All my life, I have been pretty lonely and haven’t had many close friends. I feel that my poor conversation skills are what caused this to happen. When I am having a one-on-one conversation with somebody, I am a little tense, but for the most part, I am able to hold a conversation. When I am in a group, however, sometimes I tend to get really anxious and I shy away from talking to them. I start stuttering and blushing when I am speaking. I have gotten a bit better at controlling this over time, but sometimes it still slips out.
There have been so many times when I wish I could’ve been more extroverted and talkative, but I just can’t seem to figure it out. I look at other people and wonder how they can just keep talking for hours on end like it’s nothing and wish that I could do the same.
How do I get better at holding conversations? I have social anxiety and it has hindered me, so maybe some kind of therapy would help? Idk 🤷
2 comments
If you know you have very bad anxiety, therapy might help. But before that, I would try just practicing. I had that same problem in my teens and early 20s. What helped was adopting a more confident persona, such as making more attempts at eye contact, having a much better posture, working on my body language, the tonality to my voice. Next was learning how to steer certain conversations. Now I can talk to literally anyone and its helped me make friends and also helped alot with women. I would try this first. There are alot of youtube videos that give pretty good advice on how to never run out of things to say during conversations. So if you feel your anxiety is bad enough, therapy might help you understand why you are anxious, but wont help much in regards of getting better at it. Practice and experience will be the best teacher in that regard.
All you have to do it speak confidently and passionately about anything you care or know about, if you can do that people will listen and want to engage.