A couple years ago my favorite thing to do was talking to people.
The main reason was, because I could make them laugh, motivate them and really become friends.
I felt good about myself, because I thought it made me special. I found out that it was like the biggest part of my personality that I loved about myself.
I realised that, after I lost it due to depression and developed social anxiety.
Talking with people, now became a task I needed to do, just to come across as social.
Most of the time the pressure it gave me, caused me to have brain fog and I couldn’t come up with nothing to say.
Being social drained me so much.
So the thing that I loved the most and gave me a lot of personality and life energy, now drained me to the point that I didn’t even had the energy to respond to text messages.
After years of self-improvement in many forms (therapy, reading, excersice, small steps to get out my comfort zone),
I can now talk to people without feeling a lot of pressure and not despise myself if I didn’t go as well as I would liked.
I go to clubs, last time even talked to a few girls, with succes (alcohol and good company helped, though). And am maintaining all my friendships.
BUT.
It. Is. Not. As. Close. As. Fun. As Before.
It still mostly feels “forced”. Even with good friends. Altough, they like to hang out with me, me myself don’t find it as much as fun.
Meeting new people is also still like going through basic question’s as “what’s ur name, what do you study, hobbies?, any brothers/sisters?”, etc.
It’s dull. I miss that excitement I had to really make people laugh and have deep conversations with them, to get to know them.
And I know, small talk is a way to get to the deeper stuff and sometimes necessary.
But I don’t think I got the ability no more to get to the deep stuff.
I mean, I can come up with some questions but it is al forced. It is not necessary something that I want to know or talk about. It’s just to lead the conversation and prevent silences.
I just want it to be HONEST. And special. Just like it was before I suffered from depression and social anxiety.
Are there any tips to make talking with people more genuinely fun? Because, it still somehow feels like a task on most days.
Any words would be greatly appreciated.
3 comments
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Knowing people’s interests first can make the conversation easier. This could be through a subreddit that both of you are a fan of and end up having a conversation from there, eventually DMing each other, or it could be through a gathering for fans of a TV show. Anything, really.
In conversation with one other person, both parties have to be at least fairly talkative. If both of them are texting, they need a message they can work with, that they can actually respond to. It shouldn’t just be questions with very short sentences.
And like you mentioned, the questions should really flow with the conversation, not feel like an interview or feel forced.
The more you focus on your problems, the more you get stuck in your self-eating loop. Some problems are fixed with “fuck it” medicine. There’s no way to be happy without ignoring some shit you can’t fix.