Well, I made a little (tiny) bit of progress, plus some observations. Yesterday I had to call Comcast again a few times. Usually, I'm very self-conscious and uncomfortable talking on the phone in front of anyone else. Well, yesterday I kind of just put that aside and talked to them with other people in the room to hear me. I was quite comfortable and confident, but this is a different situation than a social one, so it's not anything to celebrate. The day before that, a friend (really, a close acquaintance) called me and I was quite comfortable talking to him, in my room alone though...
And today, I had a job interview on the phone, where I quickly became relaxed with a bunch of stuff prepared in front of me, and with being asked questions I was very knowledgable about.
So, what is the point.... I think the common thread between these (mild) successes is that I was confident in all 3 situations. Confident talking to Comcast people, because they're anonymous and I don't really care about them. Confident talking to my close acquaintance, because, well, that's the normal thing with close acquaintances, since you're a bit past worrying about what they think about you and what not. And confident in my phone interview because I was well-prepared and knew what I was doing. Not to mention the fact that they were on the phone, anonymous if anything went wrong.
So, the moral of the story is that all this lends support to the idea that what we need to do is develop much more confidence in social situations. More confidence = more comfort and less inhibition. Now all we need to do is find out how to gain said confidence....the plan, again, is to begin socializing as much as possible, getting more used to it, which will lead to better experiences, which will lead to more confidence. More on that soon, I'm getting closer to actually working on it....
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Stiff Mode
Honestly, I haven't yet done much of anything toward the whole socialize-as-much-as-possible plan except for working on setting up to meet people from the Internet. Tonight I experienced a not-too-painful reminder of the problem I'm trying to solve here. My cable internet service went out (I'm blogging this from dialup; a nightmare, but I digress), so I had to call up Comcast. I spoke with Alisha, the sweetest Canadian tech support girl you could imagine. Instead of putting me on hold, she made conversation about fun random stuff, from polar bears to Lindsay Lohan. Anyway, the problem is that during this conversation, I went into Stiff Mode. No anxiety, but the tone of my voice, albeit clear, became too serious-business-like. My thoughts of what to say flowed a lot less freely, and I felt a lot more inhibited. All of this in contrast to the way things are when I'm talking to friends and family - and I had done that only minutes before, so it's not like I was out of practice. This is a really good example of one of the general problems I have socially.
Have to figure out how to at least begin working towards fixing this one. I will post an update after I do. In the meantime, any suggestions?
Have to figure out how to at least begin working towards fixing this one. I will post an update after I do. In the meantime, any suggestions?
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Conversation Topics
In this post, I will maintain a running list of potentially good conversation topics. These are extremely useful when talking to a new acquaintance. The idea is not to memorize any of these topics. Rather, it's good to just be familiar with them so that you can pick out a few things to have in mind going into a social event, and have other topics naturally triggered to come to memory during the course of a conversation.
How was your day?
How was your day?
Siblings
-> How many
-> How get along
-> Nieces/nephews
--> called uncle/aunt if you're young
Friends
-> Still have from college?
--> From high school, grade school?
---> outgrow
Travel
-> Overseas
--> Friendliness toward Americans
-> Hotels
-> Where to live in US
Languages
School
-> Where
-> What do for fun there
-> Live on campus
--> Roommates
-> Major
--> why
-> Scholarships
--> What do when get out
-> What did during summers
-> Work during
Job
-> How is it?
Free Time
-> What do
-> How much
Sports
-> Which
--> Teams
--> Play any?
Food
-> Favorite types
--> Hated foods
-> Favorite restaurants
-> Cooking
-> Desserts
--> Ice cream
Coffee
-> Starbucks
Earrings on guys
Tattoos
-> Easier to remove ink
Television
-> Favorite shows
-> Types of shows
--> Soap operas
--> Reality shows
---> American Idol
-> TiVo/ downloading
Movies
-> Monopoly
-> Types
-> Favorite all-time
-> Actors
Music
-> Types
--> Radio stations
-> Favorite song
-> Favorite artist
--> Concerts
-> Downloading
-> Ever try instrument
-> Dance
facebook/myspace
Celebrities
-> Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears
Pets
-> Have
-> Had
-> Want
--> Like
Thrills
-> Afraid of heights?
--> Amusement parks?
--> Which ones
* Six Flags
--> Skydiving / Bunjee jumping?
Favorite Color
Favorite Cars
Favorite Holiday
Bowling
Middle Name
-> Odd spellings of names
** Current Surroundings **
Supernatural
-> Astrology
-> Aliens
-> Science fiction
Exercise
-> what's your workout routine?
Gambling
-> Lottery
-> Vegas or AC; Mississippi river; Dover; Charlestown
--> Slots?
--> Card games?
-> If you won seven million dollars, what would you do with it?
Childhood
-> Imaginary friend (65% of kids have them)
--> Imaginary pet
What's the wildest thing you've ever done?
If you were not in your current career, what would be your second choice?
Dreams
Reading
-> Books
Life's to-do list
-> 43things.com
Hidden Talents
Athletes Crying
Particular News Stories
- http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/14/ufo.sightings.ap/index.html
Monday, July 23, 2007
Confidence
Good news...the last few days, I've been starting to feel a bit less anxious and more confident about all of this. I thought about the phone thing I mentioned, and realized that all the phone conversations I can think of have been good, or better. Hmmm, so why the anxiety before? I guess just because I don't do these things much and forget that they aren't really difficult. I talked to my 1 close friend on the phone this morning and tried to observe what makes that so easy. I think it has to do with not having any concern about what the other person thinks about what you say, how you say it, etc. But more on that later. Overall, I'm starting to feel like if I can just have enough to talk about, I'll be just fine starting out with all these social interactions. Again, the goal is pretty simple....do as much socially as possible, which I'm pretty sure will lead to a greatly increased and eventually normal or better comfort level with these things.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The Nike Way
Well, I will save the "official" update with particulars for a later post. For now, it suffices to say that I have several irons in the fire, i.e., people I'm talking to electronically and may meet up with in the near future.
I've realized that I'm already perfectly comfortable online, so merely talking to these people online has very little value as far as making progress with the topic of this blog. As I've been getting closer to actually moving some of these things offline, I have noticed a couple of things that I will need to work on. First off, sometimes I get a little anxious thinking about it. Not surprising...second, I haven't really thought about chickening out on anything completely, but instead I've thought about putting things off until this or that happens, which will be a better time. Well, it didn't take much thought to realize that I have to actually keep at this, and not put anything off. There would probably always be some excuse to put things off 'til later.. I think the 17 or so years that this stuff hasn't been quite right is enough! I actually had the idea of making a huge concerted effort like this a year ago, but I ended up doing virtually nothing. And the situation is no doubt similar for everyone else.
So, how do we deal with feelings of anxiety and reluctance going forward with this stuff? Well, I would certainly appreciate any suggestions. Right now I plan to approach things the Nike Way and just do it. That is, relax to the extent possible, don't worry (there may be some anxious feelings, but we can at least disallow negative thoughts and focus our thoughts elsewhere or nowhere), and...just do it!
One thing I'm currently even less comfortable with than face-to-face conversations with new people is talking to them on the telephone. Not that I can remember even trying it :) I just assume it's even more awkward. One of the many ladies I contacted on craig's list wanted to talk to me on the phone, and at first I basically said no. I changed my mind today and decided I need to take every opportunity I can, so if that comes up again, the experience should make for a very interesting blog entry.
Now, as you have seen, a big part of my approach is going on dates. I keep thinking how interesting that is -- other material you might read, which probably doesn't work, would usually have you start with baby steps like starting by smiling at people, then saying hi, and working up from that. I think including the hardest (if not the hardest, then close) social activity from the very beginning is really going to make this approach effective. Plus, in a way I couldn't come up with anything easier to do. There are literally millions of people looking for dates online, but people just looking for friends are quite hard to come by. Anyway, enough about that for now.
In dating or any social situation, one of the hardest parts is just simply having something to talk about. Thus, in my next blog entry, I will compile an awesome list of universal conversation topics. I've tried googling this before, and never found anything great, so it should be interesting to see what I come up with for you.
I've realized that I'm already perfectly comfortable online, so merely talking to these people online has very little value as far as making progress with the topic of this blog. As I've been getting closer to actually moving some of these things offline, I have noticed a couple of things that I will need to work on. First off, sometimes I get a little anxious thinking about it. Not surprising...second, I haven't really thought about chickening out on anything completely, but instead I've thought about putting things off until this or that happens, which will be a better time. Well, it didn't take much thought to realize that I have to actually keep at this, and not put anything off. There would probably always be some excuse to put things off 'til later.. I think the 17 or so years that this stuff hasn't been quite right is enough! I actually had the idea of making a huge concerted effort like this a year ago, but I ended up doing virtually nothing. And the situation is no doubt similar for everyone else.
So, how do we deal with feelings of anxiety and reluctance going forward with this stuff? Well, I would certainly appreciate any suggestions. Right now I plan to approach things the Nike Way and just do it. That is, relax to the extent possible, don't worry (there may be some anxious feelings, but we can at least disallow negative thoughts and focus our thoughts elsewhere or nowhere), and...just do it!
One thing I'm currently even less comfortable with than face-to-face conversations with new people is talking to them on the telephone. Not that I can remember even trying it :) I just assume it's even more awkward. One of the many ladies I contacted on craig's list wanted to talk to me on the phone, and at first I basically said no. I changed my mind today and decided I need to take every opportunity I can, so if that comes up again, the experience should make for a very interesting blog entry.
Now, as you have seen, a big part of my approach is going on dates. I keep thinking how interesting that is -- other material you might read, which probably doesn't work, would usually have you start with baby steps like starting by smiling at people, then saying hi, and working up from that. I think including the hardest (if not the hardest, then close) social activity from the very beginning is really going to make this approach effective. Plus, in a way I couldn't come up with anything easier to do. There are literally millions of people looking for dates online, but people just looking for friends are quite hard to come by. Anyway, enough about that for now.
In dating or any social situation, one of the hardest parts is just simply having something to talk about. Thus, in my next blog entry, I will compile an awesome list of universal conversation topics. I've tried googling this before, and never found anything great, so it should be interesting to see what I come up with for you.
Monday, July 16, 2007
First Update - What a difference a day makes
Well, this is the first post discussing what I've been specifically doing. First of all, I had an off day yesterday -- I was already tired, and nothing seemed to be going anywhere with this, so I was pretty down about it. There was a fleeting thought about giving up, so I ran with it and used it as motivation. If that ever happens to you, just think about what's at stake, and it should be easy to see that your effort really is worthwhile and there's no reason to ever give up. Today seems the exact opposite. Everything is working! The principle idea was to essentially overbook myself with social activities, in other words, get involved in so many that I can't even keep up with them. Not quite there yet, but we're definitely cooking with gas. So now, the update:
Craig's list
-----------
This is the most interesting one. I responded to approximately 39 ads, mostly from the "strictly platonic" w4m section. Of these, I am still e-mailing back and forth with a whopping 3 people. That's 7.7%, folks. So as you can see, this internet thing is a numbers game. Most of the people never responded to my e-mail. One or two responded the first time, but not to my second e-mail. Interestingly, in a couple cases I didn't think I had enough in common with the person or just generally didn't feel interested, so I was the one to stop responding.
So, as for those 3. I have already talked to one of them about meeting up in the next couple weeks. Our e-mail conversation is very fluent, and she actually expects me to be kind of shy, so I'm thinking we are a lock to be friends offline.
The second person said in her original post that *she* was shy. Haven't asked her about meeting up yet, but we've exchanged 95 e-mails now so I think I will.
The third person seems to be a lot like me in some cool ways (not related to this stuff), so I'm thinking we might end up meeting up as well.
MEETin
---------
Haven't used this at all. The people on there seem to be mostly well outside of my age range.
Dating Sites
-------------
Yahoo: Only got 4 *views* in about a week. Wish I hadn't paid for this one. Received one icebreaker, sent an e-mail in response but got nothing back. No responses to other icebreakers/e-mails, after sending about 30.
Date.com: This site sucks. I got 8 views, but half of them were bogus out of towners, 43 year olds, etc. Got 1 mutual interest (out of about 20) but so far I haven't been compelled to pay money to e-mail her.
Match.com: By far the best. 13 views, 4 winks in only about 4 days. That's an over 30% conversion rate, which is amazingly high for this stuff. I plan to pursue several of these. As a side note, I got a wink from a girl who I'm really not interested in at all -- I plan to avoid going on such dates. I need the "practice" really, but I'm not willing to lead anyone on if there really is no potential.
So, that's about it for now. The big thing will be starting to meet up with some of these people in person (Phase 2, if you will). It's going to take some courage and willpower to actually put any fears aside and just do it. I fully expect that some of these things will go very....not smoothly :) But that's okay, it will get better.
Craig's list
-----------
This is the most interesting one. I responded to approximately 39 ads, mostly from the "strictly platonic" w4m section. Of these, I am still e-mailing back and forth with a whopping 3 people. That's 7.7%, folks. So as you can see, this internet thing is a numbers game. Most of the people never responded to my e-mail. One or two responded the first time, but not to my second e-mail. Interestingly, in a couple cases I didn't think I had enough in common with the person or just generally didn't feel interested, so I was the one to stop responding.
So, as for those 3. I have already talked to one of them about meeting up in the next couple weeks. Our e-mail conversation is very fluent, and she actually expects me to be kind of shy, so I'm thinking we are a lock to be friends offline.
The second person said in her original post that *she* was shy. Haven't asked her about meeting up yet, but we've exchanged 95 e-mails now so I think I will.
The third person seems to be a lot like me in some cool ways (not related to this stuff), so I'm thinking we might end up meeting up as well.
MEETin
---------
Haven't used this at all. The people on there seem to be mostly well outside of my age range.
Dating Sites
-------------
Yahoo: Only got 4 *views* in about a week. Wish I hadn't paid for this one. Received one icebreaker, sent an e-mail in response but got nothing back. No responses to other icebreakers/e-mails, after sending about 30.
Date.com: This site sucks. I got 8 views, but half of them were bogus out of towners, 43 year olds, etc. Got 1 mutual interest (out of about 20) but so far I haven't been compelled to pay money to e-mail her.
Match.com: By far the best. 13 views, 4 winks in only about 4 days. That's an over 30% conversion rate, which is amazingly high for this stuff. I plan to pursue several of these. As a side note, I got a wink from a girl who I'm really not interested in at all -- I plan to avoid going on such dates. I need the "practice" really, but I'm not willing to lead anyone on if there really is no potential.
So, that's about it for now. The big thing will be starting to meet up with some of these people in person (Phase 2, if you will). It's going to take some courage and willpower to actually put any fears aside and just do it. I fully expect that some of these things will go very....not smoothly :) But that's okay, it will get better.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Organizing Our Efforts
Alright. So if this isn't already obvious, I am EXTREMELY determined to get this stuff down, once and for all. There aren't many people who have as far to go as I do (and even for those who do, that's fine), so I really believe that this blog can be the solution for every single one of us...with some work, of course! It's not going to be easy.
The plan is to put forth an across-the-board effort. Now, essentially all we have to do is gain a lot more social experience and become a lot more comfortable. We will progress to the comfort level of the average person, and eventually, if you'd like, to that of the bigtime "people persons." We need to submerge ourselves in social situations to the maximum extent possible. These are my planned efforts so far:
1. Make friends online. Just starting out, it's a lot easier to meet people this way: Everyone in our situation is more comfortable talking online. Period. Also, we can find people who we know are interested in making new friends, which is a big difference from choosing random people in public. Where exactly, now?
1a. Craig's list (http://www.craigslist.com) strictly platonic sections.
1b. MEETin (http://www.meetin.org).
Also, keep in mind that at some point we have to actually MEET, in person, the friends that we make online. Which brings me to another important point. It should help to chat a while with people on the Internet before meeting in person, but starting out, we shouldn't expect our first meetings to be very comfortable. That's fine. It could go as poorly as possible, and it would still be worthwhile. It's only going to get better with more practice -- so plan on going for volume, as many people as you can possibly meet.
2. Make dates online. This probably seems like a big jump for folks starting out where we are. And it is. But that is partly what is going to separate our efforts from those you might find in books on this subject. This is actually going to work, and is going to require some courage to do this. Like above, the idea is to just do it, as often as possible. No matter how horrible it is at first, it's only going to get better. For guys, check this link on how to write an effective personals dating ad: http://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_advice_60/88_dating_tips.html. I'm currently using:
2a. http://personals.yahoo.com
2b. http://www.date.com
3. Spend more time with existing friends. If applicable.
3a. Ask current close friends to introduce you to more of their friends. Or be more subtle. The point is to hang out with your good friends and their friends together. It should be more comfortable being with someone you are already close to. This will allow us to branch out as much as possible.
3b. Get closer to your less-close friends, and acquaintances. Get their contact info the next time you chat with them. Contact them later, and ask them if they'd like to see a movie, get a bite to eat, or whatever you come up with. Do this with everyone you possibly can. Some will probably go well, others probably not as well. Again, we are going for volume here, in addition to the obvious. For friends that do eventually become close, repeat 3a with them.
4. Talk to people everywhere you possibly can. Start out with just a "hi" if necessary. Progress to smalltalk. This one is more easily said than done. Along with the others, you should feel better about this after you see the specific experiences that I will document in later posts.
The plan is to put forth an across-the-board effort. Now, essentially all we have to do is gain a lot more social experience and become a lot more comfortable. We will progress to the comfort level of the average person, and eventually, if you'd like, to that of the bigtime "people persons." We need to submerge ourselves in social situations to the maximum extent possible. These are my planned efforts so far:
1. Make friends online. Just starting out, it's a lot easier to meet people this way: Everyone in our situation is more comfortable talking online. Period. Also, we can find people who we know are interested in making new friends, which is a big difference from choosing random people in public. Where exactly, now?
1a. Craig's list (http://www.craigslist.com) strictly platonic sections.
1b. MEETin (http://www.meetin.org).
Also, keep in mind that at some point we have to actually MEET, in person, the friends that we make online. Which brings me to another important point. It should help to chat a while with people on the Internet before meeting in person, but starting out, we shouldn't expect our first meetings to be very comfortable. That's fine. It could go as poorly as possible, and it would still be worthwhile. It's only going to get better with more practice -- so plan on going for volume, as many people as you can possibly meet.
2. Make dates online. This probably seems like a big jump for folks starting out where we are. And it is. But that is partly what is going to separate our efforts from those you might find in books on this subject. This is actually going to work, and is going to require some courage to do this. Like above, the idea is to just do it, as often as possible. No matter how horrible it is at first, it's only going to get better. For guys, check this link on how to write an effective personals dating ad: http://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_advice_60/88_dating_tips.html. I'm currently using:
2a. http://personals.yahoo.com
2b. http://www.date.com
3. Spend more time with existing friends. If applicable.
3a. Ask current close friends to introduce you to more of their friends. Or be more subtle. The point is to hang out with your good friends and their friends together. It should be more comfortable being with someone you are already close to. This will allow us to branch out as much as possible.
3b. Get closer to your less-close friends, and acquaintances. Get their contact info the next time you chat with them. Contact them later, and ask them if they'd like to see a movie, get a bite to eat, or whatever you come up with. Do this with everyone you possibly can. Some will probably go well, others probably not as well. Again, we are going for volume here, in addition to the obvious. For friends that do eventually become close, repeat 3a with them.
4. Talk to people everywhere you possibly can. Start out with just a "hi" if necessary. Progress to smalltalk. This one is more easily said than done. Along with the others, you should feel better about this after you see the specific experiences that I will document in later posts.
Background
In this post, I will provide some background info on where I'm coming from here. The idea is that I have a long way to go with this, so if I can do it (btw...I can, and will) you can, too, by following my lead :-)
Allow me to begin by painting a picture. I'm 23 years old, and just finished living on a college campus for six years. The last couple years, I noticed at the end of many typical days, I could count the words that I said throughout the day to other human beings on my 10 fingers. Nope, didn't even need the toes.
So, on a college campus, the best place in the world to meet people... it is pretty shocking to only speak 10 total words in a day of going to class, eating at the dining hall, studying at the library, and walking around. How'd this happen? Not surprisingly, it started in grade school for me. I was extremely shy (we may debate this term later) from about 1st grade, all the way up through high school. On a typical day back then, I'd hardly say anything at all in school. Polar opposite at home around family.
When college started, I made more of a conscious effort, and it wasn't nearly as bad. I'm actually very friendly and love being around other people (how's that for cruel irony). So in college, I made more acquaintances than I could even count, but very few close friends. In fact I have one really good friend that I met at college orientation, but that's it. There were/are other people I would call friends, that I was pretty comfortable with, but I didn't do much or anything with them outside of school work (a very specific issue, which we will tackle in a later post).
So what do I think are the problems...
(1) I've had a hard time being open and generally being myself with most people, family and best friend excluded. It's usually just not comfortable enough.
(2) A severe lack of social interaction experience from grades 1-12, just plain putting me behind. I can't even estimate the number of times I heard the question "How come you never talk?" That should give you an idea of what it was like. Awful.
(3) There's some anxiety stuff going on too. Sometimes.
Now, each of these general problems has many subproblems to be dealt with. The plan is to tackle them ALL in this blog. Well, I am going to tackle them offline, and document what I'm doing here. I am going to make an unbelievably amazing amount of life-changing progress, and I hope there will be some readers in similar situations who will do this with me.
Allow me to begin by painting a picture. I'm 23 years old, and just finished living on a college campus for six years. The last couple years, I noticed at the end of many typical days, I could count the words that I said throughout the day to other human beings on my 10 fingers. Nope, didn't even need the toes.
So, on a college campus, the best place in the world to meet people... it is pretty shocking to only speak 10 total words in a day of going to class, eating at the dining hall, studying at the library, and walking around. How'd this happen? Not surprisingly, it started in grade school for me. I was extremely shy (we may debate this term later) from about 1st grade, all the way up through high school. On a typical day back then, I'd hardly say anything at all in school. Polar opposite at home around family.
When college started, I made more of a conscious effort, and it wasn't nearly as bad. I'm actually very friendly and love being around other people (how's that for cruel irony). So in college, I made more acquaintances than I could even count, but very few close friends. In fact I have one really good friend that I met at college orientation, but that's it. There were/are other people I would call friends, that I was pretty comfortable with, but I didn't do much or anything with them outside of school work (a very specific issue, which we will tackle in a later post).
So what do I think are the problems...
(1) I've had a hard time being open and generally being myself with most people, family and best friend excluded. It's usually just not comfortable enough.
(2) A severe lack of social interaction experience from grades 1-12, just plain putting me behind. I can't even estimate the number of times I heard the question "How come you never talk?" That should give you an idea of what it was like. Awful.
(3) There's some anxiety stuff going on too. Sometimes.
Now, each of these general problems has many subproblems to be dealt with. The plan is to tackle them ALL in this blog. Well, I am going to tackle them offline, and document what I'm doing here. I am going to make an unbelievably amazing amount of life-changing progress, and I hope there will be some readers in similar situations who will do this with me.
Introduction
Hello! I am not sure if anyone will ever read this blog -- I initially thought I would write this in a local file on my computer, but decided this would be more interesting. Plus, anyone dealing with the following general problem may be interested, and in fact this may even help them. Maybe even a lot. So lets get started....
Problem: General Social Stuff -- being comfortable in social situations, making friends, conversation, going on dates, getting a girlfriend, public speaking, etc.
This is one of two problems that are the only things holding me back in life right now. And they're holding me back big time. So lets get to working on this stuff...
Problem: General Social Stuff -- being comfortable in social situations, making friends, conversation, going on dates, getting a girlfriend, public speaking, etc.
This is one of two problems that are the only things holding me back in life right now. And they're holding me back big time. So lets get to working on this stuff...
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