paying for
| it.
|
| Alcohol in particular is a really nasty drug. Psychedelics are
| something I love to do every now and then, but they're really
| not for everyone and should be approached with caution.
|
| A small dose of MDMA though. A little goes a long way, not a
| bad shout if you're open to it.
| convolvatron wrote:
| i already had a problem. but i took it to the dive bars and
| learned quite a bit about how to be human. of course eventually
| I had to quit everything, and while i know how to hang out with
| people now...i kind of don't want to anymore
| psyc wrote:
| I remain convinced that weed helped me a lot here. I also
| basically apprenticed myself to a couple of very charming
| extroverted people and learned what I could from them.
| bcwarner wrote:
| For alcohol at least, I don't think that's actually too
| unpopular an opinion. Drinking is a fairly universal social
| activity, and it's allowed me to meet and befriend a lot of
| people I probably wouldn't have otherwise.
| scarmig wrote:
| Certainly interesting seeing the swings of upvotes and
| downvotes, though, hah. (That's neither a complaint nor
| unexpected.)
| DeWilde wrote:
| Psychedelics did it for me, I was looking for fun but as an
| unintended consequence I became much more extrovert.
|
| Of course, don't actually do hard drugs without medical
| supervision. You are more likely to end up worse off. A counter
| anecdote, a friend of mine who was really extroverted is now
| pretty shy and nervous in social interactions after suffering a
| few psychotic episodes during one of our drug binges.
| systemsignal wrote:
| I'm curious how did psychedelics made you more extroverted?
| i.e was it less internal monologue, more energy, etc
| GordonS wrote:
| For me, a little alcohol helps a bit, but if I have too much I
| end up talking plenty - but it's absolute bollocks that just
| makes me seem even weirder... :(
| SergeAx wrote:
| Social dancing. Argentinian tango, to be specific.
|
| There are two factors to make shy people more comfortable. First:
| "everybody in the room are doing it" - being that a class,
| practice or milonga. Second: _codigos_ , a game-like ritual of
| asking girl to dance with a stare. If you are rejected - only her
| knows it.
| dm319 wrote:
| I was a shy and awkward kid, and I suspect that never really goes
| away, but the contexts where that becomes an issue can be learnt
| away.
|
| I.e. you can learn to prepare for certain situations, and learn
| that the outcome doesnt have to be bad. That can relax you, but
| there will always be situations that make you nervous.
|
| I guess don't shy away from doing the things you need to be
| doing, and you will learn to deal with these situations better
| and be more relaxed about it.
| cfcf14 wrote:
| Practice! I forced myself into so many social situations, over
| and over again. I went to speed date nights on my own. I went to
| bars to try to talk to strangers.
|
| It was so painful at first. I embarrassed myself. I was foolish
| and awkward. But I got better. The terrifying became the
| comfortable, and the mundane.
|
| The journey continues! All things come with practice.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I used to be almost bipolar regarding this, one situation would
| have me almost cold confident, another I'd be shaking unable to
| speak.
|
| My stupid answer: experience, by living things with people most
| fears will evaporate because most of them are really irrational
| reflexes. The smoother you become emotionally, the easier it gets
| to deflect the awkwardness when it's back, or simply laugh it
| off.
| laurent92 wrote:
| I still have major problems of socialization but I succeeded to
| pass to the "in" group.
|
| - It happened during the integration week in engineering school.
| Cohesion games, scream together, talk loud, it really transformed
| me. Now I'm part of the socialization. I'm 38.
|
| - I would say it can't happen without alcohol, unfortunately.
| It's both a social signal and an actual mood changer. Use it, but
| quit as soon as you're in. Use it to gain the "street cred" and
| move on to better friends. Friends you get through alcohol are
| false friends, they/you use alcohol to hide the lack of unity and
| the lack of depth in your relationship. So don't dwell of friends
| you made through alcohol.
|
| - You can search for a girlfriend without going through the
| socialization step. Don't postpone the gf thing.
| inoffensivename wrote:
| Got older, accumulated enough embarrassing and humiliating
| moments and just got tired of caring. :-)
| bloak wrote:
| Did you reach a point of peak non-awkwardness? At what age?
|
| I think this might happen to some people. When they're young
| they haven't yet learnt how to interact with other people.
| Perhaps at age 30 or 40 they've learnt enough to do a
| reasonable impression of being a normal person, at least for
| the duration of a brief interaction. But when they're 50 or 60
| they can't be bothered to make the effort any more.
| andersonrkton wrote:
| I improved a little... but I can only do it in bursts... a couple
| of hours and then I have to escape and recover my energy.
| blaaaaa99 wrote:
| Try and be genuinely interested in people, but use a conversation
| mnemonic to find common ground topics:
|
| F family O occupation R recreation D dreams
|
| P pets H holidays
|
| If you can find topics that make people excited to talk about,
| everything becomes much easier
| rootw0rm wrote:
| Unfortunately, for me the cure for social anxiety was drugs and
| alcohol. I recently went to rehab for the first time, and I have
| 4 months of sobriety...my longest stretch of sobriety in my adult
| life (I'm 41). Being social and sober is a challenge for me. On
| the plus side 12 step programs are an awesome way to meet sober,
| caring individuals.
|
| The therapy and classes I took in rehab were absolutely life
| changing. Healthy relationships...what are those? Boundaries?
| Never heard of em! I've had to learn intellectually what some
| people are fortunate enough to intuit.
| yulaow wrote:
| 1. I put myself willingly in social situations in which I didn't
| know anyone. The trick for me was picking and going alone to
| social events (= events in which there is a lot of group talks)
| in which I was fairly interested but not REALLY interested, so I
| felt that was not problem to bail out at any moment, in any way,
| without giving any explanation, nor I cared if I did something
| really awkward or even had a panic attack (it surprisingly didn't
| happen), I said to myself "In that case, if I felt really in the
| wrong group of people, I would just not come anymore to this
| specific series of events and that's all... no one is really
| gonna care"
|
| 2. In those social situations I tried to listen far far FAR more
| than I talk, and also observe. Once you really observe people
| around you you can see how many of them are awkward and shy and
| make "social mistakes" and recover from them without problems.
| You'll see most people are really not that different than
| yourself.
|
| It worked very well for me, got confident incredibly fast. The
| hardest part is probably the first one or two events. I remember
| that for the first one, which was a recurring monthly event, I
| went physically as far as the door of the location in which it
| took place for two times without entering and bailing out at last
| second because of anxiety. Than the next month I went in and
| since then I still go to that series of events, and I found one
| of the best shy community I could hope for.
| swayvil wrote:
| Tolerant friends, high quality music, drugs, vipassana
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've never been particularly shy, but I have been socially
| awkward, all my life.
|
| It has gotten _drastically_ better, but still leaks out a bit,
| here and there (I 'm a bit "on the spectrum," so social
| awkwardness is _de rigueur_ for me).
|
| A lot of it has been age. As I have gotten older, what others
| think of me, has played a rapidly decreasing role in my life.
|
| Also, I have participated in an unusual organization for my
| entire adult life, that has helped me to deal with my social
| issues. It is not something that I'm willing to discuss in public
| (yes, it's one of _those_ organizations), but that 's what helped
| me.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| ADHD medication.
|
| I didn't even realize those things would be connected. Turned out
| a lot of - not all, but a lot - my depression, anxiety, and
| general weirdness was tied to ADHD.
|
| edit: I feel I should also note I went through a few years of
| therapy at one point and that also helped, but I can't understate
| that having ADHD diagnosed as an adult and receiving medication
| changed my life.
| aqme28 wrote:
| Well it sounds like you already made the most significant jump,
| which is realizing that social skills are just a skill, and like
| all skills they can be improved with practice. So practice. Put
| yourself in situations where you're a little out of your comfort
| zone and focus on small improvements (can I introduce myself to
| someone at this party? Can I make friends with someone at this
| party? Can I have a conversation with my seatmate on the plane?
| etc...).
|
| Remember that most people instinctively _want_ to like you. Let
| them. But sometimes people are closed off. Do not let that get to
| you. Just stay chipper and move on.
|
| I used to be the shy nerdy kid in school but most people in my
| life now wouldn't believe me if I told them that. I made a really
| deliberate effort to gain confidence in my social skills.
|
| It's dated and embarrassingly titled, but How To Win Friends And
| Influence People is a really good, genuine book on this.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I personally found the book How to be an Imperfectionist helpful.
| I don't remember many specifics, but it did help me feel
| different and I worried less about looking silly, or fumbling my
| words, etc. I've read many self-help books, but this is the only
| one that made an effortless and lasting change to who I am.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25692561-how-to-be-an-im...
| tintor wrote:
| Acroyoga
| spicybright wrote:
| Pushing yourself into new social situations you could potentially
| be uncomfortable with. Truama from other people.
| akhmatova wrote:
| Throwing myself out there, getting rejected and snubbed otherwise
| slapped around a lot .. until I slowly started to figure out how
| to observe "normal, healthy" people and learn from them.
|
| Among the things we learn is -- that we are much more "plastic"
| (and able to change by sheer force of will) than we initially
| thought. Things like hygiene, posture, clarity of speech (such
| that people can at least understand us) and tonal confidence are,
| for many of us, simply matters of bad habit that can be unlearned
| and their negative effects reversed, over time.
|
| The more we improve ourselves in these basic areas, the better we
| feel about ourselves... and soon enough people notice, and over
| time it becomes not only gets easier but starts to feel natural.
| Not instantly but... over time. Until the day comes when you stop
| thinking (so much) about how "awkward" you are, and instead
| you're thinking about your new life, your new friends, your hot
| new relationship, your awesome new day job (if that matters),
| etc.
|
| That and two other tips: (1) Taking the plunge, and moving to a
| totally new geographic area (or even just getting a different,
| much better place in the city where you live) can do wonders; as
| does (2) Paradoxically, not giving an F about what other people
| think. That is to say, acknowledging that it matters to some
| degree, on a certain level ... but in the scheme of things, it
| also just doesn't matter. Which helps you relax and feel
| confident (which does a lot to ameliorate the negative
| perceptions people have of you).
| varrock wrote:
| Ironically, I have done exactly the two tips you mentioned, and
| I can confidently say that my life has changed drastically. In
| fact, so much so, that when I catch up with people who knew me
| even two years ago, they usually make a comment.
|
| One thing I was initially afraid of when deciding to move was
| "running away from my problems" only to realize I'm in the
| exact same situation as before. Well, that was actually very
| true. I still felt like the same "awkward" person despite
| moving across the country. But here's the difference; I was
| actually motivated to fix it.
|
| Being in a new city opened my eyes to how much I wanted to
| explore, but also how much I was holding myself back. Ever
| since moving, I've lost my fear of being myself, have a
| partner, and found a higher paying job.
|
| My main point here is that while you can't run away from your
| true inner self, a new environment can certainly change your
| perspective and direction. I also want to note that I'm making
| it sound like it was as easy as moving, so to be transparent,
| it wasn't easy. It took a lot of self discipline and
| discomfort, but it was worth every second of doubt.
| laurent92 wrote:
| If it took only 2 years, it was easy. I've travelled around
| the world and did most of the possible side quests, including
| the workout phase, the guitar phase, the charity/vegan phase,
| the millionaire phase, and I'm still transparent to women.
| And I've grown bitter.
|
| I did everything I could. I'd say "please, help" but to be
| honest, I've grown too bitter to hear the advice. It's a game
| designed to make me lose, I'm neither BALM nor female, so
| they just want to exclude me.
| _3u10 wrote:
| It's not about them it's about you. Do things for you, not
| them.
|
| If you still insist on making it about them do everything
| women complain about that's not illegal, except dick pics,
| unless you're hung.
| kaba0 wrote:
| I would be very interested in any tips regarding improving
| one's speech skills. I am way too prone to talking too fast to
| the point where I have sometimes trouble forming words and any
| like "I didn't get that" makes me more anxious increasing my
| rate of mistakes.
|
| But strangely it largely creeped up to me when I was around
| 20ish years old, while my teenage anxiety largely diminished.
| memling wrote:
| Read and record yourself. Repeat until you learn what sounds
| good coming out of your mouth. Write at the same time. Think
| about your words. Savor both. It makes a world of difference.
| When you write read aloud.
|
| Share. Communication of all kinds goes together. If you get
| this far you may also find that practicing your voice in
| speech and writing will improve your self confidence too.
| trevinhofmann wrote:
| I personally recommend joining a local Toastmasters club.
| They can help you with speed, tone, volume, etc. It can
| benefit your conversational speech as well, not only public
| speaking.
| esbeeb wrote:
| Great answer. I agree getting out of one's comfort zone can go
| a long way to bringing new perspective, and adapting, and
| developing new skills. Especially social ones.
| DarkContinent wrote:
| +1 to worrying less about what other people think of you.
| Ironically, this caring less can actually make people like you
| more (because you seem more confident).
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| "how to observe "normal, healthy" people and learn from them."
|
| Very true! I would go as far as emulating a person you admire
| due to their ability to interact with others. Deconstruct their
| interaction and look for the parts that can help you. One thing
| you will mostly notice is self confidence. People always feel
| good with people that project that. Make sure it's confidence
| not arrogance. It's a fine line.
| Nition wrote:
| And funnily enough one of the first things you'll notice is
| that confident people have the same awkward faux pas
| interactions that would keep you awake at night _all the
| time_ - maybe even more often, since they aren 't so hyper-
| alert analyzing the conversation. But they just don't care!
|
| And because they don't get all shy and awkward when the
| awkward thing happens, because they don't _make_ it awkward,
| the other person doesn 't feel awkward either, and maybe at
| most both parties laugh about it for a moment, the
| conversation continues and life goes on and that night they
| sleep the peaceful sleep of the innocent. Or they lie awake
| worrying about some entirely different set of life problems,
| because we're all just doing our best and showing the best
| face we can.
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| So true, you remember your mistakes way more than anyone
| else's. Think about it. How many of other people's mistakes
| do you remember? Not many, if any. You just don't have the
| time and energy to focus on someone else life. It's hard
| enough to deal with yours. Be kind to yourself, note
| mistakes but don't obsess over them.
| _dain_ wrote:
| alcohol
| sbmthakur wrote:
| How does it help?
| specproc wrote:
| I got over my awkwardness waiting tables. You just gotta interact
| with people, all sorts of people. That and coping with chefs, who
| in my experience are frequently sadistic maniacs. It was tough,
| but I came out completely changed, and I absolutely loved that
| part of my life.
| holler wrote:
| Learning to small talk is one of the most valuable skills a
| person can have in life and will allow you to connect with more
| people than you thought possible.
|
| It all starts with very basic cues and the great thing is you can
| practice each and every day.
|
| Start off by simply looking at e.g. the cashier at the store and
| ask "how's your day going?", or make a small quip about the
| weather e.g. "it sure is cold today, can't wait for Spring!".
|
| Make this a daily practice even when you aren't feeling
| comfortable. Most people are happy to respond to simple friendly
| gestures and you'll slowly build confidence in your ability to
| connect with others.
|
| Practice, practice, practice.
|
| - Extremely extroverted introvert.
| adventured wrote:
| If anyone here wants some real life training on social
| interaction, take a once or twice per week part-time cashier
| job at CVS or Walgreens. Don't go for Walmart / Target, or a
| smaller convenience store. The middle ground of CVS and
| Walgreens is ideal, it has just enough traffic, but not too
| much. Do that for six months or so, and engage the customers
| sincerely. You'll have a couple hundred opportunities per week
| to talk to strangers and you'll get paid for it; they'll
| overwhelmingly be nice, older women customers, and many will
| appreciate the small talk.
|
| You'll deal with shoplifters (confrontation). You'll deal with
| people that are upset and or having a bad day. You'll deal with
| mean customers occasionally. You'll deal with obnoxious coupon
| types that will drive you crazy. 97% of the customers will be
| pleasant, and in a slight hurry. You'll help solve their
| problems. You'll deal with communication challenges from time
| to time (slurred speech, health issues, different accents,
| etc). You'll interact with customers from a very wide variety
| of socio-economic backgrounds (from poor EBT card users to rich
| people, from teens to grandparents). So you'll see a broad
| spectrum of social interaction, in a quite safe environment
| overall.
|
| One could take a paid phone-help job (support line of one type
| or another) to chat with lots of people, however the additional
| nice thing about the cashier job is that it's in-person. You
| also have a counter separating you from the customers (a bit of
| a shield for some introverts), and other employees in the store
| to back you up if anything unusual happens. The part-time
| cashier job is also not overly important to the store, so if
| you're working only one or two days per week you won't have
| very many other tasks put on your shoulders (which full-time
| employees will have).
| tomcam wrote:
| The phrase "small talk" pains me. I never ask a question for
| which I am not interested in the answer, and I think if you
| listen carefully before you say something about the weather you
| might hear something deep and genuine that you would have
| otherwise missed.
|
| Now I usually do ask how the other person is, but I am always
| listening for the real answer. I never ask it without wanting
| to hear what they say. (And if I'm feeling bad or don't want to
| hear their answer I do not ask at all.) Usually they give
| automatic responses, but if they don't, I try to give them the
| respect of questioning or agreeing with them in a way that they
| know they were heard.
| holler wrote:
| Salient point about listening/reading their response, another
| tool in the social/life tool belt.
|
| Re: weather, its not really about that, it's just opening the
| door that more often than not leads to a pleasant, random
| conversation with a total stranger.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| There's no such thing as "small talk".
|
| All talk is significant.
|
| If it is anything, "small talk" is talk that you don't mind
| other people hearing and joining. And if you think about that
| at a distance, it makes it very big talk indeed.
| dkersten wrote:
| To me, "small talk" is mundane chit-chat that you do mostly
| to be polite or to break the ice. _" Hi <neighbour>,
| weathers been awfully cold lately hasn't it? Yes, can't
| wait till summer. Did you watch the game yesterday? Anyway
| catch you later!"_ kind of things.
| dkersten wrote:
| > I never ask a question for which I am not interested in the
| answer
|
| Where I am, its common to say _" how are you?"_ as a stand in
| for _" hello"_, that is, without the expectation of an answer
| or even further conversation if you're just greeting someone
| in passing. Some time ago, I started making a point to
| actually respond and ask them how they are back, I often do
| this to cashiers in shops for example. For the most part,
| they seem to appreciate it. However, lately, I've been caught
| off guard a bit because there's one guy that works at my gym
| and he always greets me like that and out of habit, I stop,
| answer and ask him how he is, but he's not expecting further
| conversation since he was just expecting me to say "hi". Made
| for some awkward pauses until I adjusted my behavior to match
| his :)
| skohan wrote:
| I got a job at a call center in college to pay the bills. Had to
| give up the luxury of being shy very quickly.
| aitoehigie wrote:
| Social graces is like a muscle. And like human muscles, it
| atrophies with lack of use.
|
| So thrust yourself into every social interaction you can and
| watch yourself get better at it.
|
| It's pretty simple, don't overthink.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| For me the biggest thing was realizing that being socially
| awkward sometimes is not necessarily a problem. After I realized
| it was part of me, I didn't work to change it or improve it, but
| I learned how to deal with it. I'm still socially awkward
| sometimes, but in those moments I become self conscious and can
| do my best to think things through while also eliminating the
| useless thoughts ("what if that person over there thinks I'm
| weird?").
| ravenstine wrote:
| Having surrogate older bothers (aka older friends) has been
| helpful for me because they've been through what I'm going
| through and are at a point where they've reflected enough and
| know what I should and shouldn't be caring about. Of course they
| can be emulated when you notice they're being really effective
| socially-speaking.
|
| I'm not saying you can just "pick up older friends, bruh", but if
| you end up with a friend who's in the older brother/sister age
| range, take advantage (in a good way) because you can learn from
| them and they will almost always be happy to be a kind of role
| model for you.
|
| Writing down a "post mortem" after attending significant social
| events has helped me quite a lot as well. It's always good to
| write down thoughts while they're fresh, connect some dots, and
| hopefully remember something you've learned the next time.
|
| While there's something to be said about living in the moment,
| reflection is super important. It's easy to coast through life,
| have things happen to you, screw up, and then continue repeating
| similar patterns. Writing down any relevant ideas and reviewing
| them prevents valuable insight from going immediately down the
| toilet.
|
| One more thing is to practice looking people in the eyes. I'm bad
| at this because when I get thinking in depth about a topic, my
| eyes start to wander. But when the other person is speaking I've
| gotten much better about keeping eye contact. Just going in
| public and practicing looking at random people in the eyes was a
| big help. Yeah, it's awkward, and maybe it makes some people
| uncomfortable. You're gonna have to get used to making some
| people uncomfortable if you want to have good social skills,
| ironically, because otherwise you'll be too concerned about how
| you're perceived to the point where you're not making anyone
| comfortable. Maybe you'll creep some people out, but some people
| will look you in the eyes and smile back at you.
|
| Somehow overcoming the eye contact thing permeates a bit into the
| rest of your social skills. You have to have a certain level of
| confidence to do it properly and to not think twice about it, and
| many aspects of social skills just have to do with confidence.
| asdswe wrote:
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| Started wearing a cloak instead of a coat. Got lots of weird
| looks, and the occasional "Nice cape". Forced myself not to care
| about the weird looks, until I was used to it. Then stopped
| wearing the cloak everywhere.
|
| Almost never got actual rude remarks to my face. Most of the
| catastrophizing was in my head, nothing bad came of it.
| Eventually I absorbed the lesson for myself and didn't need to
| worry about (most) other people's opinions.
|
| Basically I just doubled down on being weird, until I stopped
| being embarrassed by my own weirdness.
| openfuture wrote:
| Step outside your comfort zone. Also start attending these events
| by alternative crowd, do a yoga teacher training or do retreats
| in improv or yoga or whatever (this may be too expensive, in that
| case I recommend psychadelics or hitchhiking as a cheap way to
| break these walls). The key thing to remember is that when people
| look at you like you are taking up space and make you feel that
| you don't belong then you feel bad so DON'T DO THAT. Always
| strive to be someone who makes others feel like they are welcome
| and that they belong. That is how you would want to be treated
| after all.
| justnotworthit wrote:
| Join a club; backpack travel; get a job handing out fliers; say
| hello to everyone you walk past. Just do it. Repeatedly. Don't
| judge yourself after each encounter. Instantly drop any negative
| feelings and move on to the next encounter.
|
| My big epiphany was that my shyness was costing me way too much.
| It's uncomfortable to think about the friends and opportunities I
| let go because I was too shy. Never again. I'd rather look stupid
| to most for the sake of the few that understand me.
| lcuff wrote:
| (1) I read a book, which helped quite a bit: "Contact, the first
| 4 minutes" by Leonard Zunin. Still available on Amazon, or
| perhaps at your local library. Lots of good tips.
|
| I (now) have fun interactions with people in (for example)
| grocery store lines, thanks to the tip that in these
| circumstances that you should comment on something immediately
| visible, so you have a shared starting point/reference point.
| I'll point to a People magazine or National Enquirer-type rag and
| say "I miss the days when there headlines about Elvis in a flying
| saucer", which will provoke a laugh and (often) a comment. Of
| course, I'm talking to people my age (in their sixties) so they
| remember that too. Adapt as needed to make it age-appropriate.
|
| It also lays out strategies for how to connect in less transient
| situations.
|
| As others have said, practice is very helpful.
|
| I was painfully shy and spoke haltingly as a young adult. I'm now
| very comfortably extraverted.
| tomcam wrote:
| I went from awkward to charismatic, so I can empathize.
|
| * Warning: if you want to succeed at this you'll have to
| experiment and fail. That's not fun. But you will come out the
| other side a far more interesting and effective person.
|
| * Several of the things mentioned here will benefit from
| practice. You can do this practice when you have otherwise
| unstructured time, such as driving, jogging, sitting on the bus,
| and so on.
|
| This passage contains its own breakthrough:
|
| > To be fair to myself, I am not awful in social situations in
| that depending on the context I can be seemingly confident and
| calm, especially when I am among people I know and the context is
| familiar.
|
| When I thought about that I concluded that acting as confident
| and calm as I am around my friends was the key. I understood that
| if I could use that magnetism in otherwise uncomfortable
| situations I could level up like crazy. And I did. What I would
| do was act out how I would behave in meetings or sales situation
| in my head ahead of time, and I imagined the people I was dealing
| with to be my closest friends. This technique didn't come
| naturally, which meant I had to mess it up several times before I
| got the hang of it.
|
| This ability will also come in handy when your spouse or someone
| else close to you is angry at you, justifiably or not. I have
| been in many situations where I was accused of something I didn't
| do, and I could not advocate for myself because I was too scared.
| Now that I work these things out before hand, I am more able to
| take control of the situation in a way that is as fair as
| possible to me.
|
| * Being a genuine listener helps enormously. People like it when
| you try to understand and feel the message they are conveying.
| Don't worry about trying to get your opinion across when you were
| trying to listen. Don't try to give them advice unless they
| explicitly ask for it. Feel free to say absolutely nothing when
| someone is talking to you and just try to take it in.
|
| * The black belt listening skill is being so good at it that you
| can make the other person in the conversation laugh. As with any
| advanced skill, don't try this until you've completed the other
| skill levels. Otherwise it just sounds like you're awkwardly
| inserting prefab jokes into the conversation. to hear this done
| right, listen to top podcast interviewers. Many of them are quite
| funny, but their humor almost always revolves around a perceptive
| and intelligent response to the guest.
|
| * Truly confident people say "I don't know" all the time. Even if
| you're not confident, being able to say it in public will make
| you a more confident person, and a better one to be around.
|
| * It helped me very much to get good at things that others find
| difficult. Teaching myself to be a tech writer so I could not
| have to work for McDonald's, then teaching myself to be a
| programmer so I could not have to work as a tech writer, and
| making more money than the losers I grew up with each helped me.
| I know I am supposed to tell you that we should be self-
| sufficient and not worry about what other people think. All I can
| say is that these things did help my confidence massively.
|
| A more conventional method:
|
| * I haven't taken it but I have never heard anyone complain that
| the Dale Carnegie course was in effective.
| devmunchies wrote:
| Reading books out loud to my kids, hamming it up, acting out the
| parts.
|
| if I go a couple of days on a deep project and my wife does story
| time instead then I start to stutter and my words become
| scattered.
|
| If you don't have kids, maybe just read adult fiction to yourself
| out loud.
| blamazon wrote:
| Personally I need scheduled social interaction. Something that
| happens with other people every Wednesday evening whether I'm
| feeling good or feeling bad. Or maybe every third Wednesday. Or
| one Wednesday a year. It does not matter. I do not cancel same
| day unless forced externally.
|
| I have enough of these on my calendar that it's not possible for
| me to retract from the world, but not so many as to be
| overloaded.
|
| Sometimes I need a mental health day/week/month and I try to pre-
| plan these as far in advance as possible, to try to run around
| the needy last minute lizard brain.
| jawns wrote:
| Not only was I awkward and shy -- but I was an extravert! I
| _wanted_ to be around other people and got bored easily when I
| was by myself. But I didn 't necessarily have the social skills
| to pull it off. So I was pretty miserable.
|
| What changed?
|
| I've thought a lot about this, and to be honest, while I would
| love to say that it was an intense, fulfilling journey of self-
| improvement ... I think what made the biggest difference was that
| the people around me changed.
|
| In high school, my peers were brutal and immature. There were
| bullies. There were people who would be a jerk to you for no
| reason other than for giggles. And there was a lot of pressure to
| conform or at least not stick out too much.
|
| Then college came around and I got involved in activities like
| the student newspaper, a co-ed a cappella group, and several
| other things. And the people were welcoming and actually wanted
| me to be a part of their group.
|
| Then, after college, I entered the working world, and while there
| were always a couple of difficult personalities, the vast
| majority of the people I worked with were professional,
| welcoming, appreciated my contributions, and wanted me to
| succeed.
|
| Yes, I can still be awkward at times. Through practice, I've
| gotten better at small talk, but I'll still trip over my own
| words from time to time. But the people with whom I've been
| fortunate to develop personal or professional relationships tend
| to have the maturity to accept that part of me.
| booboofixer wrote:
| > Then college came around
|
| I read a lot of such posts by people before i went to
| university, and boy was i surprised to find the reality can
| sometimes be very different. If there's any younger folks
| reading this, YMMV.
|
| > Then, after college, I entered the working world
|
| This is where it actually gets better, or at least it did for
| me.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| I second this. There's value in knowing how to behave in
| situations you deem as hostile, but nothing is more valuable
| than surrounding yourself with respectful, thoughtful and
| welcoming people. Doing that helped me to change hostile
| situations for the better, not only for myself but for other
| people who also struggle with them.
| altairprime wrote:
| This won't be of help necessarily, but for me the two necessary
| steps were gender transition and ADHD medication. Nothing else
| worked, not any willpower or effort-based therapies. In the end,
| it took hormones and brain meds to make me able to function. It
| didn't make me less awkward or shy. It just made me less anxious
| about being so.
| bobbygunderson wrote:
| Remembering "none of these cares about you enough to laugh at
| you".
| ehudt wrote:
| +1 to therapy. Also, consider reading The Highly Sensitive Person
| by Elaine Aron.
|
| I made a huge improvement to my shyness and self esteem by doing
| a few awareness workshops in my country (not US). And now doing
| therapy to boost other areas of my life which I want to improve.
|
| It's not your fault, it's how you (and I) were raised. I am a
| sensitive person. Since my parents didn't know much about it,
| they didn't teach me how to get by, how to make contact with
| people, how to respect myself and still be out in the world. The
| message I got was that I am shy and I need to "get over it". This
| didn't help but made things worse. Only in my 30s did I start
| fixing it and healing my pains. Very much worth it.
|
| Good luck
| [deleted]
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Ultimately it was exposure and practice of various kinds over the
| years, some natural some "enforced/intentional". I am a strong
| introvert (defined here as: I love people but social interactions
| exhaust my energy and I need to recharge alone). I used to be
| completely quiet in social settings during ages, oh, 6-25 or so,
| and very definitely shy & awkward. Today, people who have met me
| in last decade are convinced I'm a chatty extrovert.
|
| Few things:
|
| 1. In my mid-20's, I got a consulting job. I went from project to
| project, meeting new people, team members and clients. Building
| from a central core of confidence in my competence, it "leaked"
| that confidence into the accompanying social interactions as
| well. I dealt with people younger and older, technical and
| functional, of all kinds of personalities and walks of life. But!
| We had a reason to be there, a goal and mission and process and
| procedure, so it eliminated a lot of awkwardness and uncertainty
| and exposed me to varied social interactions 40 hours a week for
| years. As I grew my confidence in my work skills my confidence
| and comfort in social interactions grew as well.
|
| 2. I was a shy child, then in a civil war during my formative
| years of ~12-15. Let's call me a "late bloomer" when it comes to
| opposite sex :). After years of awkwardness and "lusting from
| afar" and just not going anywhere, I finally blew my gasket and
| one day decided "Enough is enough, I'll figure it out" and signed
| up for lavalife. I went on dates with conscious approach of "I'll
| probably survive this".
|
| Following sentence will make different amount of sense and
| obviousness depending which side of divide you're on, but
| eventually I learned: It's not rocket science, it's not deadly,
| it's doable. If you're a honest, open, semi-interesting person,
| dating is not hard. (Finding "the one" is more and longer work of
| course; I'm lucky to have done so and happily married with 2 kids
| now :)
|
| 3. I have many interests and hobbies, so going to photography
| meetups and classes, rock climbing, motorsports, etc, have all
| allowed me to experience additional social interactions built
| around a core interest and confidence and competency.
| Volunteering to teach or help with something you're strong at
| (computer literacy for example) will do absolute wonders.
| Teaching is amazing btw - there's a clear and easily
| understandable social situation where all attention is on you but
| in a friendly and well defined way. And though that sounds
| Sheldon-like, it is also amazingly rewarding fun and interesting!
|
| Also note, there are many paths to social acceptance. I have not
| chameleoned fully into social norms and strive for middle of bell
| curve - I'm still considered a bit weird; but it's said in a
| loving / amusing way (usually :-). I own it, I have significant
| confidence into who how what I am, and that seems to be the key
| ultimately, at least for any people I am interested in :-).
|
| [Personally, FWIW, and not to discourage but to share in
| wonderful variety of humanity :), Gym is the absolute positive
| LAST place I would've ever suggested my teenager self to reduce
| social awkwardness; for me, instead of starting from a core of
| confidence, it would start from the core of insecurity and
| incompetence, and to me a strange and incomprehensible social
| habits and contracts, suffused with body exposure and smells and
| all too frequently macho bravado and bro culture; but it may well
| work for others, and certainly if you do gym hard and long, it'll
| improve your body and body image (neither my confidence or self-
| consciousness have ever stemmed from my body; I'm neither
| embarrassed or proud of it - it just is :). ]
| drakonka wrote:
| I still feel socially awkward sometimes, but other are surprised
| when I tell them this because I generally come off as pretty well
| adjusted socially.
|
| I was very awkward in shy in school. In ninth grade I decided to
| go out of my way to stop being so shy. I started forcing myself
| to speak out in class, or talk to the "popular" kids whom I was
| always shy around. Over time it worked, I got more and more
| comfortable. There were some very cringe-worthy moments, but with
| time I just grew more comfortable not caring about people's
| responses enough to speak up in social situations.
|
| When meeting new people I still often get a bit shy and
| uncertain, but usually can kind of fake it for long enough until
| I get their "vibe" and how to respond to them in a way that
| maintains banter.
|
| If doing this as an adult, a version of what worked on me as a
| student might be putting yourself in social situations that
| you're not comfortable with a little bit at a time. Join a few
| different kinds of Meetups, take a group class. Hitting the gym
| as you say is good, I think it really helps with overall
| confidence. But being at the gym by yourself is often a solitary
| activity where you don't need to interact with others much. You
| can still feel self-conscious if you are new to the gym and don't
| feel like you know what you're doing, but just watching some
| YouTube videos to brush up on exercise ideas and lifting
| techniques can help that pass quickly.
|
| Good luck!
| hn_ltl-ftc wrote:
| I concur with the suggestion elsewhere on this page to try
| ToastMasters (though I think you should really try to commit to
| at least the introductory sequence, to get good value out of it).
|
| I also concur with the advice that dealing with social
| interactions is like muscle training: you need to do it
| repeatedly, and semi-regularly. And also, yes, it may be a little
| painful at first; and may feel very artificial--that's OK. A good
| place to practice: in a grocery store line, with whomever is
| behind you; and possibly with the checker, if they don't look
| stressed already.
|
| I didn't see MeetUps mentioned already, but I've found them
| great. That's because they give the participants something to
| do/think about/focus on; when the conversation might drag, or
| otherwise be awkward. Do note that going to MeetUps with, ahem,
| possibly an unusually high population of introverts might NOT be
| a great idea. In other words, don't expect to practice your
| social skills so much at, say, a 'New Features in TypeScript'
| meetup; but one devoted to, say, fresh-water canoeing might be
| better (yes that's nearly stereotyping, but roll with it,
| please...).
|
| Lastly, a great way to socialize, in a low-stress environment, is
| contra-dancing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_dance). If
| you're not familiar, it's a dance form that is VERY approachable
| for the most un-coordinated among us. And _live music_ , with
| just a nominal cover charge, typically. BTW, they usually have a
| mini-class at the beginning of each dance. But there are only
| about a dozen moves, and most of them are pretty basic
| (especially if you've done any square dancing or ballroom dancing
| before--but contra dancing is easier to learn). Typically there's
| a mid-dance break, which is a great time to practice socializing.
| Also, people usually change partners after each individual dance,
| so you get to meet lots of folks. (But don't expect to take
| anyone home that night--it's the _opposite_ of a 'meat market';
| and you will not be welcomed back if you're too aggresive...)
| There are dances in pretty much every state in the USA, and some
| outside the USA; though there are the most in the North East USA.
| Caveat: most dances were shut down completely due to COVID-19 and
| are just starting up again.
| EasyTiger_ wrote:
| Exercise helps more than anything I've ever found - I don't mean
| small amounts I mean exercising till you're sweating your bits
| off. Post-exercise you feel ready to CRUSH if you know what I
| mean :) I feel your pain my friend.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Went to university, also became a waiter in a restaurant at the
| same time (to pay for it).
|
| And as the top comment says, practice practice practice. Just
| doing it and realizing the worst that happens is maybe someone is
| slightly disinterested. In general people are cordial in public.
|
| Also, as you get older you stop caring what people think. So
| there's that too.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Self-confidence should not be confused with self-esteem.
|
| Self-confidence is inversely correlated to the power of your
| superego.
|
| Your superego is trying to protect you against harmful social
| mistakes. It strengthen itself when you are hurt (socially) and
| is usually modeled after the paternal authority and is often
| perceived as a kind of internal moral figure.
|
| Gaining self confidence is the same thing as loosening the grip
| of the superego.
|
| You can do that with alcohol, to some extent, but there are many
| undesirable side effects, including worsening your self
| confidence in the aftermath.
|
| My advise would be to experiment doing "risky" things in a
| controlled environment where you won't be hurt.
|
| There is no magic trick, unfortunately, success is what lead to
| self confidence.
|
| (That is, teaching your superego that you can do social things
| without shooting yourself in the foot)
| nanochad wrote:
| maniaisfake wrote:
| arturo40 wrote:
| Toastmasters
|
| Advantages include * can be in person or remote * safe,
| businesslike environment with well-defined structure * no need to
| talk about anything personal * supportive for the very shy - go
| at your own pace * also challenging for those who don't think of
| themselves as shy - but have trouble delivering a 7 minute
| memorized speech in front of a large audience judging their
| performance
| Grustaf wrote:
| That doesn't sound like it would help with every day
| awkwardness, does it? I presume that's what OP wanted help
| with.
| adventured wrote:
| Public presentation training (public speeches, presentations,
| etc) will help enormously with every day social awkwardness,
| especially if you do it regularly and in varying ways (don't
| do the same thing, same speech, to the same people over and
| over again; if you do the same thing over and over again, you
| may just be training a sort of fake social muscle memory).
|
| It's quite rare that you can conquer a public crowd but you
| can't deal with mundane every day social situations (I'm sure
| there are exceptions, it's just a rare combination).
|
| The memorized speech part isn't ideal over time though. To
| get started that's fine, however it should be a written
| speech and intentionally improvized after a few experiences
| with doing it; and then it should be entirely improvized (and
| a bit shorter) occasionally as well.
| missedthecue wrote:
| I was in toastmasters for several years and it cured my
| shyness. People now compliment me on my ability to tell
| stories for instance. It's effected a noticeable change.
| nicolas_t wrote:
| I forced myself to do improv theatre. When I started, I was
| terrified, I was shy and doing that was definitely out of my
| comfort zone but the group I found was very welcoming and it
| quickly felt fun. The great thing about improv is that you learn
| to simulate different situations, you learn to be careful about
| your posture and mannerism as you take on different roles.
|
| For someone who was as shy as I was, it was not easy to get
| started but I think it's the single thing that helped me the
| most.
|
| Another commenter mentions toastmasters, I tried that but it
| really wasn't for me, some friends had great success with it
| though.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| This is a remarkably all-out brave strategy. I'm sure you don't
| need the congratulations, but well done!
| wpietri wrote:
| An also-effective approach is just to take the improv classes
| without ever performing on stage. That's all I did, but the
| lessons have stuck with me.
|
| These days there seem to be more improv classes that are
| friendly to that, just people who like playing with one
| another. So if people are scared even by the classes, I'd
| suggest asking the instructor for something that's very
| beginner-friendly and not totally oriented on performance.
| carabiner wrote:
| There's a book Improv Wisdom written by a former leader of
| Stanford's improv club that I found deeply insightful. I was
| looking into improv to address my social anxiety a while ago,
| sadly this was at the start of pandemic when everything shut
| down. Maybe I should go for it again.
| amelius wrote:
| The author of that book did a Google Talk about the book some
| time ago:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABw26imw4m4
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| This is one of the rare situations where "fake it until you make
| it" applies.
| ajuc wrote:
| Some tricks that helped me:
|
| - practice in situations with low stakes (for example there are
| social situations where everybody meet for a short time and never
| again - these are perfect cause even if you panic and make a
| scene - it's no big deal - for me it was fantasy conventions -
| added bonus is that there's stuff to do and a lot of people there
| are awkward too)
|
| - practice the part you can deal with first (for example I had
| problems with home parties because at the beginning there will be
| only a few people and talking with them would put a lot of
| attention on me which I found hard back then - so I would go to
| bathroom for a moment and go back when others started talking
| about something and the attention was shifted - this made it much
| easier to just experience talking with random people without
| having to deal with the hard part at the beginning)
|
| - after you're fine in one context - challenge yourself in other
| contexts (I still have some situations I never practiced or that
| last happened when I was still the weird teenager in high school
| - and I can be very awkward in these situations which usually
| takes me by surprise - but they happen very rarely now)
|
| - expose yourself on purpose - ultimately the goal is to be able
| to behave naturally without pretending to be someone else. When
| you're feeling good enough with someone - telling some of the
| "awkward stories" is a good way to get there - you show them your
| real self and "disarm" them preventively (vast majority of people
| won't attack you about stuff you share with them as a funny story
| even if it's really weird).
| ironman1478 wrote:
| For me therapy has worked. I always had a ton of anxiety of how I
| was perceived in social context and it would cripple me. Therapy
| put into context how skewed those thoughts were and through
| therapy I learned techniques to overcome the wave of anxiety.
|
| Also, here is a less cliched answer. I do interviews at work and
| have to do a behavioral one. I feel like it's given me a lot of
| practice with just meeting people for the first time and striking
| off a conversation. I've used those skills in my day to day life
| and it works great.
| daneel_w wrote:
| I stopped paying attention to the delusions I had about what
| people thought of my person, my face, my clothes etc.
| elorant wrote:
| Just listen to people man. That's all it takes. Ask them about
| themselves, their work, their interests and just stfu and listen.
| And once you find common ground take it from there.
| conradludgate wrote:
| I'm still very introverted (even if that word is cliche). I get
| anxiety in social situations.
|
| I have some experience with acting, so in certain scenarios, I'm
| able to act as a more confident character and get through the
| initial awkward phases.
|
| I still can't just make myself go to involved social events
| because they overwhelm me. I pick my battles
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Propranolol and alcohol solved this for me, only drawback is you
| need to know 30 minutes beforehand. Benzos would also solve it
| but they are too addictive.
| dkersten wrote:
| > It's common to advise hitting on the gym, which I just started
| doing last week. Funnily, the gym is the place where I last
| noticed my awkward behavior :)
|
| I haven't really been in any major social situations lately
| because of Covid, but I started going to the gym 5 months ago and
| I find I feel more confident now, just because I feel better
| about myself and my body I guess. Feeling more confident makes me
| feel less awkward, although we will see. In any case, if you just
| started last week, give it some time. Once you start to see
| physical results, you should start feeling better and that may
| help you be less awkward too. For me, it took a few months, so it
| won't be an overnight change.
| bbertelsen wrote:
| There is no skill on this earth that we can't become proficient
| in with practice. Stop thinking about interpersonal interactions
| as if they are some "innate" class of knowledge, they aren't!
| Drawing, painting, carpentry, programming, sport, there is no
| mysticism or innate ability. Obviously everyone has their own
| advantages more beautiful, more athletic, smarter, faster
| thinker, better hand-eye coordination, but not one of these
| advantages is a replacement for PREPERATION AND PRACTICE.
| l_t wrote:
| Judging by your post history, you might be a software engineer.
| As such, you might benefit from a few specific tactics I haven't
| seen in other comments yet:
|
| 1. Being an interviewer.
|
| 2. Being a mentor. (onboarding mentor, for example.)
|
| 3. Join your workplace's "Donut" program, if it has one. (I don't
| know what these are normally called, but at my job it's a thing
| where you get matched with a new random coworker every two weeks
| for a half-hour chat.)
|
| The common thread of these tactics is you have the opportunity to
| meet new people in a mostly-familiar workplace context where you
| probably have more confidence and a greater sense of belonging.
| The more supportive environment lets you learn conversational
| skills that you can then deploy in more unfamiliar contexts like
| meetups or gyms.
|
| Not only that, but for (1) and (2) you -- hopefully -- get
| training/shadowing opportunities before being thrown in the deep
| end.
|
| Between those three things, I've had 1-1 (or 1-1-1, for
| interviews) conversations with 100+ different people over ~5
| years. In retrospect, this has considerably reduced my social
| anxiety, although that had never been my explicit intent (I was
| just trying to help / learn / etc.)
|
| As with all things in life, YMMV. Obviously these tactics are
| workplace-dependent. And if the idea of mentoring or interviewing
| puts you in the "panic zone" (brain shuts down), you might be
| advised to try some intermediate steps first.
| glouwbug wrote:
| Try lifting heavy weights. A starter program like strong lifts or
| starting strength is a good start
| vmception wrote:
| I was only awkward and shy around the people I wanted to be
| confident around, such as women that were more beautiful than
| other women, and had high and predictable consensus around that
| coveted level of attractiveness (as opposed to something more
| subjective).
|
| What helped me was realizing that everyone is going through
| something similar in new situations.
|
| The attractive person has the same anxieties as the unattractive
| person. The same random allocation of life issues, bad
| experiences, good experiences.
|
| This is somewhat tangential, but helped me: its also a
| reinforcing reason to prioritize using energy on primarily the
| most visually and sexually attractive people - which was where
| the awkwardness could materialize - because people that only can
| rely on convincing you they have "a nice personality" or
| "attractive on the inside" are eclipsed or totally obscured by
| people that are also attractive on the outside because hot people
| can _also_ be hot on the inside.
|
| Basically, the internal and mental stuff is the same, so after
| realizing that, its easier to not be led astray if you are
| interested in something more coveted by more people.
|
| As some others wrote, improving yourself helps a lot, posture,
| hygiene, living arrangement (better part of town, new town). How
| that factors into my note, yeah you still have to attract the
| other people and a lot of that involves gender neutral tweaks. If
| you live in a coveted and also convenient part of town, it
| conveys enough and you have more opportunities to attract people
| to things because of how towns are organized.
| rdiddly wrote:
| I would actually recommend dropping this line of questioning.
| It's perfectionist. And treating it as a problem that needs to be
| solved (in effect treating _you_ as a problem to be solved) just
| puts extra scrutiny /attention/pressure on it that will make it
| worse. It's just a habit that you will grow out of naturally with
| more experience around people. And that will happen faster if you
| forgive yourself, accept yourself as you are, and accept each
| situation as it is and each person as they are. A lot of
| situations are inherently awkward, will be less than perfect, and
| will bear no resemblance to the snappy scripted dialog in
| TV/movies. Wishing things were different from how they are, is 9
| times out of 10 where the problem itself comes from - in your
| case being in an awkward situation, and _being hyper-aware_ that
| it 's awkward. Younger children are awkward but don't know it,
| and most of them seem happy enough. Forget about it. Everybody is
| at _some_ level of gracefulness. Is everybody "awkward" who
| isn't perfect? Even Olympic figure skaters probably stub their
| toes on their coffee-table legs.
|
| The other thing to realize is that the awkwardness is an inward-
| looking and (to apply a sort of judgmental slant on it)
| ultimately kind of self-indulgent habit. People around you are
| probably just as nervous and awkward as you, and seeking signs
| that it's okay and safe to be themselves. What signals are you
| giving them? You could be a leader to them, showing them the way.
| Be curious about them, reach out and ask _them_ how they 're
| doing, take an interest in _them_ and what they have to say. That
| 's the best way to forget about _you_ , i.e. literally lose your
| self-consciousness. If nothing else it will at least take the
| spotlight off of you for a few seconds while they talk, which
| might be a relief. But people really appreciate when you take an
| interest in them, and they also appreciate (this will sound a
| touch cynical) the opportunity to talk about themselves. You will
| be well-liked. Although in the long run just don't give too much
| slack to people who latch onto you as a "good listener" and never
| give you a chance to talk! They should be willing to let you talk
| sometimes. And by the same token you should be ready and willing
| to share about yourself, not just asking questions about others
| like an interrogator. But in general, start with asking about and
| caring about others; that's the foundation of every meaningful
| relationship anyway.
| tomcam wrote:
| Disagree with the first graf, totally agree with the second! I
| sort of like your point about just not worrying about it. But I
| found that I could improve my self-confidence by working at it,
| and it was ultimately worth literally millions of dollars and
| much more happiness to me. Also meant that I was always able to
| meet wonderful romantic partners and I am... not good looking
| at all.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Getting married helped a lot. Having children was the final nail
| in the coffin. I'm me and I'm complete (from my own perspective
| of what it means to me complete) and I can go into any social
| interaction now with the belief that anyone who doesn't like me
| is there problem. If I have difficulty conversing with someone, I
| can always just walk away and play with my kids, kiss my wife,
| and declare a win. That's what it feels like, at least. And
| that's good enough.
| tonguetrainer wrote:
| Look into Rejection Therapy. I did it years ago and it worked:
| https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/16/3772390...
| asfarley wrote:
| See what you can get out of them. View meeting new people as a
| potential opportunity for arbitrage.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| Marijuana. I stopped drinking and started using edibles,
| tinctures, and now a vaporizer. My social awkwardness came from
| social anxiety. The marijuana, more than any of the dozens of
| prescriptions I had, helped me overcome and deal with my anxiety.
| michealr wrote:
| As others have said, its a grab back of things, with various
| types of success. Of course no one true silver bullet. The common
| things of good sleep and excerise always a good idea, regardless.
| Perhaps even team sports, but personal interests will vary this.
|
| I would say feeling ok with a certain level of personal
| experimentation, but don't let it neurotically consume you. You
| have already managed to navigate life to this point. Not
| everything needs to be changed and not everything needs to be
| queried.
|
| Trying to dramatically change things can perhaps backfire.
| Fitting in something related to your existing interests, but with
| an extroverted forcing function aspect can help.
|
| If you know a technical topic pretty well already, seek to
| present on it, or teach some intro workshops. Generally, seek to
| find things that would exercise certain anti shyness muscles.
|
| One thing I found personally helpful was learning a language via
| immediate focus even at the beginner stages with talking, there
| are numerous online language learning sites with lessons
| delivered via video chat. Would say 30 minute lessons initial are
| ideal.
|
| For me shyness feels like a certain analytical process turned
| inwards, like I'm DDOS my own brain. The excessive nature is the
| issue, not necessasrily the mere act of self analysis. Finding
| activities where I had to moderate that excessive tendency helped
| for me to recognise the difference
|
| Therapy is always an additional option, but dependent on the
| person and the needs of course.
| rubyfan wrote:
| I noticed a strong correlation with being more comfortable
| talking especially to strangers after I quit coding. It took a
| while for my brain to rewire but it's much better not being a
| coder anymore.
|
| Based on my own anecdote of 1, I believe there's a strong
| correlation between living inside your own head and feeling
| awkward in mixed scenarios.
| epolanski wrote:
| > I cannot help but notice
|
| This is one of the biggest issues that cause awkwardness: caring
| too much about how you're perceived.
|
| One simple way to get rid of it: just tell people that you
| sometimes may appear or feel shy, goofy or awkward and you'll
| remove the problem, because you removed the anxiety of appearing
| in that way: you already told people that's your nature, you no
| longer have anything to lose!
|
| Actually this will give you much more comfort to remove the
| awkwardness.
|
| You can use this method in different scenarios where you
| generally perform poorly because of anxiety or awkwardness. Just
| tell straight ahead that you are a disaster at X and you remove
| entirely the pressure from yourself and expectations from others.
| KerrickStaley wrote:
| Framing conversations as a game where the (mutual) goal is to
| entertain the other person helped me become a non-terrible
| conversationalist. Keep trying to think of things to say that
| will make the other person feel interested or amused, and try to
| tune in to their mood as the conversation progresses.
|
| Also important while you're doing this is to pay attention to
| what they're saying (instead of getting lost in your own head
| trying to think of the next thing to say) and asking them
| questions about themselves. (Thanks go to my partner Meng who
| pointed these things out to me :)
|
| Also, just forcing myself to converse more at parties, with
| coworkers, etc even when it seemed awkward or draining helped.
| You just have to practice.
| wpietri wrote:
| Yes! Improv classes can be great for learning the right
| attitude and some conversational tricks. And I totally agree on
| questions. A lot of people here are naturally curious, and most
| people like to talk about themselves, so you can get a great
| reputation just by being interested in the life and experiences
| of the person you're talking to.
| wangii wrote:
| I had my epiphany when I saw the guy, whom I believed to be the
| master of socialization, practiced his lines in the toilet before
| a big event. Relax, everybody is socially awkward.
| 0F wrote:
| I never did. I'm 30
| more_corn wrote:
| I am normally very reserved. Quiet, bookish. I was traveling
| alone in the Caribbean and on the flight I decided the trip would
| be more fun if I had friends. I decided to just say hi to every
| person and strike up a conversation if they were interested.
|
| I made a crew of 8 friends, we did everything together and kept
| in touch for years.
|
| Just make a point to say hi and be open to having a conversation.
|
| If you can't think of anything to say: Speak about something you
| find interesting Engage with the person you're talking to and
| figure out what they're interested in
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| How much experience do you have in social situations? If your
| answer is "not very much", the solution probably lies in
| exposure. Once something becomes routine, it's much easier to
| manage because so many elements of that thing become second
| nature. When you're inexperienced in social situations your mind
| is far more stressed with every little detail, which ultimately
| builds up into what most people call "awkwardness".
| chadaustin wrote:
| I was voted shyest kid in my high school class. My brain would go
| white during any attempt at public speaking, and I was super
| awkward around any new people.
|
| Much of it came from being extremely sensitive. So much worry
| about what other people thought, and that any esteem in which you
| may be held could be destroyed at any moment.
|
| A couple things changed: I joined team sports and programming
| competitions, which strengthened my self-esteem and confidence.
| Eventually, I grew to understand my lizard brain's reactions
| could consciously override them. For example, several years back,
| I was invited to speak at a conference in China, and my first
| thought was "NOOO" but then I realized I'd regret that and when
| else do you get to see a new country on someone else's dime? So
| it's worth optimizing for opportunity. It's kind of like the
| improv rule. Always say yes, and see where it goes.
|
| But it never completely fades. I'm a seasoned and respected
| engineer and I still get sweaty hands and an elevated heart rate
| even when giving status updates to my team of five years.
| shaunxcode wrote:
| Play in a band! Not only do you have to maintain relationships,
| and thus conversations with 4 other people, but playing shows
| gives you a reason to leave the house and meet new people!
| oxplot wrote:
| Drugs, drugs, drugs.
|
| It's not about cheating or becoming dependent, although those are
| real concerns. But what drugs do, is to push you past a boundary
| that you would not otherwise cross yourself. They essentially
| help you realize and experience what it feels like to be relaxed,
| confident, mentally turned on, assertive, bubbly, etc. Once you
| feel it, you start to learn how to get there without the push.
| Although that does require self-awareness and introspection.
|
| As some have mentioned, the safest and most effective one is
| alcohol. One or two glasses of white wine should do to start
| with. I personally find any hard liquor to be terrible in this
| regard. Personally, alcohol lets me keep a more natural eye
| contact and mellows my movements and facial expression.
|
| Caffeine helps me think fast and be on, and it lifts my mood up
| and makes me talkative in social situations (sometimes a little
| too much). I've picked up techniques that helps me get there
| without caffeine.
|
| I found phenibut to be an eye-opener when it came to feeling
| relaxed in muscles. Helped with my posture and breathing. Up to
| that point, I literally did not know how to loosen my abs and
| chest muscles to get a nice straight back. It even helped me walk
| more steady and confident. The confidence that comes from a good
| posture surprisingly translates into better social interactions!
| I only took phenibut once a week or so for a few months many
| years ago and stopped. The learning stays with me to date.
|
| Beta-blockers have helped me stay chill under stress. I'm very
| prone to stress and panic attacks. This one's a quick fixer -
| haven't learnt anything from this one.
|
| Magnesium also has a chill effect and it's something you can
| actually take on regular basis for other benefits.
|
| As always, read about whatever you're about to try, thoroughly
| and only from scientific sources.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Actually before alcohol, I would look at kava for a gabaergic
| to reduce social anxiety or kratom as a modulator of social
| motivation. They both work quite well if used at the right
| times in the right amounts
| graycat wrote:
| Four small points -- I'm a guy, have tried to learn as a guy, and
| am aiming my remarks at guys:
|
| (1) There is a cliche with a lot of truth: "Boys pay attention to
| things, and girls, to people." So, tough for a boy to be as good
| with people as a girl, and a boy, man, should not be ashamed or
| discouraged because they are less good with people than the
| girls, women. But, to do better, to some extent can borrow from
| the girls -- a LOT of girls work REALLY hard to be good with
| people, so to borrow a little just work a little at being good
| with people: Pay attention to people, notice how they act, what
| they seem to be thinking, feeling, etc. E.g., notice their
| emotional state and how your behavior seems to be affecting that.
|
| Uh, here I say _girl_ because this problem of doing well with
| people has its roots back at least to middle school where the
| females were _girls_ or maybe _young women_ but not yet _women_
| (although, if we are to understand people, we should notice, at
| least admit, that Mother Nature regards a lot of middle school
| girls as already 100% women, and that fact likely has a lot of
| the girls already taking adult life really seriously because they
| understand that Mother Nature regards them as 100% women).
|
| (2) If person X is afraid, of nearly anything, rejection, money,
| etc., people can feel that, and it can make them feel
| uncomfortable and reject X (flat statement about why children are
| rejected by their peers, from T. Berry Brazelton). Soooo, try to
| get fears under control.
|
| (3) People can respect strength, accomplishment, hard work. E.g.,
| a few times I was in some tough competitions and totally blew
| away all the competitors. People didn't let me know right away,
| but later I discovered, by accident, that some people had a lot
| of respect for me for that.
|
| (4) To build on (3), it can be easy to get treated badly, even
| really badly, due to people being jealous of where you won. But
| the upside of that is, some of the people not treating you badly
| are respecting you and ready to be nice to you.
| steve76 wrote:
| grover35 wrote:
| I wouldn't ask HN, most people here are into quantified self and
| other strange things, normal people don't do that.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| "Normal people" often don't know they are using strategies,
| maybe, but it's a mistake to assume that they don't.
|
| There are all sorts of strategies, big and small, being
| consciously or subconsciously deployed by "normal" people.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| I didn't improve much over time, really. The big improvement is
| accepting who I am and being more conscious about pros and cons
| of various character traits.
|
| Worth reading Rohr's book about the Enneagram; you don't need to
| care at all about the religious aspect of it but it explains that
| very often it's the stuff that can help you build up your life is
| also what makes you suffer, just manifesting in a different way.
| Learning to love both the darker and the brighter side of your
| personality helps with living a more harmonious life. (It does
| not necessarily help with those awkward moments, but you can
| accept them as a long distance runner accepts that there are
| hours when you suffer and hours when you enjoy the ride, and
| these don't exist without each other.)
| wpietri wrote:
| One thing that helped me was analyzing things in terms of what I
| think of as "anxiety loops".
|
| First, think about how anxiety happens. Imagine you're about to
| cross the street at a quiet intersection. A car rounds the corner
| going way too fast and zooms right at you. You jump out of the
| way and are fine. Next time you get to that corner you will
| experience anxiety based on the association between a scary
| experience and what you were perceiving at the time. It will
| likely change your behavior a bit. Maybe you'll look around more,
| maybe you'll hesitate before crossing, maybe you'll cross
| somewhere else. With enough positive experiences, the anxiety
| will fade and it's back to normal.
|
| But imagine that the anxiety and resulting behavior change
| actually makes things worse? That's not true about the street-
| crossing example. [1] But it can be true for other things. E.g.,
| for years my anxiety around taxes would make doing taxes more
| painful, making me more anxious the next time. It's also true for
| many social things, just as you describe. You can end up in a
| positive feedback loop where things keep getting worse.
|
| What helped me was a few years of a good therapist and anti-
| anxiety medication. It got me to recognize the systemic component
| to the problem and to start dealing with it. In particular, I had
| to let go of what I thought I _should_ be experiencing ( "It's
| safe! I should be fine!) and accept what I was experiencing
| (anxiety, awkwardness, etc). From there it was sort of like
| training a dog in that I had to make sure I was creating actually
| positive experiences for myself.
|
| I think you're on to something with exercise, and I encourage all
| sorts of self-experimentation here. For me, long-duration cardio
| helps a lot. So does a regular sleep cycle, a diet low in refined
| carbs, and things that relax the body (yoga, steam, hot tubs,
| etc). I also manage my consumption of things that are intense
| (games, movies, TV), as that can increase my baseline anxiety.
| The lower baseline means that things like talking with strangers
| is less likely to trigger the formation of an anxiety loop.
|
| I hope that helps! If you're looking for a book, "The Body Keeps
| The Score" was hugely useful to me in seeing the big picture. And
| if you think social stuff is harder for you than most, talk with
| your therapist about that too. It's a sad truth that many non-
| neurotypical people are _justifiably_ anxious about neurotypical
| social situations because those situations are a long-term source
| of low-grade trauma.
|
| I hope that helps, and you should feel free to contact me off-
| site if you want to follow up without the eyes of the whole world
| upon you.
|
| [1] Unless it was so severe that you developed PTSD, in which
| case you may end up with a self-reinforcing trauma loop.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| > It's common to advise hitting on the gym, which I just started
| doing last week. Funnily, the gym is the place where I last
| noticed my awkward behavior :)
|
| If you are able to, consider a home gym to first get comfortable
| with what you are doing or hire a personal trainer at a public
| gym.
|
| This person gives positive gym talk -
| https://www.tiktok.com/@thejoeyswoll?lang=en
| snovv_crash wrote:
| I realised social approval doesn't matter, and then everything
| was fine. Obviously I still try to do my best, but now that I'm
| doing it for me and not for getting approval or impressing
| people, suddenly it isn't about confidence anymore. The self-
| failure of not trying is worse than getting negative feedback, so
| hiding in my shell isn't an option anymore.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Watch an episode of "The Thick of It" before going to work.
| breckenedge wrote:
| There are very few psychiatrists here on HN, but tons of armchair
| psychiatrists. If you feel like you need help with socialization,
| I strongly recommend getting in touch with one. It's not as
| uncommon as it seems.
| bugmen0t wrote:
| Practice. Find a course, a group, something where interacting
| with people is normal and you have a shared conversation topic
| (homework, practice, worst case the news, the weather, the
| weekend). Maybe a language class?
|
| It's OK to prepare statements in your head so you don't have to
| blush or worst-case come up with something inappropriate.
| [deleted]
| abraae wrote:
| Wow, blushing. I had entirely forgotten I used to do that in many
| situations. It's hideously embarrassing because it's so obvious
| to others. FWIW the good news is it goes away, or did for me.
| epitath wrote:
| I've been there. I was _very_ shy, talking to strangers was a big
| problem, talking to girls my age was like climbing the Mt.
| Everest.
|
| What helped me was to just go out there and practice. I'm not
| from the US, but i think it might be way easier in the states to
| just go out and practicing small talk.
|
| I started very small. Driving to a different city and just asking
| people what time it is, asking for directions, pretending to be a
| tourist. Salespeople are also very helpful. For example drive to
| a store and ask for recommendations for a specific item if you
| want to make a purchase anyway.
|
| The key for me was to make it a habit. Start with asking older
| people, then people your age, then women in groups, etc.
|
| Practice and you will see that you get better at reading people
| and how they react to what you say.
| claylimo wrote:
| Therapy, many meditation retreats, and knowing myself. My old
| reactions and feelings can still happen but they are more like
| phantom limbs
| DeWilde wrote:
| Try a mental trick I often use: everyone else is self conscious
| about how they appear and what other people think of them. Once
| that sinks in don't be afraid to be yourself even if that means
| being awkward.
| serverlessmom wrote:
| Social anxiety is a real burden to live with. I'm in the same
| boat that you are, even when people are being very friendly with
| me and are obviously interested in getting to know me I can seem
| so uncomfortable that it is off-putting to them. I've been
| accused of being stuck up before when honestly I'm just very shy.
| If I could suggest anything that is fairly easy to start thinking
| about, I would suggest garnering a sense of style. Buy clothes
| that make you feel comfortable and make you look good- even if
| your look is unconventional the ability to express one's identity
| through fashion builds confidence.
| MarcScott wrote:
| Martial arts helped me a huge amount. You spend a lot of time
| doing very silly looking things in the company of others. There's
| a lot of physical contact with strangers. You teach and coach
| each other. You also gain a huge amount of confidence in
| yourself, that grows as you get better. It's a social activity
| without having the burden of being a team sport.
|
| Been a sensei for about ten years now, so I'm also used to
| standing in front of large groups of people and delivering
| instruction, demonstrating techniques on a regular basis,
| planning lessons with other instructors.
|
| Take one up, and don't fret about which one is the best. I
| started with TKD and Aikido, but now train in Karate and HEMA. It
| really doesn't matter which one you choose, just find a class
| you're comfortable being at.
| sevensor wrote:
| Your milage may vary depending on which martial art you choose.
| In a very traditional studio, you may know your fellow students
| only by rank. None of this is to take away from the parent's
| point. Even in that environment, the stuff about physical
| contact and being awkward in front of others, all of it is
| true, and all of it is beneficial. Just don't expect that you
| will necessarily find friends in the same place you find your
| social confidence.
| MarcScott wrote:
| Yep, I was talking about social confidence and not
| necessarily making friends. You might very well make friends
| at a martial arts class, or just learn to deal with people
| you don't actually like, but have to fight with in a friendly
| way. I've had really good mates break my ribs, and people I
| don't actually like hug me at the end of a bout. It all
| helps.
| 18al wrote:
| I too tried gym, but now I'm muscular and awkward. Now, before
| interaction, people don't expect me to be awkward, and it feels
| as though they are more forgiving of my awkwardness but that
| could just be my perception.
|
| Going to the gym and losing weight did help a lot with self
| esteem (and posture) issues though.
|
| After observing my interactions, I found that if I'm unfamiliar
| with the person, I'll miss out on social cues or there'll be a
| delay before I perceive them. Also my brain goes into some kind
| of _fight or flight_ causing slightly impaired speech and memory.
|
| What I do to _fix_ this is watch how others interact with this
| person and try to mimic them while adjusting for unfamiliarity.
| Assuming familiarity could be perceived as rude.
|
| For me building familiarity allows me to interact with decreasing
| awkwardness, so I just try and find the fastest way to do that.
| kaetemi wrote:
| Go to a new place where you don't plan on going again.
| Voeid wrote:
| Define "improve", I myself do not see changing the way one
| behaves to fit some socially accepted standard as improvement of
| any kind whatsoever.
|
| By the way, this question is off-topic here, please use reddit.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| For starters, anywhere where there's a shared activity that
| requires interaction. Nothing that allows you to be a wallflower.
| The shared activity makes it easier to not be pure social.
|
| After that, joining volunteer leadership or purely social
| organizations. Think a volunteer-staffed group in your area or
| Toastmasters.
|
| I did it for 10 years, at least twice monthly, and the practice
| drastically improved my ability and comfort interacting with
| people.
| pyentropy wrote:
| 1. Set realistic goals and keep in mind a lot of social stuff
| that people pull off isn't effortless, they put A TON of work in.
|
| 2. Confidence boosts: gym, clothing style, telling friends about
| your vulnerabilities and feelings (there's no better feeling than
| being told by a friend that what you worried is something they
| really never saw or cared about), inviting people to things.
|
| 3. Too much blushing and physical vulnerability may be fixable
| with exposure therapy or may require medication. It may also be a
| result of Asperger's. Don't be afraid of seeking medical help for
| stuff that's out of your control.
|
| 4. Realise that ALL HUMANS are broken in some fundamental way and
| that includes the person next to you. So don't be afraid to
| interact with them and do not assume they'll judge you harshly.
| dlivingston wrote:
| This is a complex problem, and no single answer will be a
| solution.
|
| A few miscellaneous tips:
|
| - Join a local ToastMasters chapter: it will force you to (1)
| speak to many people at once that you aren't familiar with, (2)
| force you to improve public speaking (which is closely related to
| #1), and (3) increase your confidence with speaking in general.
|
| - The gym, like you mentioned, is one of the biggest single
| things you can do. Not even for the physiological transformation,
| but for the chemical dump that happens in your brain when you
| exercise, which has 'afterglow' affects that can last for days. I
| cannot recommend CrossFit enough (or just class-based functional
| fitness training in general).
|
| - Get lots of quality sleep. Good sleep won't make you confident,
| but lack of sleep will definitely make you less confident over
| time (increased anxiety, decreased communication skills, etc.)
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Testosterone injections have really helped me. You can try
| increasing your T naturally
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| Keep in mind that most people are uncomfortable with new
| situations. So helping them feel comfortable with you will
| ultimately help you.
|
| -Get in situations where you need to interact with people, such
| as a job that deals with others.
|
| -Keep up to date with current events. You need to be interesting
| so being able to speak on current events helps. Read nonfiction
| books. They help add to your knowledge.
|
| -Be a master of the short conversation. Read books on how to
| improve your conversations.
|
| There is no magic tonic. The more you try the better you'll get
| at it. Like they say, practice makes perfect.
|
| Their are people that are extremely anxious in public situations
| so they should seek treatment. But make sure you try everything
| short of pills to get over your anxiety. Taking pills is never
| the best thing to try first.
| rubenabergel wrote:
| checkout https://www.youtube.com/socialanimal - there is a whole
| series of random people (over 50 subscribers in 10 cities) being
| on video and talking to strangers for a day, I am sure it will
| inspire you and give you perspective :)
|
| also from the same channel:
|
| 1/ About the importance of realizing that talking to people is
| first and foremost a side effect of expressing yourself.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lKRM76uFeI
|
| 2/ About the importance of having a healthy relationship with
| your desire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZAgGiDf2lo
|
| 3/About what people miss about confidence:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9msqcQedsQ
|
| 4/About the essence of interacting and conversation
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD7arE3Zcyw
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3NZp2Umh5E
|
| 5/About what we really have in common with people and why talking
| to strangers can be hard
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3HKzBJRROI
|
| 6/Why people fear rejection
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IHZELlrxiA
| aspectmin wrote:
| I was a computer kid from age 7 (in the 70s). Lived in the
| computer lab through my teens. Turned 18, wanted to be better
| with people. Volunteered at a race track. Became a race track
| firefighter. Met the EMS crew there, signed up. Got my EMT. Spent
| the first year nervous and staring at my clipboard. Gradually got
| better and better at interacting. Now I am a flight medic. Spend
| my trips talking with patients and hearing their life stories.
| You get to see people in their very best and very worst. So
| amazing. Best change ever.
|
| (I also have a parallel career in tech. The improved ability to
| interact with people has led to much success there as well. I
| regularly do public talks about the work I do.)
| alasdair_ wrote:
| Ecstasy.
|
| I had massive problems speaking with people. I ended up going to
| a rave with some friends, took some molly, had an amazing time
| talking to people and then realized that if I could do that with
| a drug then I could probably do it without a drug. (I haven't
| done e in over a decade).
|
| I still had some issues with public speaking so during my mba I
| forced myself to give every presentation possible. This largely
| solved that problem.
|
| Note that mdma can kill you, especially if taken without
| experience. This is not an endorsement of drug taking.
| cj wrote:
| Downvoting this, as I don't think this is a healthy answer to
| becoming more socially confident.
|
| MDMA, as with cocaine, opioids, alcohol, meth, and a myriad of
| other drugs, will make you more socially open and outgoing in
| the moment.
|
| But none of those drugs will result in the long-term change
| that you're looking for.
| thih9 wrote:
| > But none of those drugs will result in the long-term change
| that you're looking for.
|
| Grandparent states: "and then realized that if I could do
| that with a drug then I could probably do it without a drug.
| (I haven't done e in over a decade)."
| cj wrote:
| I don't think taking MDMA is a prerequisite to realizing
| that you can become a different person.
|
| If one is to take drugs for that purpose, LCD or mushrooms
| would be much better - insofar as safely realizing that
| your day to day cognition is not as static as you might
| assume.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| I've taken both lsd and mushrooms (the latter were
| perfectly legal in the UK and were openly sold in London
| high street stores). Both were interesting but neither
| helped in the same way.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Not a requirement but a catalyst. It makes it happen
| faster than it would have otherwise
| Gwarzo wrote:
| Nobody does; he's providing an anecdote.
| globular-toast wrote:
| It did for me. I can't explain why. But I have not been the
| same since I took it and my life has been better.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| > But none of those drugs will result in the long-term change
| that you're looking for
|
| I mean, it literally did, and I stated as such.
|
| Obviously the drug itself was not enough. The scenario and
| the realization afterword also mattered. But without mdma my
| life would likely have been very different.
|
| Also, unlike cocaine etc. mdma isn't addictive - taking more
| and more of it just results in you feeling shittier for
| longer.
| trollied wrote:
| > Note that mdma can kill you, especially if taken without
| experience. This is not an endorsement of drug taking.
|
| Alcohol is a bigger killer over time.
| asfarley wrote:
| Not the first time I've heard of this.
| spicybright wrote:
| Same. Can't wait for this stuff to be studied and legalized
| at least for meditional use over the next 20 years (if we're
| being realistic on timelines for this)
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| It needs to be fully legalized, along with all other drugs.
| Prohibition only makes things worse
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Oxytocin agonism is some good shit
| esbeeb wrote:
| To that I would add listening to Mark Farina Mushroom Jazz,
| Vol. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIuW-OJY2uY
|
| This is to get in touch with your inner mojo. Also Vol. 8 is
| awesome.
| punkspider wrote:
| I had a similar situation. The only time I took half a pill out
| of curiosity, and I suddenly opened up with everyone around. It
| was during a time that I was quite grumpy and would often drink
| heavily, and didn't know how to deal with my feelings.
|
| I felt this odd urge to express myself towards everyone around
| me and was being very wholesome about it. I was aware that this
| was odd behavior for me, but I liked it and it felt like I was
| "letting go".
|
| I noticed what I was feeling and how I was expressing myself
| and that it was ok. That was enough validation for me to keep
| on without taking mdma.
|
| This happened just the once. I haven't felt the need to try it
| out more since then.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Worked for me too.
|
| Note to readers, before you try it you should know the
| difference between ecstacy, molly/mandy and MDMA. The drug you
| want is MDMA. Do your research[0] and this drug will be safer
| than climbing a mountain or something (and way safer than
| alcohol). Very few people have actually died from this drug but
| you should understand why they died.
|
| [0] https://erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma_basics.shtml
| themodelplumber wrote:
| > depending on the context I can be seemingly confident and calm
|
| This ought to be great to be able to know. It means you can
| probably moderate your social exposure to fit your experience
| level and build on a known foundation.
|
| Success is much easier if you can define the social context
| you're aiming for beforehand, and slowly work at mastery. If you
| open the filter too much too early (i.e. I want to be able to be
| social anytime & anywhere), it's overwhelming.
|
| Good luck, you got this. (Personality trainer)
| kilroy123 wrote:
| Dating a LOT. You get used to rejection. Putting yourself out
| there.
| andybak wrote:
| Check it's not just ADHD in disguise.
| Grustaf wrote:
| I'd say it's just a matter of exposure and practice. If you force
| yourself to spend a lot of time in the kinds of situations that
| make you awkward, eventually you'll figure out how to handle
| them, how to speak, how to react, what to say when etc. The more
| familiar it feels, the less self conscious and awkward you'll
| feel.
|
| And remember, people don't care. People only think about
| themselves anyway, even if they notice your awkwardness they'll
| forget it five minutes later so it doesn't matter.
| whatthesmack wrote:
| I have been diagnosed with social anxiety, general anxiety, and
| depression. I've always felt socially awkward and shy. However,
| at 35 years of age I was finally diagnosed as ADHD-PI
| (predominantly inattentive). Treating that has basically
| eliminated the social anxiety and shyness, since it seems those
| existed through the lens of the untreated ADHD-PI. I'm still me
| and am surely introverted, but I can function in a social setting
| without feeling awkward or shy... the interaction feels natural
| and honest. While the folks around me noticed a bit of change, I
| noticed an enjoyment of life that I never seemed to experience
| before. I feel I am a better father to my children, which is the
| most meaningful part of the change to me.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Bonus idea: Have a prop whenever you can. I saw a guy at party
| bring a Rubix cube and you wouldn't believe how many people came
| up to talk to him. Instant ice breaker.
|
| What are some of your ideas for props?
| xcambar wrote:
| Unless this prop is used as a comfort totem and you can't get
| your hands off or your attention away.
| cseleborg wrote:
| Similarly, I'm an introvert and quickly used to feel
| uncomfortable among people I didn't know. Parties used to be
| exhausting! Then I started my own business and had to learn to
| network. One very helpful idea, taken from the book "How to win
| friends and influence people" was to take (genuine) interest in
| the other people present. Instead of talking about myself, I like
| to ask people what they do, how they got there, what they like,
| etc. People loooove to talk about themselves, so it makes for
| very easy conversations, and slowly, each of those strengthened
| my confidence in such settings to the point where I actually
| enjoy them now (I still need breaks every 60 minutes to recharge
| alone before returning back into the crowd).
| aeturnum wrote:
| I think it's really important to also not just think of it as
| "social awkwardness" and also consider that your subconscious is
| leading you to be more conservative in social situations which
| you dislike. It's really nice to be able to master yourself and
| act in the way that you want, but also I think it's healthy and
| useful to notice when our natural inclination is to be smaller.
| The path to finding social situations where you can thrive will
| almost certainly involve some avoiding people whose social style
| makes you feel that way.
| 0x5345414e wrote:
| Travelling helped me a lot. You're kind of forced into social
| situations especially if you stay in hostels. I'm not talking
| about a 1 week vacation though. I'd recommend a multi-month trip.
| aabajian wrote:
| In high school I was very nervous speaking in front of people,
| but I enjoyed explaining the one-off calculus problem that was
| challenging to solve. In college, I tutored small group
| mathematics and chemistry classes (2-8 students per class, 1-3
| classes per week). I then did Teach for America for 2 years
| (20-35 students per class, 5 classes per day). By the end of
| that, I could speak in front of thousands of people without
| breaking a sweat.
|
| Pro-tip for public speaking: Never pause-out-loud. If you are
| going to say, "uh", "well", "like", etc. just _don 't_ say it.
| From an audience perspective, hearing, "Thank you all for coming,
| _uh_ , we have a great special for you today..." is much worse
| than hearing, "Thank you all for coming (pause), we have a great
| special for you today."
| [deleted]
| iamthepieman wrote:
| I decided that I didn't care what other people's opinions of me
| were. This was after nearly pathological shyness and
| embarrassment at being "me" when I was 11-14. Then my family
| moved and the new location let me be a new person with new
| friends. Also, puberty and maturity played a large part,
| obviously. The not caring about what other people thought had its
| own problems that took me much longer to recognize and work
| through but it did get me out of my shy period. Personal growth
| is hard.
|
| After we moved I made a new best friend. His brother, who was a
| few years older than me, was extremely outgoing and could talk to
| anyone about anything. I learned by observing him that asking
| questions was a great way to get to know people and hold up my
| end of a conversation.
| mberning wrote:
| This is going to sound dumb but I had a Subaru and there was a
| local Subaru forum that met up for autocross, install days,
| dinners, etc. I was a bit intimidated to "just show up" but I
| ended up going and met tons of cool new people. So I would say
| find a local group that has some common interests and jump in
| with both feet.
| epberry wrote:
| Forced myself to look people in the eye when talking to them.
| Horrifying at first but now slightly less miserable.
| irvingprime wrote:
| By working from home so I don't have to be around others.
|
| It turns out I'm not really that shy. I just don't like spending
| more than about 3 minutes at a time around most people.
| bmitc wrote:
| Just stop caring so much about what you and others think of you.
| I lot of shyness and awkwardness can be due to overwhelming self-
| awareness and a misinterpreted projected view of what others
| think of you. People don't spend their day thinking about their
| interaction with you. People interact and then move on. If they
| don't, then they're dealing with the same things.
|
| Just be and stop thinking about being.
| WalterBright wrote:
| 1. Young people are very concerned about what others think
| about them
|
| 2. Middle aged people stop caring what others think about them
|
| 3. Old people realize that nobody thinks about them
| awslattery wrote:
| Brute forcing it, and being genuine. The latter helped me make
| friends who, recognized the deficiencies, and aided with the
| former over time.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| When I was young, a bit tongue tied, poor and full of bad
| judgement, I spent a lot of time hitchhiking across Europe.
|
| Talking to lots of more or less crazy drivers several times a
| day, week after week, unlocked something in me, and since then
| I've been able to have a pretty good conversation with anyone
| about anything.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Try volunteering somewhere.
|
| People are just happy enough that you're donating your time and
| effort that you can be more sure they won't mind your self-
| perceived inadequacies, even if you think they're noticeable.
|
| Having repeated positive interactions in a pretty reliable
| context like that can help give you a better subconscious
| ideation of what new people think of you. Volunteering will also
| improve your self concept as a good person who is likable, and
| worthy of being treated well.
| dczm wrote:
| Thanks, will put this on my to do list this week.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| One observation I would make is that many of the people who are
| crucial to the organisation of social events are themselves
| socially awkward.
|
| The instigator often is not, but they will be surrounded by
| people who are, and who need a little thing to do at the event so
| they can take part at all.
|
| I found ways to be involved at a music festival for more than a
| decade -- the photography, the website, running general errands
| etc.
|
| Going to social events as a photographer was an explicit tactic;
| camera as prop.
|
| Find a way to help other people be social and they will find a
| way to include you that doesn't make you feel awkward.
|
| Keep at it though -- merely getting to this stage where you're
| looking for techniques is a very positive step.
|
| Also, a thing I learned from a kid who wrote a book on Aspergers
| that is basically true: if you need to hold eye contact longer
| than a brief moment, it takes most people a long time to spot
| that you're looking at the bridge of their nose, not their eyes.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The only solution is to get out there and keep doing it until the
| awkwardness fades, and it will fade. Once it fades, you can start
| working on the voice, the posture, etc., one at a time. (It's too
| much to work on it all at once.)
|
| I've been doing this my whole life, and am still a work in
| progress, but the more I work at it the better it gets.
|
| It's well worth spending the effort.
| paulcole wrote:
| Here's what I did (would've been about 2009-2011, when I was late
| 20s/early 30s):
|
| * Say yes to every social invitation I received for a period of
| about 2 years, whether it was something I thought would be fun or
| not -- and never flake. Get to be known as a reliable person who
| is down for anything.
|
| * Set a goal of speaking to a person I didn't know every day --
| could be as simple as "Hello" to a cashier at the grocery store,
| but I had to do it
|
| * Date more - went out on an average of 2 first dates a week (all
| found through OK Cupid). Just getting coffee, going to dinner,
| going to a movie, taking a walk -- simple stuff with no pressure.
| Just meet another person, ask questions about their life, share
| about my own life.
|
| It was a very fun and life-changing experience.
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