The Master Plan (Running Entry)

In this running post, I will develop a single, unified master plan for overcoming shyness and turning around my social life. This includes both ideas that I plan to try, as well as strategies that I have found to be successful. This post will be a great work in progress - I hope to succeed in turning my life around by July 9, 2008. In the meantime, many proven methods will be added, and failed techniques will be purged. The end result should be a definitive solution for the world's silent mass of shyness sufferers. Last Update: 11/30/2007

Principles

Practice

Overcoming shyness is not something that can be done by merely studying a book, a blog, or even a thousand web sites. The single most important thing to be done is practice. Lots and lots of practice. As much as possible - this can't be stressed enough.

Persistence

Overcoming serious shyness requires extraordinary persistence. Starting out, and even later on, things will inevitably not go well in many of the social activities we try. There is no way around it - if this weren't the case, then by definition there would be no problem in the first place. It's critical to remember that it doesn't matter how things go when we're out there getting practice. Failure is the price we pay for success; every effort made in doing something social is an accomplishment - a stepping stone in the path to turning things around.

Non-Acceptance

In researching shyness online, I've come across many threads on sites like yahoo! Answers where someone asks for help in overcoming their problem, and others respond. There is almost always a response essentially telling the person that it is OK to be shy, and that they should accept being they way they are.

No one should ever accept being shy. This is serious. Living is largely about love, friendships, comradery and the like. Being shy causes us to miss out on some of the best parts of life. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Inhibition

Inhibition really is the crux of the problem here. This is part of the current, working plan:

Try to force ourselves into some uninhibited behavior. Dancing in the streets would work, but starting out, it's easier and good enough to force some comments, questions, jokes, compliments, etc. in conversation.

Sometimes things come to mind to say, but we feel too inhibited to say them. The plan is that whenever that happens, defy the inhibition and do it anyway. The idea is that by force, you have allowed yourself to indeed be yourself (saying what you're thinking), a little more than usual.

The positive responses that you get should reinforce the behavior of being yourself, allowing you to eventually do it without needing to force anything. Now, what I learned the first couple times that I tried this theory is that you don't simply have to use force: you usually have to use brute force! This is simple stuff on paper, but when I've been in social situations, I've felt too much inhibition to say even some simple things, despite my strong will.

It's really a lot like jumping out of a window blindfolded when you know there's a trampoline to catch you. It requires a leap of faith, and some intense willpower in the moment, but you can certainly do it.

So far, practicing this every chance I've had has helped - it gets easier over time. It also helps to try to speak or act soon after something comes to mind; the longer you wait, the more psychological force you need to do it.

Being Yourself

Be yourself. This simple phrase summarizes the goal of this entire blog. My life's greatest mission. We simply want to be ourselves around other people. Nothing more, nothing less.

While it will take time and many of the strategies written here to achieve this ultimate goal, there is one thing that has to be done immediately. What we can already do is not try to be anyone other than ourselves. What I mean is don't try to impress by trying to make yourself sound more interesting, or anything like that. I learned this through experience; trying to impress tripped me up horrendously when I first started my mission. Hopefully you can learn from some of my mistakes, instead of having to make them all yourself.

I also believe that when other people respond positively to you when you're not making an extra effort, or putting on any kind of show, that will also reinforce your normal, relaxed, uninhibited manner.


Reading

1. Conversationally Speaking: Tested New Ways to Increase Your Personal and Social Effectiveness. By Alan Garner.

To be continued.....I will be fleshing this post out greatly, editing it several times each week.

The Office

Today was my twelfth day on my first job. I thought it would be worth giving an overview of the social aspects now, if for no other reason than I can (hopefully) one day look back and see that I've improved greatly.

In general, the social life in the office hasn't been what I'd hoped it'd be. I spend the vast, vast, vast majority of the time just sitting alone in my cubicle. I'd always envisioned there being more interaction in software engineering - it's not an everyday thing so far. There were several days where I could literally count the words that I said from 9 to 5. Eerily reminiscent of the way things were back in school. Thankfully, though, that began to improve a bit this week.

On Monday, one of my coworkers invited me to lunch. I was pretty anxious about it, but there was no way I could decline - I needed to do this. So he drove me and two of my female coworkers to the restaurant, about 10 minutes away. Glancing at his rearview mirror, I noticed that I was constantly smiling. I smile a lot naturally, but in an odd way, I couldn't relax my facial muscles enough to stop. Yep: I was a little nervous.

We arrived at the restaurant, and met some more coworkers - there were eight of us. Not having talked much since I started the job, I knew names, but not much else about these folks. I always find group situations to be the toughest. This was no exception.

I couldn't seem to get myself into the conversation. In fact, I really didn't even try. I wanted to, but somehow it didn't seem like there was any real opening for me. Of course, in reality, there must have been. I said so little (almost nothing) for so long that when I wanted go wash my hands, I was afraid to leave the table. I was afraid that my companions would talk about me while I was gone - about how I wasn't saying anything, or something negative.

As I ate, I was definitely a bit nervous. I felt a little shaky - yes, literally shaky, the way I described in the last post, but not as bad. I never did get into the conversation. Not one bit - my companions didn't help me out much by asking me anything.

The car ride back was better. In a smaller group, I was able to ask and answer a few questions. Inhibited, but back up to the ability level I usually have when I try going on dates.

So that sounds like it sucked. But by virtue of eating lunch with them, it forced me to become acquainted with seven new people. My thinking is that I will now be able to try chatting them up 1 on 1 later on without feeling as uncomfortable.

My best results on the job came today. We have a meeting and company lunch once a week. At the meeting, I had to give a status update in front of about 10 other people. I was anxious at first, but calmed down a bit before I had to speak. I calmed down even more once I started talking and heard my words coming out alright. I calmed down even further when my manager and coworkers reacted positively - it was like I was just a normal person.

At lunch, I sat with my manager and just one other coworker, who is even quieter than I am. I was good! Clear voice, and I thought of plenty to say. Plenty to say, because I had a lot of questions. It was the typical 1-on-1 situation where I've been able to keep the conversation going, but have been too inhibited to really completely be myself. In this case, that last part doesn't matter so much - being a little reserved is natural at work, though it was a bit more so than I would prefer.

I don't mean to bore you! Just thought this needed to be documented.

In other news......

I'm going on another first-date this Sunday. And I just got an e-mail from the girl I went out with on my last date. She initiated communication yet again, which means she's definitely still interested, despite our mediocre-at-best third date. I'm planning to not see her again, but that's definitely very encouraging!

Finally, I promise to try to start writing the "Master Plan" running entry tomorrow. I plan to do this every week, but never get around to it. No more procrastination :-)

Second Third-Date (Unlucky #13)

My situation has never been clear-cut. I've never really known what to call it: shyness, social anxiety disorder, extreme inexperience....some combination of those, and more or something else. But in the middle of my date this afternoon, I experienced a frightening reminder that whatever it is, it's more serious than I usually make it sound in the blog when I simply refer to "shyness"......

Today I went out on my thirteenth date since starting the blog in July. It was a third-date with the girl who has been pursuing me since we initially met on match.com.

I took her to lunch at Dave & Busters. Overall, it was really a lot like our second date. The great news there being that there wasn't even a hint of my infamous "Voice Thing" problem. That in and of itself is a major victory for me personally. I'm not even thinking about the horrid "voice thing" anymore; I hope to leave it behind, and carry this over to the future by just never going back.

The bad news is that I just didn't seem to have as much to say this time. I had already used most of the conversation topics from my list on the last two dates. I didn't do any preparation this time - just had a few things in mind - hoping that I would feel positive and would think of things naturally. But unfortunately, I often didn't, and there were some extended (though not necessarily awkward) silences throughout.

One "topic" that I've mentioned a half dozen times is my silly "updog joke." There's nothing special about the joke, no. The point is just that it's something entirely silly that, since I thought of it, I was always too inhibited to actually try, if it crossed my mind. On today's date, I did remember it. So the only thing left to do was to implement the Anti-Inhibition Strategy and force myself to go through with it.

And for once, I did.

We were eating lunch, and we had been talking about favorite foods. I asked her if she had ever had updog.

"What?"
"Updog. Have you ever had updog?"
"What's that?"
"Hm?"
"What's updog?"
"Nothin much. What's up with you?"

I had successfully executed the joke. She laughed a little, but just a little. It didn't seem like she thought it was very funny.

I really didn't think that I cared whether she thought it was funny or not. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I really didn't care. Consciously, there were no negative thoughts going through my mind. I wasn't (consciously) thinking "She thinks that was stupid" or anything like that.

But still, there was an awful turn of events.

A couple moments after the joke, I started to become anxious. My anxiety quickly but gradually built up, like a glass filling with water.

I was eating chicken breast. I had a fork in my right hand, and a knife in the other.

My right hand started shaking. Shaking uncontrollably - something I haven't written about in the blog yet, but that I used to experience whenever I had to do public speaking in school.

My hand was shaking so badly that I couldn't even raise my fork to eat. I tried to stop it by pressing my hand hard against the plate. This helped only a little.

I'm pretty sure that my date noticed this attack, and glanced at my hand. Wow. What must she be thinking? I continued to try to manage by instead drinking water with my left hand; removing my right hand from the table to use the napkin in my lap, out of sight; trying to wait it out. After two or three minutes (an eternity when something like this is happening), I regained control.

That was bad. I don't know if it was her reaction that triggered it, or perhaps some sort of pressure that I built up over the last couple months to try saying something silly on a date. The scary thing is that I wasn't consciously doing any negative thinking beforehand. It must have been something subconscious, seemingly outside of my control.

But I recovered, and the date proceeded as normal. We played arcade games and a couple of competitive things (typical Dave & Busters, or Chuck-E-Cheese stuff), and I was quite comfortable. I took her home after a couple hours.

I walked her up again. She again took me into her apartment without saying a word about it. The last time, I tried to kiss her before I departed, and she turned her head and hugged me.

This time, I just hugged her. I'd decided that I really wasn't interested enough in her, and probably didn't want to take it any further - so I wouldn't lead her on with a kiss. She said she would see me, probably after Thanksgiving. So it looks like *maybe* she was still interested, despite the bizarre trembling I showed in the middle of our date.

So it's yet another experience in the books. I think every single one helps. I will continue to trudge forward with my mission, doing everything I can to overcome whatever I encounter along the way. I'm determined to start taking more risks, and ramp up my efforts, so I should have lots to write about in the coming days.

If It Kills Me

Unexpectly, I'm back to talk to you again already.

I went to see 30 Days of Night with my parents tonight. I ran into a couple of acquaintances from my alma mater, from which we all graduated this year.

But they weren't just any acquaintances.

It was Jane and John.

I saw Jane for the first time in the Fall semester of 2004. She was shooting hoops on the basketball court - the opposite side of the gym from me. I was intrigued, but didn't think too much further about her until the second time I saw her.

I saw Jane again about two weeks later. I was playing some 3-on-3 basketball at school. She was in the center of the gymnasium, throwing a football back and forth with a female friend. And boy, could she throw!

I was in the middle of a game, but I couldn't stop looking over at Jane. I was more than intrigued. I couldn't even make out the details of her face, but she had this amazing bright smile. She radiated a unique, youthful, beautiful, fun type of energy - I couldn't do it justice recounting it in text.

At some point, I was totally lost looking over at her. The guy I was supposed to be guarding in the game was wide-open right underneath the basket; I was set in stone gazing over at Jane. I recovered and attempted to block the shot. But for the next play, I was back to looking over at Jane.

I'll never forget the words I said to myself after that. I said, "This is the girl I'm going to marry."

On my way back to my apartment, I saw Jane outside the gym. She was on a bike, and her friend was nearby. As I walked towards her, I thought about what I could do - smile, say hi? This was way, way before the blog, so I couldn't have even imagined starting a conversation.

It was the first time I had actually seen Jane up close. She was so sweet, so beautiful. I wasn't being poetic when I talked about her amazingly bright smile. It really was amazingly bright; it turned out to her dental braces, which I couldn't make out from across the gym.

Amazingly, she spoke to me. first. She actually thought I was someone else. When I told her that no, my name was X, not Y.... she playfully grabbed me and ran me across the grass. Boy, was she strong!

We talked very briefly. My standard conversation - what's your major, what year are you? That was about it. She was smiling the whole time - beautiful, amazing girl. It was my junior year in college, and I'd probably only had a couple of actual significant conversations with females up to that point. So naturally I couldn't, or didn't keep it going, and said see ya later.

That was it. Afterwards, I thought about Jane constantly. I couldn't exaggerate this if I wanted to. She was the most beautiful, amazing girl I'd ever seen! The sweetest, greatest girl I could imagine! I literally could not stop thinking about her.

I saw Jane around campus a few more times that semester. She always greeted me with an enthusiastic "Hey, how are you?" or something similar. My feelings weren't fading a bit.

After the winter break, I finally found myself heading in the same direction as Jane. We were going into the library, and she was carrying a huge bookbag. I asked her how her winter break was. We exchanged a couple of sentences, and then she said she was heading to her locker to put away her books; her back was killing her!

I answered with one of my standard "Oh yeah?" remarks - I still find myself saying that a lot, when nothing else to say comes to mind.

I always took the stairs, never elevators. In an amazing feat of ineptitude, I kept walking toward the stairs, and she split and headed to the elevator. I didn't even say goodbye!

Now, of course it's obvious now what I should have done. I should have offered to carry her bookbag up; I should have asked her what floor her locker was on; I should have continued to make conversation for a few minutes while we were together, and then gotten her campus phone extension number, and gone from there. Simple stuff.

But this was a time when I had never, at age 21, been out on a single date. When I had scarcely even had a conversation with a girl outside of my family.

That was pretty much it. I saw Jane a few weeks later - the day she'd gotten her braces off. She was happy, but didn't seem so interested in me anymore. She was dating someone else.

I saw that someone else the day of the Super Bowl. They were walking together. It was John. Yes, the same John that I saw with her tonight at the mall.

John is similar to me. Eerily similar. He plays the same sport, he had the closest major to mine, and he even looked similar to me.

And so, Jane has been with John ever since. He was the very first guy she went out with after meeting me. After meeting me, who she seemed quite interested in. Me, who thought she was the most amazing girl in the entire world.

And so tonight, I asked Jane and John what they'd been up to. They apparently live together now; they're probably engaged or married.

Wow. I felt so anxious talking to them, I started to lose control of my body - I was glad we ended the brief conversation before my infamous twitch returned in full blast.

Jane, the only girl who I ever seriously told myself I was going to marry (practically love before first sight), ends up marrying the very first guy she goes out with during the time I'm too anxious and inexperienced to even have a full conversation with her? It's painful, my friends. It was painful every time I saw them on campus, but I was doing well until I saw them again tonight. It took me a while (months, or a year?) to become seriously interested in other girls again - but eventualy "out of sight, out of mind" kicked in.

I felt down after speaking to Jane and John tonight. Jane still seemed every bit as beautiful and amazing as I thought she was. She hadn't "shrunk" on me at all.

So I got to thinking. In my google research, I very often come across sites like yahoo! answers, where people ask questions about how to overcome shyness, and ordinary people answer. More often than not, there's at least one answer telling the shyness sufferer they should accept the fact that they're shy - it's okay to be shy - stuff like that.

My long story about me, Jane, and John shows that those answers are absolute gibberish. No one should ever accept being shy, or anything like that. This is serious. Living is largely about love, friendships, comradery and the like. Being shy causes us to miss out on some of the best parts of life. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Now, this may not be what some people want to hear, but I believe it is an absolute fact. I can't know for certain that it would have worked out with me and Jane had things been different. Of course not. But through age 24, it is clear that shyness has been a pervasive force in my life, and it's caused me to miss out on way too much already.

So I am not going to accept being shy. Never. Ever. I am going to fight. I've decided that tonight, I will do whatever it takes. If it kills me, I'm going to beat this. There's no hyperbole here - I mean this literally.

Yes, literally. So tonight I figured that if I'm willing to face death to overcome shyness, certainly I should be able to take any risk. If I'm willing to take risks (it's easy to say and hard to do, but believe me, I am going to do it, and prove it in this blog), a whole new world of possibilities opens up. I started thinking about getting started immediately - probably implementing something like the one approach per day program, with that being just for starters. I originally planned to work on this stuff every single day, but lately I've done nothing at all on most days. That has to change.

So it turns out that the girl from my second second-date is in hot pursuit. She called me today, and I declined a group date to a movie. She then sent me a phone text message later, asking me if I wanted to grab lunch tomorrow.

I'm currently not very interested in her - probably the main reason for my success with her to this point - but I need to go out with her again for the practice. I don't mean to lead her on, so if I don't feel more interested tomorrow, I won't try to kiss her or anything like that.

So this is it. This can't be like any of the other times I've preached in the blog, and then just went on about half-assing the mission. It really is a mission. I'm going to turn my life around, or die trying.

Status Report

So I've been busy. So busy, in fact, that it's been way too long since I've had time to write an update. At least we got a couple of good comments in the meantime. Now I will backtrack to last Friday, and bring you up to speed on everything that's been going on.

Stable Friend

Last Friday was great. I hung out again my newest friend (I only have two total), who I met from craigslist way back on August 9. It was actually only the fourth time we had met up. The first time we talked at Starbucks; the second time we went bowling; the third time we saw a movie.

This time, we went to a play. An interesting, interactive sort of play. The premise was that we and the rest of the audience were audience members of a taping of a show like America's Most Wanted. The cast was to re-enact a murder of a young girl. But during the show, the blanks in the gun would be replaced with real bullets, thus creating a real murder in front of us. We were to be involved in the investigation and figure out who dun it.

Not to get off-topic. The point is that it was an interactive thing. The cast members came around in character and chatted, argued, and did all kinds of stuff with us. I talked to a couple of them, and I was completely relaxed and comfortable. There was a stuck-up, arrogant, 17-year-old character who everyone hated; I made friends with her :)

As for the interaction with my friend - it was perfect. I was completely at ease the whole time. I was the best possible version of myself - relaxed, comfortable, confident. I didn't have any difficulty thinking of things to say. I kidded around, made jokes, teased, nudged my friend. I laughed outloud with no self-consciousness or reservation. I could have spoken out in front of the whole audience (about 30 people) if I'd wanted, and I would have been fine.

Amazing, huh? I'd go into more detail about what I talked about, but it really doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that I was able to be myself! Which is all I've ever wanted on this mission.

So there are two things worth doing here. First, I should point out that this friendship has started to really stabilize. This time, our activity was her idea. And she paid. Sample line of dialogue from her, when I was driving her to her car and neither of us knew exactly where to go: "Don't worry, we'll find it buddy." The point being that it seems like there is no longer any issue of whether everyone's intentions are strictly platonic. We've been e-mailing each other since then, and everything is good! She is my second stable friend who I can be myself with.

And so, the second thing worth doing is trying to figure out what it is about my interaction with her that is different, and has made me so comfortable. What aspects of my experience with her can I apply to, well, every other person, so that I can be myself with them too?

The first thing that comes to mind is the whole Don't Care mindset that I plan to discuss at length when I start the Master Plan running entry. In short, I just had no concern about what anyone thought of me. It sounds simple, but if that holds up as a strategy, the trick will be that you have to actually not care; I had tried saying that to myself before, but just thinking it didn't help much. ("Don't care" is a bit of a misnomer. Of course you care; but it seems like you need to not care in the same way that you don't care when talking to your best friend or a close family member. Maybe I'll clean up the diction in the master plan.)

The next thing that comes to mind is the gem quote I mentioned before: "According to the experts, if you feel positive, feelings of fear will not interfere with your ability to think of something to say." This time, I made no effort beforehand to prepare or even review lists of conversation topics. And yet I had more than enough to say. It looks like I will have to work more with that feeling-positive theory. Relying too long on a list of topics for things to talk about inevitably leads to disaster. I figured this out after doing it for a fourth meeting with another person. You can only list and remember so much.

I'll add more here later as I think about it, because I just remembered there's another important topic I need to discuss.

New Job

On Monday, I started my first job. I'd had this great vision that the new job would be a huge springboard for my mission. I was hoping it would get me over the hump by providing me with 8 hours a day of (unavoidable) social interaction.

Well, my first week on the job didn't turn out to be what I hoped, as far as the social stuff goes. I was a bit tense. In fact, I don't think I was any better than I had been back in college. Sure, I wasn't anxious, and could have some basic short conversations and interactions. I don't want to get into it, because it's really not good. I'm way past the point where being able to say "Have a good weekend" is any sort of victory.

The first problem was that I ended up just sitting alone at my desk for long hours each day. There wasn't nearly as much "required" social interaction as I'd expected. There was a company lunch on Thursday, though. This is alarming: I sat at a table with a group of new coworkers, and I didn't say anything the first several minutes. Now you all know I have been practicing conversations and 1-on-1 interactions since July. So what was going on? I was drawing a blank; nothing fitting seemed to come to mind.

I had become a bit of a hermit at my desk for three days prior, and group situations are the hardest for me anyway. Perhaps all of this led to me not feeling so positive, so I didn't have the ease described in the quote above.

But eventually, someone asked me which company I had come from, so that gave me something to say. And then I thought of obvious questions - duh. How long had they been working here....did they live nearby? When did they give out those company t-shirts? I eventually got into a prolonged 1-on-1 conversation, where I saw plenty of opportunities for follow-up questions.

Whew, so I hadn't gone backwards too much with my social skills.

But it isn't enough. I have to really take advantage of this job thing - my mission is more important to me than even the money they're paying me (!). I have access to about 35 people for 8 hours a day, five days a week. I'm going to have to figure out how to utilize this for much more social experience. I don't have many ideas yet; I suppose I could try to muster the courage to randomly chat up coworkers at their cubicles. I hope I can find one person to sort of target to become friends with, but somehow, I don't see any good matches yet. Who knows - I'll work on it, and it should make for some better blog entries later. I'm really motivated to work something out, becuse I feel there is some danger of creating a reputation around the office for being shy - and I definitely don't want that. It makes things worse - harder to break out of. Most shy people who read this blog went through that themselves in grade school, so I won't even start on it.

New Efforts

So, working 8 hours a day (instead of 0) leaves me with less time for all the online dating that I'd been doing up to this point. I've decided to take a break from match.com, but I'm still responding to the (very rare few) eHarmony matches that I'm interested in.

To avoid getting offtrack at all, I also decided to try something new. I actually posted my own entry in the craig's list strictly platonic men-for-women section. Picture and all, yes sirree. It'll be interesting to see how many responses I get, and what they're like - I really have no idea what to expect.

I also made a sloppy attempt at setting up a third-date for tomorrow- more on that if it actually happens.

"Tell me about yourself"

Well, things are going pretty well. Instead of the usual stuff - reporting on my experiences and coming up with new general strategies - I thought I would write a quick post on a specific, more advanced topic.

Back on date #10, my companion asked me to tell her more about myself. I really couldn't think of anything to say, and she didn't have any specific questions. At the time, I sort of placed blame on her for not having anything specific. But now I've realized that I should have had an answer to the general question.

I really can't tell stories at all. That's one of the more advanced things that hinders me a bit socially, but so far, the issue has been dwarfed by more basic problems (like figuring out how I can be myself).

So responding to the request "Tell me more about yourself" is a good place for me to start learning how to tell stories. I read this article that gives some suggestions. The general idea is to phrase the answer in such a way that makes it interesting to the other person, by telling a story. The author also suggests that it takes practice (no surprise there) to be able to give a good answer.

So I've decided that the next time someone asks this question (it's inevitable), I will have a decent response. I won't try to recite something verbatim - I want it to sound natural - but I have something like this in mind.

"So, tell me about yourself."

"Well, I grew up in Brookline. I went to school outside of Boston for 6 years, studying computer science. That really took up a lot of my time - I didn't do much of anything outside of my school work. So when I finally finished, I started making up for lost time by taking up new hobbies, trying everything I could. Now I'm balancing them out with my career as a software engineer."

So that's my first shot at a general answer geared toward a new acquaintance. I tried to do what the article said, pulling my background together in a way that creates a single, memorable picture of myself. I'll probably practice it aloud (although I hate doing that) a few times, and I'll let you know how it goes the next time someone asks me to tell them about myself.

Second Second-Date Update

Ahh. Women are tough to understand. Here's an update on the last post. I don't know why she didn't kiss me, but it looks like she realized she'd better make her interest clear after turning her head. The bottom line: Don't-Care Strategy Success.

Hey [Me],

Thanks for lunch yesterday. It was good to see you again.

How was the game?

While I'm here, let me share more good news. My new friend is starting to look stable: I just got an e-mail from her, asking what my weekend is looking like. It also looks like I'm going to start a new job at the end of the week. The job is part of my personal master plan to give me a huge push in terms of getting more social experience (I'm 24, and it's my first job). But I'll dedicate an entire post to that soon.

Second Second-Date

Today I went on my second second-date ever. This one was important, because it was the first chance for me to test out a theory that I believe is going to be a huge part of the Final Solution. And it worked.

I will go over this concept in much more detail tomorrow in the running Final Solution entry. For now, let me give you a brief overview:

I kept trying to figure out what the difference was between social situations in which I was comfortable, and social situations in which I was anxious or (especially) tense. I couldn't pinpoint a clear difference. It just seemed to be something intangible. Something intangible, causing the Voice Thing, causing me to have difficulty in thinking of things to say, and causing me to not be myself.

So what examples did I have? I started with experiences that I gained since starting the mission. First, there were the dates. I'd been pretty far off in most of those. And then, there was the new female friend that I made. I'd been pretty much myself with her, every time. What was the difference?

It seems obvious. I simply cared less about how anything went in the strictly platonic relationship with the girl who's become my friend. But no, it's not that simple. If it were, then I'd have all sorts of friends - not just 2. But one important factor seems to be that to be myself, I need to not care about how things go. Not just say that I don't care. I need to really not care. That's the tough part. Conversationally Speaking talks about something related in Chapter 12.
It's important, but I will discuss it soon in the Master Plan running entry.

For now, let me recap my latest date, as is tradition.

The most important thing to point out here is that I was testing my theory about not caring. I wasn't very interested in this girl. She'd been largely the pursuer, or else I may not have even gone out with her again. I really didn't care how this went. I kept myself busy with other things prior to our second-date today. Kept myself busy with other things, instead of doing lots of planning of conversation topics. Instead of thinking about what it was going to be like. Instead of worrying that it might not go well. Instead of thinking about it much at all, really.

And so, if my theory were correct, I should have been more comfortable this time. A heck of a lot more comfortable than on date #11, where I thought the girl was amazing. No, it wouldn't be perfect, because there's a lot more to this stuff than just not caring. But it should have gone better.

In my August 20 entry, I wrote this quote from a site on shyness:

The secret to knowing what to say is learning what to feel. According to the experts, if you feel positive, feelings of fear will not interfere with your ability to think of something to say.

At the time, I had tied that information into my own plan to try to lose my sense of self-awareness, instead of actively trying to think of things to say. When I tried it out on date #3, the result as an absolute catastrophe. After that, I completely abandoned that line of thinking, in favor of a new strategy. Now, it made sense again, and I knew a date on which I had no worry (conscious or otherwise) would be a chance to support this little gem of knowledge (I wish I knew what "experts" actually suggested this - if anyone can find this out, it could help us a lot).

So without further ado, this is how the didn't-care second-date went:

I picked her up at her apartment so that we could have lunch together. I had little to no anxiety when I called her, or when she came down. Contrast this to date #11 (a really-care-a-lot date), when for the first time, I was especially anxious just waiting for my date to make her appearance.

I started out with some general questions - what have you been up to? I was able to ask follow-up questions based on her answers. I'm always pretty good at that. But when she asked some questions of her own, I was better this time. I was relaxed, and able to answer without the usual stumbling.

We went for waffle sandwiches. I had a couple new conversation topics in mind - just because they had occurred to me as passing thoughts earlier - but I wasn't focusing on reciting them. Shopping, Black Friday, Music. I had some things to say of my own about most of the things (not the usual case!). I added information, and did so pretty smoothly. I did about 40% of the talking, instead of the usual 20% or less. There were some brief silences, but I didn't feel uncomfortable about them. It was pretty easy to think of new topics. At some point I even said something totally silly without having to force myself to do so. In other words, I was pretty much myself.

The only time I started to feel a little anxiety was when my mind wandered to thoughts of a possible end-of-the-date kiss, and a possible rejection. I only allowed those thoughts for a moment, and the anxiety lessened when I brought my attention back to the current situation.

When we got back to her place, I told her I'd walk her up real quick. I then got a little sloppy. That is to say, I forgot a few things. Not because I was anxious...just because I was a little distracted with the current conversation and thinking of the ending. (If you're wondering, I forgot to open the car door for her, and didn't think to sneak some chapstick during a perfect opportunity).

She took me in the apartment unit (a first!) and gave me a little tour, bedroom included. She asked if I wanted to sit down, and I did. She then kept talking away. Interestingly enough, she was asking the questions the way I usually am. Asking me about things she knew I was interested in (sports). We were sitting on her sofa together, and I was thinking about how to end the date. Hmm. I was going to try to kiss her - on a second date, that goes without saying. But I decided to wait until I stood up, instead of trying it on the sofa (although that would make for a good place for my first makeout!).

She stood up with me, and opened the door. I put my right hand somewhere in the vicinity of her waist, and started the motion to kiss her. This time, it felt pretty natural.

But wait! The kiss never actually happened. In an instant, she turned her head! She turned her cheek toward me, in a somewhat subtle way, and turned it into a hug. I was pretty surprised. There was no indication that she'd lost interest in me...so what was the deal?

I wondered very briefly whether she just thought I was trying to hug her. But no, it was subtle, but obvious - she turned her head away from my lips as they moved towards her.

I thought it was odd. But I didn't care. Nope, no negative feelings this time. No obsessing over it for the next 3 days (I'm still anxious about the date #11 girl, who I plan to call tomorrow night, in spite of the extraordinarily awkward ending. Presumably the anxiety wouldn't have gotten so difficult to deal with if I hadn't obsessed over it and placed so much importance on it to begin with).

So this girl and I are done, unless she initiates contact (and then, maybe still). But the moral of the story is that when I didn't care what happened, I was a lot less anxious (before, during, and after), and a lot more like myself. Now, just how it is that you can actually not care, at least in the way that it will reduce anxiety and tension, is an issue that I will have to work with and discuss at length. It's just one piece of the puzzle, but it's an important one.

Figuring Things Out

Last night, I decided to take a look back on some of the old entries. When I started out with the first few 1-on-1 interactions, I wrote posts that listed everything that went well, and everything that needed improvement. The early entries were also filled with all sorts of specific strategies for dealing with pretty much every problem that I could encounter on my quest.

Skimming over those entries last night, it didn't take me long to realize that I had allowed history to repeat itself too many times. All the way up through my eleventh date, I repeated many of the same mistakes over and over again. Simply put, I should have reviewed my own writings.

I became somewhat perturbed last night, realizing that I haven't been making as much progress as I could have, if I'd just kept in mind all of the important things I learned from previous experiences as I proceeded.

(I'm rambling, but stick with me - this is important)

I've had a lot of things in mind lately about what to do - what to try - that would be different, and that might work here. I decided to revisit a book that I keep under my bed, called Conversationally Speaking. I've mentioned this book before, but I said that it only contains very basic info on conversation skills. Well, it turns out that I hadn't read the entire book. There's a chapter near the end entitled "Reucing Anxiety in Social Situations." To make a long story short, Garner's advice here validated a number of theories that I've had in mind lately, but that haven't yet made it to the blog (because I wanted to try them out first).

So this is the plan. I am going to do something different with the blog. I'm going to create a second running entry, in which I will write a single, integrated master plan containing every single useful point that I've come up with. I will still be in the process of trying out some of these things. That's okay - I will remove and add information as I go along. I'll also explain the important points from that chapter in Conversationally Speaking, but that book is going to be required reading for us all anyway. This way, I can review a single entry (instead of skimming 50!) before every practice session, ensuring that I make progress instead of just repeating the same past mistakes.

The end result (8 months, or hopefully a lot sooner) will be a single, clear solution for overcoming the shyness problem, or whatever it is from which I've been suffering.

The master plan entry is going to take a lot of work, but look for the beginnings of it late Monday night.