The advice “create things to do” is a huge leap for someone with atrophied social skills. Even just attending an event is a terrifying prospect to someone with debilitating social anxiety or low self-esteem.
Instead, a better goal is to become comfortable talking to strangers. If you could do that confidently, anything is possible socially.
Here’s a framework to do that:
1. Adopt a useful attitude.
Before any social situation, consciously choose an attitude that serves you socially: calm, relaxed, enthusiastic, curious, friendly, or simply open. This replaces the useless defaults that keep you stuck: reticent, scared, angry, confused.
Assume people will like you.
2. Set an intention for the interaction.
Decide on one small goal for the interaction. Not “be charming” or “make friends,” rather something achievable.
Example intentions, ranked from easier to more difficult:
- To appear friendly (smile, make eye contact)
- To greet people
- To find out what’s going on around town
- To enjoy talking with people
- To meet people
- To make someone smile
- To enjoy getting to know someone
- To make someone laugh
- To get someone’s contact info
- To flirt
- To talk to the most attractive person in the room
3. Find comfort in your body.
When you arrive at a social space, take a deep breath. Know that you’re safe inhabiting your body, no matter what anyone thinks of you or says.
4. Set your expectations.
Paralyzed about what to say? Set the bar low. Say your words and expect nothing in return. Confidence in delivering your words will grow. Confidence in social acceptance will follow as you see people respond neutrally and positively.
You might be talking to a grumpy person. It’s okay if you don’t get the response you’d hoped for.
5. Start impossibly small.
If you’re severely out of practice (nervous, anxious, uncertain), set out to initiate an interaction with someone where you accomplish just one objective. Then stop and celebrate that win. Don’t try to combine all of these into one interaction—you will get overwhelmed. Then initiate another interaction on another day and accomplish another objective.
Objective: Say “hello.” If you tend to be quiet, focus on being heard. Find confidence in your voice.
Objective: Say the first thing that comes to mind and see what happens.
Objective: Notice something about a person and comment on it. “Nice shoes!”
Objective: Notice something about the environment and comment on it to someone nearby.
Objective: Ask someone a question for information.
Objective: Ask someone their opinion.
Objective: Ask a question that invites an emotional response rather than a factual one. “What do you love about living here?”
Objective: Join a circle of people in conversation.
6. Make it a habit.
Start today: say one thing to one person. Repeat tomorrow. Then the next day. Within about a week, it becomes second nature. The scariness diminishes. Soon, you’ll actually want to talk to people.
When you learn to talk to strangers, you’re more than halfway to making a friend. Friends will help keep you out of loneliness.
I'm terrible at this because I just can't handle extended lulls in conversations with anyone who isn't a close friend. As a result, I talk too much and that's the end of building a friendship. Sigh...
Spot on: the toxic culture around the language was a nail in its coffin.
A classmate who introduced me to Linux in the early 2000’s was a Perl enthusiast who completely embodied the RTFM mindset. If someone didn’t already know something they were mocked. We ceased to be friends after a number of these interactions.
The cult of RTFM is so painful to interact with and off putting. The concept is sound, reading documentation is important. However simply responding to all questions with "RTFM" is not only not helpful but as often as not useless advice.
The documentation for something may not exist, may not be clear, or may just be wrong. Unless you specifically know the answer to a question is laid out clearly in the documentation, blindly telling someone to read the documentation is just being a dismissive asshole.
A much more productive and helpful response is "did you RTFM?" or "check section X of the manual". But those sorts of questions require the desire to not be a dismissive asshole.
The cult of RTFM has always been an impediment to Linux becoming more popular. When I was first learning Linux...almost thirty years ago now...the cult of RTFM nearly put me off the whole endeavor. I was asking for help with "Xwindows" on IRC and the responses were either RTFM (which I had done) or pedant diatribes about "it's X, not Xwindows newbie! It's not micro$oft!" Which was a super fun to deal with. The experience steeled my resolve to at least ask someone if they read the manual before assholishly telling them to do so.
XSLT is wildly under-appreciated. You can take hierarchical data and bend it to your will, remix it, and turn it inside out if you wish. Those developers working with XML should consider XSLT before rolling their own manipulation script.
Now, do you need XSLT’s capabilities in the browser? Their stats say no one’s really using it.
Instead, a better goal is to become comfortable talking to strangers. If you could do that confidently, anything is possible socially.
Here’s a framework to do that:
1. Adopt a useful attitude.
Before any social situation, consciously choose an attitude that serves you socially: calm, relaxed, enthusiastic, curious, friendly, or simply open. This replaces the useless defaults that keep you stuck: reticent, scared, angry, confused.
Assume people will like you.
2. Set an intention for the interaction.
Decide on one small goal for the interaction. Not “be charming” or “make friends,” rather something achievable.
Example intentions, ranked from easier to more difficult: - To appear friendly (smile, make eye contact) - To greet people - To find out what’s going on around town - To enjoy talking with people - To meet people - To make someone smile - To enjoy getting to know someone - To make someone laugh - To get someone’s contact info - To flirt - To talk to the most attractive person in the room
3. Find comfort in your body.
When you arrive at a social space, take a deep breath. Know that you’re safe inhabiting your body, no matter what anyone thinks of you or says.
4. Set your expectations.
Paralyzed about what to say? Set the bar low. Say your words and expect nothing in return. Confidence in delivering your words will grow. Confidence in social acceptance will follow as you see people respond neutrally and positively.
You might be talking to a grumpy person. It’s okay if you don’t get the response you’d hoped for.
5. Start impossibly small.
If you’re severely out of practice (nervous, anxious, uncertain), set out to initiate an interaction with someone where you accomplish just one objective. Then stop and celebrate that win. Don’t try to combine all of these into one interaction—you will get overwhelmed. Then initiate another interaction on another day and accomplish another objective.
Objective: Say “hello.” If you tend to be quiet, focus on being heard. Find confidence in your voice.
Objective: Say the first thing that comes to mind and see what happens.
Objective: Notice something about a person and comment on it. “Nice shoes!”
Objective: Notice something about the environment and comment on it to someone nearby.
Objective: Ask someone a question for information.
Objective: Ask someone their opinion.
Objective: Ask a question that invites an emotional response rather than a factual one. “What do you love about living here?”
Objective: Join a circle of people in conversation.
6. Make it a habit.
Start today: say one thing to one person. Repeat tomorrow. Then the next day. Within about a week, it becomes second nature. The scariness diminishes. Soon, you’ll actually want to talk to people.
When you learn to talk to strangers, you’re more than halfway to making a friend. Friends will help keep you out of loneliness.
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