I’m 30F and I feel like every year my social skills are getting worse to the point now where I have no idea how to talk to people or even how to make friends. I desperately crave to have friends who want to go out and do things but I don’t know where to start, it’s all quite overwhelming. I only have three friends, one I see every couple of months and the other two live in different cities. I don’t know what to do anymore 🙁
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I(28F) just wanted you to know that you’re not alone. I think ever since the pandemic began, people have been getting worse and worse with social skills. I am awful at it. I have a couple of friends I’ve had a few months and only because I finally got the courage to get out of my house and meet people at an emotional support group. Before that I was spending every day just home alone, mental health deteriorating to nothing basically. And even just being out in public frightened me all the time just because I knew no one and it was like I just didn’t even have the ability to strike up conversations and just so much anxiety build-up..
But anyhow, Idk what kinds of interests, fandoms, identities, etc you have but maybe you can find some local group regarding something about you that meets up nearby. Idk if you’d wanna make online/distance friends, but I’m always happy to chat if you wanna send me a message 😊 otherwise idk, I really wish you the best. I promise things can improve. Many people are in the same boat – like seriously so many people are losing their ability to socialize, and honestly, maybe just pushing yourself just to say hi to someone in public would be a huge game changer. Don’t worry about coming off awkward or something, chances are they’re not able to socialize as easily either so would understand. If not, well it probably wasn’t meant to be and also fuck them if they’re rude to you
Well there’s a lot I could say about social skills, but instead of writing a really long post about that I’ll let you know about an article I wrote recently that you might like:
###[How To Make Friends As An Adult](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPRForYourSocialLife/comments/14gdyh2/how_to_make_friends_as_an_adult/)
I have a number of other articles on social skills just for reference, and I’m always happy to answer specific questions too!
I would love to be your friend!!!! Feel free to message me.
If you have social anxiety like I did, this should help:
Visualize a fountain of love above the person you’re going to talk to’s head, and imagine the words you say are going to cause this fountain of love to pour on them. Rather than focus on the fear that rises in your chest of “oh no, how are they going to respond” focus on the fountain of love over their head.
Memorize:
-where are you from?
-where did you grow up?
-what do you like to do for fun?
-what type of movies/tv shows/books/music do you like
-what have you been up to
additionally memorize:
-what’s been the best part of your day so far
-what’s been the worst part of your day so far
-what’d you have for breakfast/lunch/dinner
(You can use the last 4 everyday.)
Treat additional questions as a chance to be creative. You can monkey branch off of memorized questions and brainstorm up new questions in relation to those.
Contribute information about yourself as well, and give compliments.
——–
(The reason you use memorized questions is because you don’t want to spend a bunch of energy figuring out what to say – you want to have questions ready to fire off.
If you have mixed feelings about the phoniness or insincerity of using memorized questions, realize the fact you care how the other person will respond means the questions aren’t insincere.)
Treat everyone as a friend, and don’t put them on a pedestal.
P.S.
If it’s girls you wanna be like, hey, do you like Big Bang Theory, The Office, Game of Thrones, Black Mirror (ask what’s your fav episode), Eminem, any show or band you like, etc.? You can bond over the current wackiness of the dating world.
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Samething is happening to me.
Not alone, OP. You got this! Some people have said their 30s are their new 20s. If you want to chat about anime video games and fandoms Im down. I just got into JuJustu Kaisen
I know others have mentioned Covid, but after almost 2 years of trying to avoid social settings and groups, it kind of rewired my brain. I also developed pretty bad depression over that period and gained a bunch of weight, it’s kind of a daily thing at the moment trying to push myself to get a little better off each day, it’s a struggle though. Just keep at it, I think in time you’ll get back into the swing of things. That’s what I say to myself.