Well, here we are. Ninety-six days into a grand mission designed to drastically change my life for the better.
So far, I haven't made this as multifaceted an effort as I originally planned. I've mostly been focusing on gaining experience and trying new things in 1-on-1 meetings with new people from the Internet. 8 dates and 3 as-friends hangouts with a total of 7 people.
I've arrived at what seems to be a natural end to the first round of my efforts. I learned and gained a lot in that first round. More than anything, I spent enough time with new people to be able to start new interactions without fear. Meeting new people, even from the internet without ever having talked to them live first, is no big deal. At all. That comfort level will help greatly as I proceed.
Through trial and error (lots of error, and always on trial), I came up with an at least somewhat effective approach to dealing with Inhibition (see the post by this name) and being myself.
Unfortunately, nothing I've done so far has been enough. I haven't been too anxious, but I've still been inhibited and woefully awkward in all but one of my meetings.
Now, my strategy for dealing with Inhibition was essentially just to force myself to say and do whatever came to mind that I wanted. That works somewhat, but it has not yet become natural. The main problem is that, when I'm in these social situations, what to say does not come to mind naturally. I'm not quite myself. You could even say I'm a long way off.
I started out thinking that, to achieve my goals, I would mostly just need to gain lots and lots of experience. That may be true, but right now, it doesn't seem like it's quite enough. There is something missing - something that I hope to figure out, and add to the puzzle as I proceed.
The list of conversation topics is nice - certainly helpful. But come to think of it.... the vast majority of people don't need such things. For example, all (yes, all) of the new people I've met have been extremely, extremely talkative. Rest assured, they are not recalling topics from a pre-prepared list! And of course, with my close family and my one friend who I'm comfortable with, even I never need such things.
So it is apparent that something is missing. I want to add to the equation whatever it is that people naturally have. That something that allows people to be themselves. To be open, and to communicate their thoughts and feelings.
The goal, now, is to identify that certain something. But how? The world is my laboratory. I plan to do everything I can to figure this out. That means Google research, combined with observation of others and myself. Inside and out.
Of course, along the way I'll probably come up with a ton of things that don't work. I will fearlessly try out the ideas that I come up with as I meet new people and get more practice.
One thing that I always wanted to do with this blog was share ideas that work to solve our problem. Sure, you can google shyness and find some suggestions. But of course, I did that years ago, and obviously none of it worked, or else you wouldn't be reading this right now.
My point is that I don't want to bog down this blog with a bunch of ideas that I haven't tried and that probably don't work. But I do need to write out a lot of stuff in order to figure this out.
So, my idea is to keep a single running entry of "lab notes." Ideas that I have, and observations that I make as I venture through the world on my mission. Feel free to take a look at this entry from time to time, to see what I'm thinking. And as always, I welcome comments if you have some experience with something that works, or have an idea of what could help. Hopefully we will eventually be able to find that something.
Round 2 begins immediately. In the next couple days, I'm planning on going on 2 or 3 dates (whoa!) with new people. Also, one of my "platonics," who I hung out with twice in Round 1, has come back from the dead and has been e-mailing with me again. We're pretty close to actually being friends, so I plan to come up with something we can do together again soon. That could be big - I was pretty close to being myself the second time I saw her.
And so it continues...
So far, I haven't made this as multifaceted an effort as I originally planned. I've mostly been focusing on gaining experience and trying new things in 1-on-1 meetings with new people from the Internet. 8 dates and 3 as-friends hangouts with a total of 7 people.
I've arrived at what seems to be a natural end to the first round of my efforts. I learned and gained a lot in that first round. More than anything, I spent enough time with new people to be able to start new interactions without fear. Meeting new people, even from the internet without ever having talked to them live first, is no big deal. At all. That comfort level will help greatly as I proceed.
Through trial and error (lots of error, and always on trial), I came up with an at least somewhat effective approach to dealing with Inhibition (see the post by this name) and being myself.
Unfortunately, nothing I've done so far has been enough. I haven't been too anxious, but I've still been inhibited and woefully awkward in all but one of my meetings.
Now, my strategy for dealing with Inhibition was essentially just to force myself to say and do whatever came to mind that I wanted. That works somewhat, but it has not yet become natural. The main problem is that, when I'm in these social situations, what to say does not come to mind naturally. I'm not quite myself. You could even say I'm a long way off.
I started out thinking that, to achieve my goals, I would mostly just need to gain lots and lots of experience. That may be true, but right now, it doesn't seem like it's quite enough. There is something missing - something that I hope to figure out, and add to the puzzle as I proceed.
The list of conversation topics is nice - certainly helpful. But come to think of it.... the vast majority of people don't need such things. For example, all (yes, all) of the new people I've met have been extremely, extremely talkative. Rest assured, they are not recalling topics from a pre-prepared list! And of course, with my close family and my one friend who I'm comfortable with, even I never need such things.
So it is apparent that something is missing. I want to add to the equation whatever it is that people naturally have. That something that allows people to be themselves. To be open, and to communicate their thoughts and feelings.
The goal, now, is to identify that certain something. But how? The world is my laboratory. I plan to do everything I can to figure this out. That means Google research, combined with observation of others and myself. Inside and out.
Of course, along the way I'll probably come up with a ton of things that don't work. I will fearlessly try out the ideas that I come up with as I meet new people and get more practice.
One thing that I always wanted to do with this blog was share ideas that work to solve our problem. Sure, you can google shyness and find some suggestions. But of course, I did that years ago, and obviously none of it worked, or else you wouldn't be reading this right now.
My point is that I don't want to bog down this blog with a bunch of ideas that I haven't tried and that probably don't work. But I do need to write out a lot of stuff in order to figure this out.
So, my idea is to keep a single running entry of "lab notes." Ideas that I have, and observations that I make as I venture through the world on my mission. Feel free to take a look at this entry from time to time, to see what I'm thinking. And as always, I welcome comments if you have some experience with something that works, or have an idea of what could help. Hopefully we will eventually be able to find that something.
Round 2 begins immediately. In the next couple days, I'm planning on going on 2 or 3 dates (whoa!) with new people. Also, one of my "platonics," who I hung out with twice in Round 1, has come back from the dead and has been e-mailing with me again. We're pretty close to actually being friends, so I plan to come up with something we can do together again soon. That could be big - I was pretty close to being myself the second time I saw her.
And so it continues...
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