Stop taking yourself so seriously

[Jariel]

I believe tips like this have been said before, but I wanted to give the benefit of my own experience.

Over the past months I have learned that most of my insecurities, social setbacks and my fears have always stemmed from being so high strung and serious. An old girlfriend told me this and pointed out I try way too hard to please everyone and be perfect, and I need to let go and have some fun. She was right.

I was the sort of guy who would go to a club and stand in the corner trying to look cool instead of dancing, and the guy who got defensive when people made jokes about me or girls neghitted me. If I made some kind of mistake, tripped or stuttered, I'd get embarrassed. I tried to act like the alpha male and overreacted if someone undermined me. If I got rejected I'd take it to heart and get paranoid that something was wrong with me. I was a control freak and if I said/did the "wrong" thing or offended someone, I'd apologise and go to extremes to put it right, even if it was a joke. I'd get sucked into girls' drama and attention seeking. In some cases if a girl didn't return a call or text message, or cancelled a date, or just got in a mood, I'd stress out and think she had gone off me and I'd start interrogating her.

Sure, I dedicate myself to self-improvement and have strict lifestyle rules and strongly encourage it, but during the past months I've stopped taking myself so seriously and (to a degree) no longer care what people think. That's not to say I go round acting like a pr!ck or impose my will on other people, but I enjoy myself and do what feels natural to me, even if I act a bit foolish sometimes. I can't dance, yet I'll get up and do what I can. I'll speak to strangers as if they're old friends and talk to hot women like they're my sister.

I'll say outrageous things, like accusing girls they have the hots for me or claim that it's a privelige for them to look at me or spend time with me. If they deny it, I tell them they're denying their true feelings and accuse them of getting flustered or going weak at the knees when they see me. I'll tell hot women I'm out of their league or claim to be a role model to my friends. They usually deny it and accuse me of getting bigheaded (in a friendly way), but I never take it seriously and it diffuses any kind of tension.

I'll also use self depricating humour. For example, I gained a little weight over xmas and point out my pot belly to people, or if a female friend hits me I say "that's it, pick on the fat kid".

I'll even tickle or playfight with my female friends or girlfriend in the middle of a crowded bar. I used to be terrified of public speaking, yet I recently did a presentation in front of 100 people and was acting ****y and funny and I even neghitted the whole audience and the lecturer a few times.

Not only does this make me fun to be around, but it makes me less uptight and paranoid about what people think of me. I figure if I'm out of line or causing offence, my close friends or family will let me know.

When it comes to women, I have no fear of approaching (though this isn't really my personal style), and rejection is something I don't even think about. I just tell her there are no hard feelings and move on. Afterall, it's not a big deal and I have many other prospects open to me plus the ability to meet many new people.

Now, just to clarify, I don't go round acting like a clown, I'm not obnoxious or constantly performing. I balance the humour with good conversation and rapport, flirting or just lighthearted chat; it's just a case of adapting to the situation and being natural with the people you are with.

This behaviour is just an example of what comes naturally to ME. It might not feel natural to anyone else and the key is to do what is natural to YOU.

A big mistake a lot of people make is confusing confidence with ego. Ego depends on other people, compliments, feedback - it needs to be fed and still grows hungrier. Confidence is being comfortable with yourself and your actions, despite other people. It's being able to take a compliment or an insult and having it make no difference to your state of mind.

 

[DMan77]

A big part of what Ive been trying to say things like you said:

"I'll say outrageous things, like accusing girls they have the hots for me or claim that it's a privelige for them to look at me or spend time with me. If they deny it, I tell them they're denying their true feelings and accuse them of getting flustered or going weak at the knees when they see me. I'll tell hot women I'm out of their league or claim to be a role model to my friends."

But when I do I sense the people im talking with just feel wierd about me saying it.
I get a lot of cold looks, and most people will back away a bit.
I think where I'm at right now, being new to this, that its not coming off as natural and instead seems like im faking it and not really beleving it myself.
Im hoping that'll change with time, if I keep trying.
Nice post by the way.

 

[MVP]

Great way of looking at how to have fun with people

 

[Magnatolia]

@DMan77: Check your timing when you use those sort of lines. You need to already have some sort of vibe/connection with the girl. It's more of a way of raising the interest.

It also depends on the setting. These sort of lines, said to a stranger at a bar/nightclub, etc would have a better chance of working than if you said it somebody on the bus/train or in the street.

I've got no experience in the field as I'm way too shy to make any moves, but I was chatting to this girl that was working with us for a week, we were just friendly as she was taken but I remember constantly being C&F when she made mistakes or when something went wrong. Like when the keyboard drawer broke. I said I'll have to go upstairs and let them know you broke the drawer. She was like 'ohhh no way I didn't break it.'

Well I went upstairs but didn't actually say that. Anyway the person who came down said 'you've only been here for 2 days and you've already broken something' She was laughing and the girl denied it and smacked me in the arm.

But as I was saying about timing, if you're interested in having a regular conversation and adding those sort of comments in, then the best way is to increase it in small steps. Otherwise just try and find the best time to make the approach.

Cheers

 

[Visceral]

Part of taking yourself too seriously could be based on inexperience or poor socialization.

I personally have a tendency to take myself far too seriously, clamming up and keeping to myself in social situations of all kinds, because I'm either not confident in my ability to perform ... or because I don't know how to respond at all.

I know we're not supposed to think of things in terms of rules and techniques, but in a social setting (depending on who you're with and what you're doing with them), all is not allowed. On some level, preferably instinctive, you have to know what you should do and how to do it, as well as what you shouldn't do and how to avoid doing it.

If you can't be sure you'll pull it off - or don't even know what to do and how to do it - then you're going to be reluctant to participate, if only to play it safe.

 

[Skydiver43127]

This makes much sense to me, but I believe not all people here will agree. I went through exactly the same transformation as Jariel described years ago. But that is because i'm an INTP (see http://geocities.com/lifexplore)

In short: there are four functions: thinking, feeling, sensing, intuition. And each one can be introverted or extroverted.

In an INTP, introverted thinking(IT) comes first, then extroverted intuition(EI). Introverted Sensing (IS) and extroverted feeling (EF) are weak.

Being too serious is because IT tries to take full control by supressing the weak EF, using EI as a crude device for getting information and IS as a storage. Essentially, if you let it do this, you start functioning like a computer.

To "heal" this problem you should develop your extroverted functions (intuition and feeling), by allowing them to do stuff their way. The advice on this site, for example, is not useful in telling you what to do - since the thinking is not an extroverted function, thinnkig about what you say is just not your style. The advice is good because it explains to the mind why your strong intuition was right in the first place and encourages you to use it more.

By the way, the struggle for personal developement doesn't end here. Weren't you sometimes in a situation where you should have just kissed the girl, but instead waited for signals? This is bacause the intuition function is much stronger than the feeling function and refuses to release control. And since intuition is a perceiving function (which means it can only react to circumstances, never act on internal desires/decisions), you just stand there and wait for something to react to. I don't mean her throwing herself at you, a faint signal as a look or pause in the conversation can also work, but the fact is you need SOMETHING, when you shouldnt. Your desire to kiss her should be reason enough.