I'm not here to cure social anxiety, but I have managed to empower myself enough in social situations that I got to where I am today despite having social anxiety. I hope my personal notes below might be helpful to at least one other person.
# Picking your social setting
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If you're trying to socialize at an event that is a bunch of people wandering around with drinks in their hands, you are trying to get friends in ultra hard mode if you have social anxiety.
Prefer activity-based socialization like board games. Better if movement is involved like a run club or some kind of sport. Remember that you have extra permission this way to just be yourself because at the end of the day, people are showing up for the group, not necessarily for you. This means you have the opportunity to become friends with people just by being familiar to them with repeated exposure.
# Starting conversations
## Anything goes
- Don't get hung up on how well you start a conversation. Lame starting points are still starting points. Talk about the weather if you must. If you want the plane to get off the runway, you've got to get it moving first. No one is going to remember how you started the conversation, they remember how they felt about it afterwards.
- "Boy it's hot out" can lead to people talking about how they deal with the temperature which can lead to what in their life experiences influences how they deal and once you're on to their life experiences, you can skip to the "Keeping conversations going" section.
- For that reason, just walking up to someone and saying "Hi, how are you?" is just fine if you can follow that up with a little strategy to avoid falling flat with "Good. You? Good." See the next point for one way to do thsi.
## Use lightweight conflict with the classic "How are you?"
- We're told to only answer the universally useful "How are you doing" opener with "good" no matter what. I disagree. Any good story has conflict and good conversations are like good stories. Awkward conversations with people you just met have too much conflict, so try a little lightweight conflict instead like "I'm good, but I have just been tired all the time lately" just draw from how you're actually feeling in that moment, then end with a question. "Do you ever get that way?"
- Another example: "I'm okay but I'm feeling like I need to get myself in front of people more often like this. I'm been kind of a hermit lately." And again, end with a question. "Are you a pretty social person?"
# Keeping conversations going
## It's about them
- I got this advice from a manager about dealing with people in general and love it. People like to talk about themselves and they like it when you encourage them to do so. **When you get people to keep talking about themselves, it's less work for you, and it makes them feel good talking to you.**
- "Can you tell me more about that?" It can be as simple as just asking them to say more about something.
- Mirror. Literally just repeat something they said as a question. "You went to Mexico for the summer?" you'd be surprised how that's all it takes to get them to keep doing the work for you, and you can do this over and over and they won't notice.
- Similar to mirroring is following breadcrumbs. Sometimes there are things people really want to talk about but they are holding themselves back or trying not to brag, so they leave you little hints. Here are some statements where I've highlighted a breadcrumb. For each, just ask them to tell you more about that and then sit back and let them do the work:
- Yeah, I moved out here after I finished **writing my novel.**
- I used to have a backpack like that **when I was in med school.**
- Oh yeah, I like listening to that podcast when I'm **doing my workout**.
## But how do I think of what to ask?
You may have already heard the advice to ask open-ended questions. Questions they can't answer yes or no to, but how do you think of open-ended questions? Does your mind go blank? Try these:
### The Axis of Time
- Imagine any piece of information they have given you like a dot on the line of time. Before that dot is the past, in front of it is the future. Those areas are where you can derive questions.
- For example, "I just got a new car." Think about what past, present, and future mean for that piece of information and try to look at that through a lens of their inner state.
- Past: What kind of car were you driving before? What made you decide to switch?
- Present looking to the past: Now that you have it, how does it feel coming from your old car, what kind of differences do you notice?
- Future: What is in store for you now, do you have any plans for it?
- You can put this line on virtually any individual piece of information you can get from them and generate lots of helpful questions to keep things going.
### What is your favorite?
- This is like a swiss army knife and I credit my wife for teaching me this one. Just asking "what is your favorite" of some thing they have mentioned to you will get them thinking out lout to you about their answer. There's so much to explore.
- So you collect stamps, what is your favorite stamp?
- You love spending time with your kids (don't ask who their favorite kid is!) What is your favorite thing to do with them?
- Say they give you a hard one to work with, "I just kind of sit at home and chill out." What is your favorite way to chill out? Don't overthink it. Just putting this phrase in front of what they tell you does magic.
### Me in your shoes
- Sometimes if I'm really stuck, I'll kind of secretly pretend I am them and just verbalize the process of trying to do so and it can get them engaged in participating in that process with me.
- So you get up in the morning, and then what? You have your breakfast and then just take out your art supplies and get into like a really creative mood? (And then I just keep guessing details until they jump in which doesn't take long).
- You'll be surprised how much they appreciate this because not only are you listening but you aren't waiting for your turn to speak, you're actually participating in the thing they like talking about.
# Talking about yourself.
- You should talk about yourself to some extent but beware. Some with SA have a tendency to go on a little too long. My key piece of advice here is to always end with a question. Again, an open-ended one, not "You know what I mean?" but "What's your opinion on that?"
- It helps to put them in it when you can. Sprinkling in a little, "and here's something I think you would like" or "When you were saying such-and-such it reminded me of this"
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