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Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you improve?

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Re: Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you improve?

#441

Post by johnsanders »

febin wrote: post #437

I have been through this and these are things that helped me improve. 1. Show up Make sure you show up instead of avoiding people and events. Initially it can be difficult. You may be worried if you would mess up the conversation. You might be anxious you would run out of words to talk to. And it might turn to be a little embarrassing, that's alright. Doing more and more of those interactions kills your inner fear. G…

Dead on. I was going to say something along the lines of "fake it till you make it." If you pretend to be socially comfortable long enough, you'll eventually convince yourself. But this comment lays out specifically how to do that.

Re: Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you improve?

#443

Post by Eivis »

What helped me was agreeing to the fact that most interactions are going to be awkward (to some extent). Real conversations are not like movie dialogues, so acknowledging my anxiety and that awkwardness is normal made it much easier to approach people for me.

Re: Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you improve?

#444

Post by mbar84 »

Competence first, then confidence will follow. I don't think there's a shortcut. I think the shyness is a valid emotion where you're trying to protect yourself from a real danger. If you are not competent and act with confidence, you're liable to either fall on your face, or be smacked down by people who see you're faking it. Accept your incompetence as it may be and keep working on yourself.

Re: Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you improve?

#445

Post by goy »

baby wrote: post #373
HEmanZ wrote: post #346

These comments make me feel like I'm getting old, which is weird to me. There are so many proactive comments that remind me of my 18 year old self. Social awkwardness, for me and for a lot of people I know, sort of just vanished with age. - The same kind of weird, unexplainable, vicious attitude that passes for cool among teenagers and some early adults fades for most people. The people who still adhere to that code…

I was watching Euphoria these days, and reading your comment reminded me of a thought I had watching that. School is like prison. People are forced to spend most of their living hours with one another for long periods of time. So like in prison, weird social dynamic develops itself. Once you're out of prison, everything is much smoother. You can simply exit any toxic situations.

I agree with you. In school environment, i usually have more difficulty with things like hanging around with people, speaking in public (panic!!!),... Thinking of dropping because I am tired to always be the "guy who sucks" and crack under exam stress even if I am doing well when it comes to solve real problems.

Re: Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you improve?

#447

Post by ryan-c »

Honestly, the biggest thing for me was just forcing myself to find opportunities to socialize, and take them. Especially when I wasn't totally comfortable with it. In high school, I joined the anime club there (yes, I'm a nerd), a Linux Users' Group, the local university (grew up in a college town) anime club, the university tabletop gaming club, and probably some other stuff I am forgetting.

I tried to say "yes" any time someone invited me to a social thing, even if it it made me anxious. It was hard at first, but it got easier over time.

Later, when I started going to conferences and conventions, I made a conscious effort to have conversations with people I didn't know. Again, it was a struggle at first, but it slowly became natural.

I doubt there's any quick way to do this. It was literally years of effort - learning to expose myself to the possibility of rejection and accept it when it happened.

In the end, this all boils down to "practice", I suppose. Being willing to suck at something is the first step towards being kinda good at it.

Re: Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you improve?

#450

Post by wraptile »

The best advice I got when I was a young nerd is to talk about things I'm interested in that also appear to be interesting to the other person. Being able to always reset the social exchange to a common ground of interests gives you so much space and safety to develop the rest of the skills like listening and small talk.

I also noticed that smiling is a bit of a cheatcode. When things go south sometimes just dropping a smile can quickly turn you from someone who appears to be mean spirited or weird to someone who simply didn't quite land the joke or a reference and is aware of it - which can make all the difference.

Finally, it's important to remember that you need to develop social skills just like any other skills so there's no shame in taking advantage of social lubricants like recreational drugs (e.g. alcohol, weed) or shared activities!

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