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?
1 comment:
Pretend the person on the other end is a good friend? Or just be honest...like if someone says something, say what you think. If a person asks a question: again, say what you think.
I have major phone anxiety (at least I think I do) but when I get talking on the phone, it seems to go away instantaneously...unless the person on the other end is really awkward and giving really short replies and you find yourself having to constantly restart the conversation.
Post a Comment