Ask Lemmy

i used to be so anxious and shy i could hardly say a word to my best friends from childhood. you embarrass yourself over and over till it starts to get a little easier. now i can talk to a group of people i dont know well with only a little anxiety

Yeah. I haven't always been very comfortable with it, I made active effort to learn ways to make it easier.

I also lived in the Midwest for a while where asking someone "How are you doing" is an actual invitation to conversation and not just a response of "fine". I learned some people are very open to chitchat with strangers, some people aren't, and it gets pretty easy with practice to tell which is which noting body language and those first few words they respond to you with.

Also, you're doing it now, OP. Way to go. Forum conversations like this totally count. Maybe next level up for you is some IM chatting with someone from a hobby group you're interested in.

Very well. The other night was at a fall festival and they had some carnys pushing carts filled with toys and balloons, you know, plastic swords, plastic guns, snaps, stink bombs, and blow up guitars, etc., and they all had a bunch of flags for sale, including, at the very top, a bunch of made in China trump shit.

I saw one carney, who was black, and he did not have trump shit. So when it was time to let the kiddo pick a toy or something, I said he could buy from that carney. And I struck up a convo by offering that it was his lack of Trump shit that got him this sale; an important thing, I think, to tell retailers of this sort. We dapped it up for a second and he was looked at me like, "come the fuck on, obviously there's no trump shit on my cart." He said one of the other Carneys told him how much more money he could make, and how he asked the other guy back, "man, are you fucking stupid?" Nice guy.

I have conversations with strangers all the time. I believe everyone is capable of this through the power of alcohol.

I noticed early in my 20's that my social anxiety had gotten to a point where I couldn't casually chat with random people. So I made an effort to do it anyway even though the results wouldn't be favourable for a while. It took a few years before I noticed it didn't take much of a push any more to start. I'm 40 now and while I still don't enjoy talking to strangers, especially when just making meaningless small talk, I at least don't have a wall of pre-dread anymore to climb in the case that I do need/want to talk to a stranger. Like if they dropped something, or if I want a product in a store that is not currently stocked on the shelf.

gestures to the site we are all using rn

All the time. I don't know any of you!

yeah, no problem.

i'm a social butterfly when i'm drunk and somehow managed to transfer this skill into my sober life over the years.

i'm even pretty good at phonecalls now. those terrified me my whole life. now i often prefer them over emails/texting.

I could have a conversation with a stranger, but I would prefer not to. I don't find silence uncomfortable and I'm perfectly happy to wait quietly.

I don't like it when people try to chat when I'm having my hair cut, or waiting for something. Small talk is a drag and I really don't care about any of it.

Sure! I mean, we're doing it right now, right? ;)

Or do you mean exclusively in person?

I'll be honest with you, I don't get out much (health issues) but when I do, I don't LIKE talking to people, but I do, because it takes so little effort to make someone feel better about their day.

It also helps that pretty much everyone here has a tattoo and that's a good icebreaker.

"Wow, nice ink! How long have you had it?"

No. Between being really poor about remembering names and whether I’ve met someone before, and always being suspicious about their motives for approaching me, it never goes well.

This past summer I travelled down south and it was a strange experience - people were friendly and wanted to chat, and even be helpful, and not once was there an obvious scam. I’m too old to be discovering something like this but I’ve always been with family or friends or something, or visiting tourist spots, but this time I was wandering in “normal” places. After a week, I was finally open to small talk without suspicion, but what an experience!

I think that's something you can learn. It definitely takes some training. But speaking from own experience, I think I started out as an introvert and in my very fist job I had to talk to lots of random strangers each day. And I adjusted. Nowadays I can start conversations easily, do smalltalk... I mean I'm probably still the same person and sometimes I like to talk and sometimes I don't like to open up at all. But I know what to say, how to keep a conversation going or end it if I like and it doesn't take that much effort. And I think that makes me a bit more at ease. Knowing I have that skill available. But it certainly took me some time and effort to get there.

And I'm still not particularly good at mimicking an extroverted person. But I don't care that much anymore. If I make mistakes, or I struggle with some conversational partner, that's just what it is. It makes me uncomfortable. But at some point I'm going to have other problems to deal with and I'm going to forget about it.

Yes, lots. And not because I'm an extrovert. It's a very commonly used life skill and I wouldn't, for example, be able to do my job without it.

I hate it. I'm just generally afraid of saying the wrong thing, so I end up saying very little until I feel that I know the person well enough to share more.

However, I worked in customer service and sales for 20 years and learned how to fake it.

It's a performance, just like a singer or dancer, it's exhausting, but practice makes progress.

I'm always sitting primed and ready for some random chit chat but I'm too shy to initiate. If you ever see a mid 20s male sitting alone, he more than likely would be more than happy to talk to you or anyone for that matter.

We don't get alot of attention when not seeked out :/

I do now, tho I prefer to read in silence. What helped me, was to remind myself, that in the grand scheme of things this conversation and any opinion this stranger will have of me is irrelevant.

Every single day. I am someone who people just really open up to. I don't know what it is but I have the craziest conversations.

I'm not good at it, but I'm capable of holding a conversation with say a store clerk or random people in line.

Yep, and yep. They're just humans, nothing to be scared of

If I absolutely have to, yes. If I don't need to, I avoid it and prefer to mind my own business. For example, I sometimes attend some happy hour events for people in my field of work. Obviously you have to have some small talk, but I usually only engage if someone strikes a conversation. If not, then I'm happy just eating and drinking while watching whatever is on the bar tv. If I'm attending a show, concert, or game, I don't strike a conversation with strangers at all.

I love talking to strangers even though I'm pretty introverted. Having a little convo with someone I'll never meet again is fun. It makes some people's day to get an interaction and I like to make people happy.

If you having trouble knowing what to say in a conversation is what you're getting at, I can relate to that. Once in a while I'll have found a stranger whose standards I can meet, but they're so few and far between that no tangible friendships have been made.

Yes I can. No I don't do it often.

I have ADHD, and struggle to remember small details or infer the same things other people do from dialogue. This means that outside of structured discussions, I struggle to maintain a conversation that interests others most of the time. My friends are the ones who don't make an issue of my shift between a lack of engagement or intense engagement and my completely forgetting things that other people things are extremely important like remembering names. I have had the same few friends for a couple decades because making new friends is fucking hard.

So when it comes to strangers, I tend to only have conversations a few times a year and almost always when traveling. Basically, if there is no chance of seeing them again and I have an easy out from the conversation I am comfortable starting one. Random people on public transport, in lines at restaurants, people at conferences, etc. Stick to whatever they bring up and try to keep up, consciously avoid dominating the conversation, etc. This all took a lot of practice over decades to become comfortable with and it takes a ton of work so I don't do it often. The only reason I need to work at it is that most people think the things my brain doesn't retain are important and that is generally what makes them think I'm not listening or participating. If I never see them again, then it isn't important if I screw that up!

I am also an excellent presenter, and get tasked with that frequently. I don't feel stressed in front of crowds because I practiced at it a lot and slowly became comfortable with it. For a lot of people social interaction takes practice and making 'mistakes' and learning that they need to adapt and not worry too much about whether the other person is enjoying the conversation, only if they give obvious signs they want to leave the conversation.

I can, yes. Do I often? I do so less now than I did when I was younger just because I'm not in as many places where random conversations would happen.

As others have said, it takes practice to be able to do that. Along with that, I'd recommend reading up on active listening. A lot of people are happy to talk if others listen.

Hey OP, I've been diagnosed with a social anxiety disorder, and I just want to say your post resonated with me.

You don't have to talk to people if you don't want to. In day-to-day life you can avoid it. Sooner or later though, you will end up in a situation where you have to talk to someone, whether that's a doctor, emergency services, or you're stuck on the bus with someone chatty.

If you're happy as a clam not to talk to people, then power to you. Don't let anybody dictate how you should live your life - it's your life. However, if talking to people causes you distress, and the consequences of not talking to people also causes you distress, then in my humble opinion you owe it to yourself to challenge your beliefs.

I don't want to presume to know your situation, so I'll share some of mine. I've had some significant ups and downs. When I was down, I often lamented that I couldn't make friends, would never find a partner, and stewed in my thoughts for no real benefit. I've also had some ups - I enrolled in college, tried new things even though it scared me, and even did some public speaking.

Then the pandemic happened, and the overarching mood of isolation and fear really did a number on me. Before the pandemic, I would have tentatively said that I became a social butterfly. Now I'm back to stewing in myself a lot of the time. But I'm putting myself out there again, and I'm confident with time that I'll end up okay.

If you are experiencing distress about your situation, know that nothing is written in stone about your future. It's not always easy, and sometimes it takes longer than we'd like, but you can improve your mind so you don't feel distress.

I really resisted therapy for a long time. The idea of talking to a stranger was difficult enough, so baring my soul to a therapist was total anathema to me. But I did get some books recommended to me, and I learned about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Not only is CBT the gold standard of psychiatric care, but it's also possible to practice in a completely self-directed way. That was very attractive to me, and I've been noticing an improvement since I've started. If you'd like to know more, I can certainly share some resources with you.

Anyway, one last thing to leave with you - I've been thinking of my time on Lemmy as being "practising socializing." It's becoming easier and easier to talk to strangers online, and that carries over to meatspace too.

You're doing a good job, OP. Good luck out there

I've always been highly introverted. And I struggled with talking to strangers. So, I set myself a goal of getting better at it and started forcing myself to talk with people more. I sucked at it and probably left a lot of people thinking I was some creepy weirdo. But, I got better the more I practiced. I'm still not fantastic at it, but I can generally initiate and maintain a conversation with a random stranger, without coming off too terribly. Like most skills in life, it takes practice and a lot of failure before you can rise to the level of not sucking at it.

I really, really dislike social situations that don't have formal structure to them. Professionally I can talk to strangers no problem, because roles and expectations are set, similarly I can go to a tabletop gaming convention and play games with people and it's fine.

I struggle in situations where the rules are more nebulous, but I still manage it. It just takes practice. I definitely lean on my husband for that type of thing when I can though.

54m here who is neurodivergent.

Yes, I can have a conversation with a stranger, but that was not always the case. It took years of practice to get to the point where I could be in a group or one on one and actually contribute.

The issue is, it takes SO much out of me. Where the people I'm interacting with have nice processing centers in their brains doing the bulk of the work for them in carrying the conversation. The processing centers that deal with social interaction are inactive in my brain and I have to actually think about everything going on. Which is a lot of energy to spend on conversations that really have no actual merit, other than just being social.

Think of it this way, do you remember how much energy you had to expend thinking on the last difficult test you took at school? That's how I feel after social interactions. Because I have to do virtually the same amount of thinking in that setting, that most people use on a Physics exam.

Even with my wife and kids, I have to take breaks from them. While the years have given me habits and known behaviors that I don't have to think about with them and keep our relationships healthy. I still have to do a lot of active processing to interact with them.

It sucks, but it is the way I am and always will be.

you can, it just takes practice.

talking to people reminds me how similar everybody is and how connected we all are, regardless of what I read on the internet.

traveling, even to a different town, will make it much more likely you'll talk to strangers

international travelers are far more gracious and interested in people as a group than any other group I know.

people anywhere, though, seem to enjoy hearing an idle idea or personal observation. a lot of people are lonely or so set in their routine that anything new is exciting, so I'll try and say something just to let them know that somebody else has noticed they exist.

I love giving small compliments about hair or clothes, because people are invariably shocked to receive them.

Yes. No.

I'm tempted to say "no" to the first half, then "Yes, plenty" to the second half, on the basis that I'm good at faking it.

I travel a lot for a living, so there are a lot of idle hours in hotel bars and airplanes, ripe for idle chitchat with random strangers, so I decided to start practicing my social skills, because they sure as hell need some exercise. What do I care, I'm never gonna meet them again anyway.

Well, it turns out that
a) Most people I encounter are just as bored as I
b) Idle chitchat is easy after a few tries. I don't think I'm fak8ng it anymore.
c) Sometimes you do run into the same peo0le again on the other side of the of the world, and they're happy to see you

Sure! I do it all the time when I'm either shopping or at the salon 😃 I love making people laugh or cheering them up!

To OP - as others have said, you're doing it now! Not everyone may be comfortable with initiating conversations with strangers but it can be something you can gradually learn to become more comfortable with!

I used to chat up Uber drivers before the pan. I did it mainly to be friendly and because sometimes there'd be a cool story to learn. Now I'm back to ignoring them and being on my phone.

Ive heard this kind of stuff happens in my city more than other big cities. Line at the grocery store or such. It is less than it was when I was a kid and young adult though.

Yes. What's blocking you? What circumstances are you in where you want to talk and aren't?

I can have conversations with strangers without much difficulty. I have no choice and people are uncomfortable if I am silent in a lot of scenarios. I identify common ground with the person typically based on where we are meeting and if I don't intend to connect to the person I keep conversation general and don't ask names unless it seems like I may run into this person again. I then forget that name probably but it's nice to ask.

I’ll be frank, if you don’t have friends or a partner and you aren’t willing to leave your comfort zone to talk to people then to me it indicates a lack of willingness on your side. Why don’t you want those enough to overcome your faults and just keep at it?

Get a friend to walk you through it.

Yes, I do it for a living.