TLDR; I’ve been working on my social skills by challenging myself to stop and talk to everyone in the office and getting too know people more and have started to form new friendships. Just wanted to share the progress I’ve made and encourage others to start with a simple hello.
I’m going to start this by saying I’ve always been more introverted and a very awkward person and graduating during the pandemic(2021) definitely made me miss many big high school social events like prom so I felt like my social skills had stunted.
Fast forward to now I work in an office but we are piloting a mostly wfh schedule and we are only in office one day a week. I’ve been there for about 8 months but have been struggling to talk to the older people there (I’m the youngest there and the closest person in age to me is a few years older) and mainly stuck to only talking to the people in my cubicle. So to challenge myself I have been going around the office on my breaks and greeting everyone and now that has moved to asking how their week has been and what has been going on in the past week. If they are busy I’ll smile and wave. Some things I try to remember is if they have a spouse and if they have kids. (I will ask after their well-being as well as a few coworkers have had to leave work to care for a sick child a few times) We are also allowed to decorate our desks so I ask about things they seem interested in that is displayed such as a fav sport and/or sports team.
Now I have met everyone except 3 people in the office and am welcome to stop and chat in all of the departments. A couple people will even stop by my desk now to chat as well. These are the relationships I’ve been working on developing further. I still have a lot of room to grow but it’s a good start.
If you are struggling socially and made it this far I encourage you to start small with simple smile and say hello or good morning/afternoon to an acquaintance or someone new the next time you are out and about 🙂