Improve my social skills

i moved from one skewl to another its gonna my junior year im starting and i really wanna be able to interact more.join clubs and go to social gatherings and what not .im nervous for the coming school year

Yesterday, I roamed around an artsy, trendy neighborhood after work. I talked with two women, one at a coffeehouse and the other at a store. The failure was that I 1.) didn’t expand the conversation’s length, as both women indicated they wanted to talk more (as evidenced by their body language, tone of voice, etc.), and 2.) was hasty. The success was that 1.) it felt natural, 2.) I did it (of course), and 3.) it was fun for the most part.

As long as I 1.) am moderately self-aware, 2.) ask open-ended questions, 3.) am aware of social environment and circumstance (ex., funeral home, academia, grocery store, etc.), 4.) am moderately sincere, 5.) remember that perfection doesn’t exist, and 6.) that we’re all bullshitting each other to some extent, I do very well.

Improvement in this area requires making mistakes at first. I have, but they were fun mistakes. I stumbled when I complemented a woman’s tattoos and another woman’s earrings. Nevertheless, this sort of challenge invigorates me.

My experiences and the things I have been reading over the last year or so have made me realize that people are actually all a bunch of idiots who don’t deserve my respect. Having lost respect for people I no longer worry so much any more about what they will think of me when I talk to them.

I found that people who are of a lower social status than me are much easier to talk to because you don’t have to respect them and that means you just say whatever you like without thinking too much about it. I then found that people of higher social status are all idiots and that put them in a lower status for me which means I can now talk to them easily.

I now try to base my opinion of the status of a person not on their social status but on my own opinion of what their status is to me. Anyone who is intelligent and can think for themself ranks highly with me and the same with good and honest people.

It does still present me with the problem of speaking freely to people I think deserve respect but at the same time it has widened my conversation base. By practising conversation on the idiots I hope to improve my ability to speak to even the people I think are worth talking to.

I went ballroom dancing like I usually do every week and I met a new guy at the table I was sitting at. Usually I don’t talk to the other people very much but this time I started talking to him about his job and his life and we ended up getting along very well. All those books on how to make people like you have really paid off.

Then the YMCA song came on and I told him that I loved the song and jumped up and went and danced. I think I sent the wrong message to him when I did that and I think he thought I was gay. For the rest of the night he was telling me how beautiful the girls were and he didn’t really talk to me much after that.

I’m just glad I was able to initiate a conversation for a change.

I hope to improve as well! I’ve started getting eye contact down! A little step by step and I’ll make it!

I have come so far in the last 2 years…its truly something I am very proud of myself for doing. I feel more confident in myself which is the key to making this goal a reality. Keep practicing!!

stumble over my words today!

I had to talk with somebody about something important.
Sorry this is so vague.

But I clearly said what I needed to say.
And I didn’t sound like a fool!

Yay Progress!

of practice today!

A little bit of progress too!

I smiled & said Hello to a stranger today!

I know it’s something small, but it is something I truly have to work hard at.

Practice, practice, practice!
Yay me!