What is wrong with my social skills

[Tedhe]

I've had several occasions where I met new people this past week.

One thing that occured to me is that at first glance they seem quite friendly and open. But this changes very, very fast.

I ask them some basic stuff 'what do you do', 'from where are you', 'how did you meet X', 'I heard from X you know something about that'. They answer, but for some reason, after that everything changes. They keep talking but their eye contact is 95% to others, 5% to others (these are moments where these persons speak out of themselves).

When I ask these questions I feel disgusted for some reason, because I ask them clearly just to say something, to be friendly.

My recent surge in threads about my social skills show I'm fed up with these situations, I want to be able to talk to everyone, to keep a conversation going for as long as I want, to be able to have the person say afterwards 'wow what a great talk'. At my current state I have a long way to go and the hardest part is that I don't know how to get there. I read many many books, tried different tactics, but for some reason it doesn't work. I don' even believe in the fact I can do it. I'm so jealous on people who can lighten up a party or just talk to anyone without thinking about it.

Meditate brother.

Gotta figure out what that disgusted feeling is because it is apparent you are eminating it when talking to people - solve yourself and you will solve this social problem

 

[DongWong]

Maybe it's not always you who need to improve your social skills, it might be the other person. From my experience, a lot of people I meet have a hard time with eye contact and they don't speak so clearly, they feel uncomfortable, sometimes it is them and sometimes it is me, who cares and talk to other people. Repetition is the mother of skill.

Sometimes it might be your tone on how you're asking questions. "What do you do" can sometimes come of as condescending and make feel like what they probably do is not relevant to anyone.

Take baby steps, people watch(not in a creepy way), say hi to random people and be friendly without expecting anything in return, and be great at asking non-generic questions, use observation to formulate a question that caters to them.

I would say try practicing with old people, they've probably encountered and talked to hundreds of people in their lifetime, and have met many different types of personalities, so they are well adjusted to variability. In my experience, old people don't give a fvck who you are, they're just happy to talk to somebody.

Also, if someone doesn't reciprocate, fvck em and onto the next!

 

[Huffman]

I'm just wondering if others have issues sometimes being truly interested or opening people up.

I do. In fact I made a whiny thread about it not too long ago because I can be pretty self-centered. What is true interest? Obviously if you meet somebody new, you know nothing about each other, so there's nothing you'd be particularly interested about (except maybe boobs ). So everyone starts at zero.

I like to think of it this way: you give them an advance of your time and attention. You invest in them, by opening them up, because inside you will find things that are interesting. You'll try to find interests (or emotions if you will) that match with your own... and if you do, you'll have a great time! If not, cut your losses.

So even if you're not super interested to begin with, maybe you're like me, it's worth giving everyone a chance, and do it properly, if only for 3 minutes. You'll never know what you find inside.

If OP wants to work on this, 3 minutes is a good way to set up your own bootcamp. Go to any social meetings (if you don't have anyone, meetup.com has lots of friendly strangers), give everybody 3 minutes, try out some of the suggestions in this thread. Rinse repeat.