SOMEONE PLEASE JUST TELL ME:

HOW DO I STOP BEING SO FUCKING AWKWARD!!!!!!!! Tell me please, i swear to you. My life would be so much better if i wasn’t so awkward and have social anxiety. Tell me what to do because i’m tired of it, i hate it so much.

Smile brightly, ignore what your brain says, ask someone how their day has been and _keep smiling_ even if you feel like shit somedays

That's how I've been doing it for about two years and I've started to feel more at ease and confident

Do something that requires social interaction. I recommend card magic. It's a great ice breaker too. If you need help, tell me.

@alexbrooklyn Thank you but i’ve also been doing it for like a year, i always try and do that but inside i’m dying. The cringe of awkwardness makes me want to run home to bed! I just want and not have to overthink everything as have a normal conversation.

@fuck2code what is card magic?

@Alice hmm?

@tonkinina for example you ask someone to name a card and you can say eith certainty where it is in the deck.

@fuck2code oooohhhhhh sorry i though it was like an app or something haha, okay

@Alice i just think it's a funny coincidence that we, followers of the colour pink have similar interests

Stop worrying and let things happen. I had to learn this too. Just laugh at life and situations and live in the moment. Another thing that I started doing which honestly made my life so much better is saying "yes"

Yes I'll go out to eat
Yes ill go camping
Yes ill go bowling
Yes ill do anything

Saying this is huge and opens you up to new things, events, areas, people. It's a life changer.

Trust me, it is OK to feel awkward and have social anxiety. It becomes the new normal as time passes by.

Remember to always trust your instincts

Following.

I also have crippling social anxiety.

Have you seen a therapist? Maybe you have agoraphobia?
If it's not that serious, just go out, do stuff and don't talk if you don't know what to say.

@rutee07 i don’t wanna confuse ppl though, i want people to be happy and to like me and don’t think i’m weird.

For me the hardest part to learn was that I had to accept the fact that not everyone will like me and some will hate me for reasons I can't influence at all. The second hardest is and always will be to open up to other people. Friendships get deeper by showing vulnerability quite fast. And if you get hurt see point one.
Just smile and be whoever you want to be and you will find people that like you the way you are. Bending oneself to get liked makes unhappy.

@rutee07 well like whenever someone talks to me, I feel like i don’t know where to look and don’t know what to do and inside me in just screaming and i cringe so much. Also sometimes when i talk to people who aren’t my good friends i stutter a bit and say completely different word to what i mean. Like today i was meant to say to someone ‘they’re so far away’ instead i said ‘they’re so long’ like why did that have to happen. I laughed and friend to play it cool but i’m gonna be overthinking that for the past month. And whenever in school when i’m like walking around to next lesson I don’t know where to look and i feel like everyone is looking at me and i just get awkward and i just wanna be in my comfort zone and be at home. Also I HATE awkward silences. I can’t have them i have to fill in the gap which leads to me saying random things and ugh idk. sorry that was a massive rant, but hey you asked lol.

@rutee07 yeah i guess people don’t care that much but it doesn’t help that much i still feel all those feelings. but i guess there isn’t really anything i can do.

@tonkinina There's lots you can do! Read up on social anxiety and different ways of treating it if you feel that it's limiting your capacity to enjoy life, it's absolutely something you can work on, many people do. Try some things that you believe could help and see what happens ✌️

I am more interested in knowing what you think about yourself rather than to try and give you blind advice.

What do you got to offer to you? Do you like the way you talk or sound or the things you can do? Your profile seems that of a very artistic person. How confident are in yourself?

if you want to experience just once how it feels not to have social anxiety and be funny and super empathic and outgoing talkative. The way you always dream of as someone with social anxiety. There is this hard to come by designer drug called 4fa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The effects are liberating. The empathy, the urge to be funny and to socialize while being clear in the head.
It's a expirience I will never forget.

@FrodoSwaggins You're right. Most of my anxiety stems from being terribly self-conscious. I should stop caring what other people think, like I do here. I'd have much better results.

@heyheni have you user ‘4fa’?

@heyheni Did you mean alcohol? Heh.

Edit: Oh, you said "clear in the head". Guess not 😁

When you meet someone, force yourself to look them in the eye. Pick one eye to look at. Maintain eye contact while you shake their hand firmly. At this point it is ok to look away but try to look them in the eye when you speak to them. Immediately say hello, and after they reply ask a prepared general question. No questions that give yes or no answers. This is something you should have a few of, such as common questions like "tell me about your day?" (Note, do not ask them if their day was fine as this will not segue into anything). Don't ask people what they do for work. Ask them what they do for fun. Try to stay away from incredibly common questions like those about movies and music etc. Force yourself to nod at appropriate moments as they speak and repeat back their words to gain clarity. Pick out a detail about what they said.

In general you need to have a game plan. This is key even for non-awkward types. They have a game plan that they know works for them.

There's that voice/feeling in you telling you, that you're akward or worthless or whatever. Ignore it. I know it's hard. But in the end it's "just" thoughts, chemical/electrical processes inside you.

Aproach people as if they where gaming buddies of you, not IRL but online, just pretend at first you're in a game and they are your rading party.

Alcohol might help, loosening up, however I don't think it should go on the list of reccomendations here.

If you have a good/best friend (who isn't introvert/akward), confess whatyou said in this rant to them and have them just bring you along. With time you'll feel less akward.

Get a hobby. Whatever it is. Rock climbing, d&d, canooing, whatever, as long as it's fun to you. You'll meet people through it, that you feel comftable hanging around (as you just did/accomplished an activity together)!

A more personal question: do you find it easy to see/guess peoples emotions? Assuming your answer was no: I'm by far not a psychiatrist or whatever but I have a few friends diagnosed with "Aspberger", which includes a lot of traits you've mentioned. It might be a help/releave visiting a psychiatrist once and having such things chevked out, as afterwards you know what's up and what to do. I know it's hard to go to one because of all the social stigma, but trust me it's worth it! (Oh and if you don't feel comfortable with one, tell them. They are trained for that situation and can reffere you to someone else. I've burned through roughly a dozend before I met one that fitted, when I was younger)

Suffer. Seriously go out and put yourself in positions of being socially awkward again and again. Each time should be a little easier than the last.

Like coding it's all about practice.

@AleCx04
well yeah, i love all my hobbies. Also recently i’ve just gotten rid of my lisp which i was starting to get self conscious about but now it’s gone i don’t mind my voice. Don’t really know what else to say.

@Hubot-0x58
aw i feel you! that happens so much to me.

@FrodoSwaggins Thank you, i’ll try and take that on board.

@xalys what’s that?

I had this for a long time. What helped was to acknowledge this:
1. Everybody cares about themselves. Get it, people are egoistic, not in a bad way, but why do you think everyone including you suffers from awkward memories from time to time? Why can't you just forget that one awkward thing you did in school? It's perfectly normal and you are probably the only person that remembers your awkward encounter, people tend to remember things that only happened to them, when it's about others, they quickly forget.
2. You say you have close friends, people who interact with you and you don't feel awkward with them, surely they aren't superheroes and other people can be befriended too. What helped me was a fresh start in university after high school, I told myself my awkwardness should stop, I would blurt something in group chat , I tried talking/texting people who seemed friendly and they responded, and I just kept going like that till I befriended some people. Slowly the awkwardness faded.

@Alice life goal complete

I’v had this for a while, there was a time when i could not even go to a shopping mall because i felt like every pepole that see mee has negative toughts about me. In the begining realizing that people does not fucking care and 90% of this is just in my head helped me somewhat. I think the biggest mistake i did was trying to fake everything because of the fear of not being liked and it made everything akward. And you can’t really fake a whole personality, so why not be yourself? If you are not happy then don’t be, if you don’t feel like smiling every day don’t do it because it just makes you more unconfortable in your skin. We are all humans, we have feelings and its okay to feel them and show them 😃 fuck what other people think about it.

Also we are just geeks here just like you 😃 we might not have the necessary qualification to talk about this stuff, so don’t be afraid to seek professional help. There are a lot of people that feel this way, there is therapy and even medication for this (if its that bad) i found a really good psychiatryst and it helped me a lot!

If you can find it, read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Parents had me read that book at 10, and I’m still using a lot of the strategies from it today. In spite of how the title sounds, it’s actually much less about manipulating anyone and more about understanding the fundamentals of human nature and what people are looking for in various social interactions.

@Kaji agree, that's one of the most useful book i've ever read.

Don't filter anything when you talk or behave, think of death as a way to not give a fuck.

@tonkinina well, the reason why I say this is that sometimes we project a way of being based on our own perception of us.

Confidence is key to me. And how we think of ourselves, on literally all accounts, will manifest to others. Attractiveness, voice tone, smell, body motions and everything matter, but i believe its better to have that great perception of oneself.

Embrace your awkwardness, it's who you are. Once you embrace it you'll stop worrying about it. Don't force yourself to be social etc. At least that didn't work for me, only made me depressed. The social part will come.
Now I'm awkward as s**t and have a wife who loves me for it and two kids I hope will feel the same.

@Wack thank you. actually i’m pretty good and seeing people’s emotions so i don’t think i’m in that spectrum.

@bhsantos doesn’t feel like it’s getting easier though

Get comfortable with yourself. Learn to laugh at yourself. You'll start to care less about being awkward and naturally feel more confident.

Enjoy your sticker! I only need 10 more on a question. You don't have to feel awkward. We all sometimes feel that way. It's normal. We are human.