Social awkwardness

[Solvinden]

Hello everyone,

to put it simply, I need to improve my social
skills in the next year quite a lot (job related).

I struggle with severe social awkwardness.
For example, I don't know what to say.
Even if I know what the "right" thing to say is, 
I often feel awkward nevertheless.
Moreover, I struggle with eye contact and humour
quite a lot.

All of these things sometimes work good at special occasions,
so I think it should be a learnable skill for me.

Here is what I think I could work on:

1) Increase the time of "just being" even further.
Most of the time I just feel like chilling/relaxing. If I
give in to this feeling, I feel afterwards more motivated to
talk to people and my social skills improve. Nevertheless,
it feels like that alone is not the solution.

2)Read some good books concerning the topic
I now start reading "How to win friends and influence people" which
I skimmed through seven years ago. Honestly, I think this book is going to be helpful
but probably it won't help me much to master the very basics. Do you have any other book recommendations/other sources of helpful information?

3)Expand my comfort zone
I also feel like this is going to be helpful because I always feel scared on some level in these awkward situations.
On the other hand, a few years ago I was talking to hundreds of girls on the street and I wasn't really improving in social situations.
But nevertheless sometimes these exercises did help I guess. I think I will need to find the right way to extend my comfort zone. Any inspirations from your side?
I realized that my social skills became quite a bit better when I said something incredibly embarrassing/wrong and people judged me therefor.
Then I'd get a little bit angry and wouldn't feel so scared anymore. In this state I also have more success approaching women.

4) Leo shot a video about increasing your humour. Even though I like the general method, I feel like there are more efficient ways to develop humour.
Do you recommend Leo's method or do you have a better idea?

5) I think it is important to contemplate my social behaviour and create my own insights.

6) Masturbate less frequently. By doing so, energy levels tend to increase and I'm more motivated to talk to people.

7) What some friends said:

    -1- I tend to avoid eye contact in certain situations which is weird. But this feels awkward sometimes,

especially if I have nothing to say right now.

    -2- I let others talk too much about themselves and it is difficult for others to find out who I am. I'm too "mysterious". But due to all the
personal development I've been doing, I feel like it would be awkward to talk for example about Meditation as a field of passion as they maybe wouldn't understand.

    -3- I heard that I'm an empty hull with no emotions whatsoever, which is quite painful. I know that people that are very close to me think that I'm a "warm" person. On the other hand, strangers tend to think otherwise. 

All in all, I think working on removing my fears in these situations is the most important part.
I think by doing so, most of my awkwardness would already disappear.

I'm exited for your ideas and inspirational thoughts!

PS: I already do 1h30min Meditation+Yoga and 2-3 times sport a week and I'm an INTP which is very introverted.

Love,
Solvinden

Edited November 18, 2018 by Solvinden
Spelling

[Shin]

You care too much about people opinions, you need to stop giving a fuck about what they think.
Learn how to be internally grounded, and none of those issues will stay for long.

[SFRL]

@Solvinden

I think the best way is for you to practice group presentations. 

I think there is something called "Toastmasters" 

It's 45 dollars each 6 months which is dirt cheap if you ask me. 

 

I know it works because I was not naturally good at public speaking but I learned it in college when I studied to be a History Teacher. Even though that's not what I do now. I am pretty decent at public speaking now. 

 

[universe]

14 hours ago, Solvinden said:

4) Leo shot a video about increasing your humour. Even though I like the general method, I feel like there are more efficient ways to develop humour.
Do you recommend Leo's method or do you have a better idea?

I watched that video "How to be funny" many times. Afaik there is not one method but many. Try a few. That video is stacked with good material on humour. Or do you mean another one?

Some quick tips

1 Be more relaxed, watch leos video on body awareness and dont try to get into what other people think of you. Things like being relaxed and having good eye contact are the absolute basics.

2 Be authentic, people like authentic people. Think about it, you do as well I guess. With that also comes, that you should know yourself. Ask yourself the same questions you usually ask others for example. If you say you cant be authentic in the job, you might want to reconsider some life choices.

3 After you accomplished being authentic, you can work on your confidence. Things like non-needy communication, straight posture, loud voice, brisk gesticulation and escalating the interaction are the sherry on the cake.

[SFRL]

@Solvinden

If you want to practice humour look up "Cocky Funny". 

You can find videos on YouTube and arcticles using Google. 

It's a rather easy thing to pick up. 

You can easily practice it on girls. Me and my best friend in highschool would do it all the time. We didn't get laid off it or anything but it helped to develop that. I didn't even know it was called Cocky Funny. But I learned that stuff at home watching my Dad and my buddy had a great sense of humour so that's what we did. 

You can easily translate to your interactions with dudes as well. Half the time dudes talk about girls anyways. 

Having/finding some good role models goes a long way developing humor.

 

[Mezanti]

@Solvinden you're probably neurotic i would say, try to figure out why that is, your probably too high in self consciousness,(a trait within neuroticism) i would say meditate even more, try different techniques, for introversion, you would have to analyze extroverts and figure out certain mindsets they have and try to embody those, ultimately you need to detach from your thoughts and be at ease, socialization will be effortless.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Mezanti