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
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.
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.
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