I’m socially awkward to the point that i don’t think is normal. I am not an open person in general. I’m not even open with my parents.
I cannot hold a conversation unless it’s about a topic that interests me (and even then it’s not guaranteed that i’ll be able to talk).

I just don’t know what to say. Even if i practiced the conversation in my head my mind just goes blank and i end up sounding dumb.

I usually reply with the same short answers. It’s almost impossible to hold a conversation with me unless we are really really close.
It’s so bad i got fired from my job.
And once my teacher stopped my roomate after class to ask if someone is bullying me (no one is bullying me).

I also feel like i am years behind everyone else and get along better with people that are younger than me.

I don’t know why am i like this and no matter how hard i try to fix it it just doesn’t change. It has become a real problem for me.
I don’t know what to do so i am asking for advice here.

8 comments

  1. Maybe you just need to trust yourself when you’re around others and to be yourself (while respecting others) without fearing how you will look like if you behaved in a certain way. You have to accept that some moments might become cringe or sometimes you’ll regret a certain action you did but at the end we’re humans and we make mistakes. Whenever i think about being socially awkward i like to remind myself that we’re all get awkward sometimes and that preventing myself from interacting with others or engaging in something unfamiliar won’t lead me to anything but having the courage to trust myself and accept my mistakes will.

  2. It absolutely is possible to become less socially awkward at any age. The human brain is incredibly plastic and with enough repetitions of new behavior, it becomes automated. There’s plenty of studies out there that prove this is true and it is the backbone of many popular therapies, such as CBT or ACT.

    The trick is… repeating the behavior you want to codify, even if it feels ‘weird’ when you first try it. This is where most people fail, because they cannot stand the discomfort of trying and trying and trying again until they get it right. It’s not an overnight process. It takes several months of dedicated practice where some days are better than others and you suffer multiple failures before you get it ‘right.’

    My suggestion is to link up with a therapist that specializes in social anxiety to help you work through your fears and get you started with some exposure therapy.

  3. I’ll first congratulate you on being able to reach out and finally take control of your social life. I won’t recommend anything long term because that will take time. For now you need to work on short term social skills like listening skills and articulation.

    The basics of articulation can be mastered by simply journaling about your feelings each day or before social interaction have a cheat sheet of all possible ice breakers.

    Listening skills can be hard for those who can’t continue the conversation or can’t stop their head from spinning random thougths. One method is: When they are talking, look down and move your stronger hearing ear towards the person. This stops the intimidating part of listening to someone while facing them. Also surprisingly looking at the earth grounds my mind so I don’t have random thoughts.

    I can give you links for more long term exercises if you would like.

    Hope this post helped you enough tho. All the best!

  5. I was very socially awkward as a child. I grew out of it and by the time I was an adult, I was working as business development manager.

    As I grew older, I realized, being socially awkward is not bad at all and it is incredibly endearing, especially if the socially awkward person is genuine in their ways.

    If you’re not interested in the conversation, you don’t need to force yourself to say anything or participate in the conversation. You can just sit there and quietly listen. Sometimes the best thing to do is to just listen and the best inputs you can make are those you make after listening to someone for a while.

    It means a lot to people when you remember things about them: if they mentioned their kids, their course, their hobbies, it will mean a lot more if after the conversation you say, “oh you like doing this? Where do you do it? I do it too.”

    If they’re not happy with you being there, pull away and find other people.

    There is no perfect way to socialize but people who sense you’re forcing it are more likely to pull away. And honestly, a lot of people are assholes and incredibly cliquish and will not talk to people who are not within their circle.

    My theory: They’re just as socially awkward. That’s why they’re scared of socializing outside their crowd lol.

    Or… they’re just very insecure.

  6. Start with video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw

    It’s okay if you don’t jive with someone, but be interested in the conversation. Question the person when they say something so that the conversation can flow.

    For example,

    Person A: My husband is busy with his job and I have a daughter, but she’s in high school and into basketball nowadays. I’m taking tennis myself.

    Now, there’s a ton of information given here. Latch onto a piece of information and go with it. Find commonalities if you can and if you don’t, that’s okay too. You can ask them,

    * How do you find tennis? How did you get into it?

    * My daughter is also in high school and is thinking of joining a couple of teams or extra-curricular activities. How is basketball going for your daughter so far?

    * What does your husband do?

    The key is staying curious and interested in the other person.

  8. I was this way for a long way. Felt like a never ending cycle I couldn’t get out of.

    It sounds kinda stupid, but you just have to trust yourself and accept the awkward moments as they come.

    You said something stupid? Brush it off. If you portray yourself as confident then other people will believe that you meant to say and do everything on purpose.

    People will start to treat you differently, then that’ll create true confidence. If you feel like it isn’t, then keep going.

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