51–60 of 568 posts
Just be and stop thinking about being.
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.
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…
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.
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…
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".
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
That doesn’t sound like it would help with every day awkwardness, does it? I presume that’s what OP wanted help with.
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.
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.
2. Middle aged people stop caring what others think about them
3. Old people realize that nobody thinks about them
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.
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.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25692561-how-to-be-an-im...
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.
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…
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).