Practice. Visualization exercises. We have this weird idea that people are just supposed to be good at social interactions. Like, people will spend their entire life honing their skills at sports or baking or chess and then expect you to just be cool with talking to strangers.

Here’s a basic visualization exercise. Visualize people you’re comfortable around, see them smiling and happy, maybe laughing, but notice how they make you feel, how comfortable and relaxed you are, and as you do that imagine there’s a bright colorful energy around them and the more you feel those feelings notice how the energy becomes brighter and more vivid. Do that until you’ve really got a feel for the taste of that energy. When you think you’ve got a really good hold on it, create a physical trigger for yourself that you would feel comfortable doing in the presence of other people; maybe it’s tapping your cheek or waist, maybe squeezing your forearm, or maybe drawing a symbol like a heart in the palm of your hand. But take that energy and imagine a bond forming between doing that trigger and that nice relaxing energy wrapped around the people you’ve been thinking about. Really let that bond solidify and link up.

Then, break. Do something silly like waving your arms and doing a raspberry or something to erase the scene you’ve been thinking about.

Then repeat. And do that a few times every day, as many times as it takes for you to feel comfortable with it.

And then, once you think you’ve got a handle on it, imagine yourself walking up to someone you want to feel comfortable around and do the trigger, and imagine that energy reaching out and wrapping around them and pulling them into the safe and comfortable space you keep people you’re okay with being around. Really focus on the feeling and vibrance of it all.

Just keep practicing doing that. And then eventually, try it live.

I got better about this after improving my improv skills. Like playing in ttrpgs a lot. So now when I talk to strangers I kinda pretend to be someone who’s sociable and that works pretty well for me.

Two tips:

• Find charismatic people who don’t get flustered, and pay attention to their fuckups. Some people have the mysterious power to never accidentally say something dumb, get tongue tied, or space out, and I don’t know how anyone learns such a power. But for most of them it’s just smoothly moving past it, kindness, and enthusiasm. And that’s something you can pretty easily just learn to mimic (it’s mostly just giving you permission to not get hung up on it).

• Sign up for improv comedy classes. Suffer through the worst social anxiety twice a week in a designated space and time, until the other times don’t feel so scary in comparison.

This is an unfun answer, but practice makes perfect. Regularly spending time with people will get easier and more natural the more often you do it, and give you a better sense of your limits, boundaries, and coping mechanisms.

One suggestion to go about doing that without stressing out too much about it is to find a structured activity that you can do with people on a regular basis. Having something to focus on other than making conversation can give you opportunities to be in a social situation without as much pressure to “perform” socially, and might have less anxiety attached.

The activity depends on what you enjoy and what else gives you anxiety, but it could be something like a book club, a casual sports team, a running group, etc. Anything that gets you in contact with people in which the social expectations are lower, or balanced by doing the activity.

I’m pretty introverted and used to get social anxiety, but one thing that really worked for getting myself out of the house when I wasn’t feeling it was dropping in on a local weekly boardgame meetup. I like board games, but I also liked that there wasn’t a big expectation for anyone to be funny or interesting or do a lot of talking. It was a friendly environment, but people who love board games are happy enough just to have other people to play with. All I had to do was show up, play, and not be an asshole, and everyone was glad to see me every week.

If you want to make friends then you’re going to have to actually engage and be vulnerable and whatnot, but it works if you just want to get more relaxed about being around people.

Getting in voice chat in online gaming communities is one way to help because it’s a lot lower bar for anxiety, if you embarrass yourself you can just quit the community and never go back.

But mostly it’s learning how to deal with fuckups. I play instruments and it’s the same deal. When you blow a note or something you just keep playing. You can’t stop and restart, that’s bad and totally stops the flow of a piece. It works like this in conversation kind of.

If you say a word wrong you repeat the word in the incorrect way like a question and then laugh and then say the word correctly and keep going. Like, you be the one to have a little laugh at your mistake, it completely takes the power away from anyone else pointing it out and laughing at it. Or if you can’t remember a word (I have ADHD and this happens a lot) I usually in a casual setting say, “I don’t know you know the fucking thing, anyways” and just keep going because 99% of the time the person knows what I’m saying anyhow.

One last tip is in social anxiety there is a lot of pressure you put on yourself to fill the silence. Overcoming social anxiety in a lot of ways is overcoming your fear of that silence. Learning how to be comfortable in it. Learning how to be at peace being in the presence of other people and just vibing without the gab. That’s a tougher one because it requires you to learn to be more comfortable with yourself without fear of being judged.

Oh and remember that we suffer more in imagination that in reality when it comes to this stuff. Your fears about what other people are thinking about you in any given situation are miles away from the reality of what they are thinking. Most of the negativity is in your head and they are also just trying to chill and be comfortable with themselves around other people, too. So really, don’t put as much pressure on yourself to gab. We have two ears and one mouth. Listen more than you talk. If you must fill the silence with chat, ask a person a question about themselves. People love talking about themselves and really take a liking to someone interested in listening to them. It’s almost a cheat code for getting people to like you.

Cultivate an aura of mystery. Make cryptic pronouncements. Wear a lot of black and imply furtively that you might be some kind of wizard.

With that out of the way, you can now explain all your social missteps as the work of unruly spirits that haunt your every step, barely contained by your constant etheric battle (this is why you get tired and irritable after 15 minutes of uninterrupted conversation).

This has worked for me for at least a decade. It also helps if you work with computers, since about 80% of the time you’ll either be a) talking to equally socially busted people or b) able to safely change the subject at any time by relating any of your completely inscrutable work gripes to people with sensible jobs.

EDIT: Also, not for nothing, tarot is actually a really pleasant systematic way to think about your life and your problems in a way that’s outside your body but still informed by your thoughts and feelings.

Have you ever tried herbal tinctures? It tastes like ass, but kava is meant to help lower anxiety and heighten sociability, kinda like how drinking can loose you up but you are in total control of your faculties.

I like this brand. Their anxiety soother was super helpful for me for a while, too.

Aa far as specifically behavioral approaches I haven’t been able to figure that out yet. I’m AuDHD so none of that kind of thing has worked well unfortunately

I’d like an answer to this too, but please hurry up as I only have an hour

I’m guessing not being on the internet shortly before and instead meditating on how to remember what your personality is would help. Gonna experiment

Just remember that almost everyone else has a degree of this anxiety. Be patient, take your time, and fake it til you eventually make it. I like to ask questions to get people to open up. My anxiety is that I can go manic and become loud attention seeking to abusive. So I tend to be a bit quiet at first. (I’m not that person anymore.)

Also like I think it’s cool to tell people that you have a bit of social anxiety and can’t think of anything to talk about. People vibe with realness.

It’s super corny, and possibly just a placebo, but I’ve used this for various things that induce social anxiety or anxiety in general. Sit back and think about the event, as you feel the anxiety growing, try to focus instead on what might be exciting about it

For interview, the prospect of a new gig, for going out with a group or other social engagement, anything fun there, for meeting new people, finding a shared interest with someone

I read somewhere that the feelings of anxiety and excitement can be very similar, so you can almost redirect the anxiety to something more beneficial. It doesn’t help actually talking to people, but it helps get you out of your head and into the moment. Ymmv

Sometimes it’s fine, but other times it’s like my brain does a blue screen of death and I can’t even think of words to say.

Probably don’t do this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9aM_dT5VMI

I think of topics in advance when I’m going to meet people

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