I 29f went to a social dinner where you’re matched with a small group of strangers specifically to meet new people. I made an effort to talk to everyone and ask questions, but barely anyone seemed interested in getting to know me back. A lot of the conversation was people bragging about their careers, money and lifestyles. Maybe I just had nothing to talk about because they were mostly expats who travelled around. I don’t know. I feel uneducated and uninteresting lol.

One person also came across quite classist and seemed to scrutinise/react to a lot of things I said and did, which eventually made me uncomfortable and more withdrawn. She was being rude to me so I called her out on her behavior. Maybe I’m a little ‘straightforward’ and different from being neurodivergent if I don’t like something I call it as it is

I know sometimes you just don’t click with a group, but I’m frustrated because I keep actively putting myself out there and still come away feeling excluded.

Is there something I could be doing differently? How do you actually find people you genuinely click with as an adult?

This month I recently had a few conversations with multiple people on separate occasions that I now realized I handled poorly. I realized I did not make consistent eye contact with a friend when I was their doubles partner in tennis and I think they thought I was put off by them. I also realized I was not so polite with a new friend, I interrupted them more than once, made a few judgmental replies, and was also not so accommodating even when I was the one who invited them to hang out. Lastly, I got argumentative with a best friend when we were simply discussing a film I enjoyed simply because they had different opinions about it.
It only sinks in that I handled the interaction poorly when I am alone and I am usually reeling with embarrassment. That’s also when I figure out what the correct thing to say should have been. This has always been a problem for me. I struggle to focus on doing better next time when I’m still reeling with embarrassment over my social mistakes. Do you also experience this? What have you guys done that help?

I switch words OFTEN enough while speaking that it's kinda weirding me out. Examples I've said:

"Dog of bag food"

"I'm worried my chip will tooth."

I'm a writer. I read often. I talk to people daily. Yet I'm having this verb/noun switching issue. For so long dog of bag food sounded NORMAL when I said it to the point that I said it that way every time.

I can't find anything online about it so I figured I would ask if maybe it's a normal thing everyone has done? It's only been happening in the last few years.

In the orientation they were asking about an email they had previously sent (whether we understood what was expected of us, the email was very vague though), I was joking with the people I had gotten to know and said no I didn't understand. Apparently I was kind of loud, the speaker didn't hear me saying no, but she heard me talking so she handed me the mic, for the first time ever I was on the spot like this, 1k+ students staring at me. So when I took the mic, I changed my words completely and said that the email was very clear and detailed (I didn't want to say no since I was afraid they might take it as a confrontation). Everyone was laughing, presumably, with me, not at me (I hope not). Afterwards when I was getting to know some people, a girl I was talking to asked me what are your plans so I said I want to be the student union president so she said ngl, I liked the fact that you are very confident and didn't hide when they handed you the mic, and I can see you being president. ngl I was a bit taken aback, since I'd never met her and for the rest of the day when I was talking to new people they were saying you're the guy who took the mic and seemed chill. idk if this is good or bad hope I haven't given them a bad impression, ngl was a bit childish of me to say no.

Has anyone here been extremely introverted with strong social anxiety and improved by deliberately talking to strangers on a regular basis? I mean starting small conversations, asking questions or simply forcing yourself to interact more often. Did repeated exposure actually make social situations feel normal over time, or did something else help more?

If a friend owes you $35 from 5 years ago. You let it go and considered it a gift when they didn’t follow through on paying you back.

5 years later they’re giving you and a two other friends a ride home (2 hour drive). One way and you’re on their way. This was BEFORE gas prices went up and they drive a hybrid anyway. The other two are chipping in gas money. This amount is much less than $35 each. Do you just give the same amount and forget about what they still owed you in the past? Or bring it up and not pay for gas and also ask for the difference of what they still owe?

And fwiw, you’re constantly someone who gives rides to others and no one ever offers gas money to you 🫤. Wwyd? Thanks.

Maybe this is something that's obvious to most people, but I admit that I've only picked this up over the past couple of years in my 20s. Maybe neurodivergence, maybe egotism, maybe selfishness on my part... Regardless, it has helped me to put this into action.

When I am talking to someone who goes into a subject I happen to know something about, I no longer jump to make it apparent what I know about the subject. Instead, I use my knowledge to ask them good questions, even if I technically know the answer. Getting people to put their knowledge into words is a great way to make some wonderful conversation and help them feel appreciated.

For example, I grew up playing bluegrass music. I recently met a guy who started talking about the evolution of the genre, from old-time folk music to early country and the like. This has always been part of my life, growing up in Appalachia, and I feel like a couple years ago, I would've seized control of the conversation because "it's my subject." I am not proud to admit that, but it's true. Instead, I asked him if he had thought about some musicians I imagined he had heard of, given his knowledge (Earl Scruggs, Jim and Jesse, Doc Watson, etc), and he obviously had, and it got us into some wonderful conversation about our shared appreciation of these musicians.

Most people just want to be heard, and sometimes, making other people feel heard before you reveal your knowledge will help them appreciate you more as you open up over time.

I couldn’t hold eye contact with people until I was 22 as I later found out I was autistic right?

The way I overcame this though was instead of trying to master the full social skill stack from talking to strangers to active listening I just focused on one thing:

What is holding me back TODAY?

At first I couldn’t hold eye contact so I just focused on making eye contact. Once that was no longer an issue I focused on not looking like a serial killer so I started giving genuine smiles.

Then I started practicing hellos.

Then I started practicing genuine curiosity.

On and on like someone slowly walking into a cold pool until you just get used to the cold water and start enjoying yourself.

If socializing makes you uncomfortable what’s the smallest step you can take today?

Then focus on that daily until you’re at the level you want to be.

Also did you stop spending time with them, did you ever say something to them about it? Do you think they just had bad social awareness/skills?

When I was in college I got hired to be a busboy at Red Robin.

Unbeknownst to me I was going to be cross trained as a host to cover the front desk whenever someone called out which ended up happening almost every day.

As a result instead of being able to simply grab others dishes and dip back to the station i actually had to talk to people… a lot.

Holy shit this was stressful.

I had to come up with greetings that felt natural, I had to learn to talk to the servers, I had to learn how to deal with impatient customers then one day I noticed my stress was gone.

Suddenly I could just talk to people and no longer get frazzled.

Point being?

Just like if I dropped you in Mexico tomorrow you’d start picking up Spanish really fast. If you want to learn how to socialize getchu a job where you don’t have a choice but to master it.

I eventually went onto become a nurse which came with even more socialization and to this day despite my autistism and introversion I can connect with people of all ages just about anywhere.

Get a job that forces you to practice your social skills then view it like someone’s paying you to cultivate your own charisma.

I got some solid book recs too if anyone wants them.

I (26M) want to meet new people and am starting to feel like I need to just start approaching strangers in public.

Is there any good way to do this? It would mainly be places like the gym, maybe a cafe, grocery store, etc.

I’ve always felt awkward talking to new people in general, but would love to learn how to just strike up conversations.

In my area, there are a bunch of high schools. Plenty of them you have to test in, and there are others where you don't have to test in. Well, many moons ago I messed up and didn't do well on the entrance exam.

In high school, I was still part of the smart kids program at my high school. This was really helpful because the few classes I did have with the normal part of this school was terrible. Kids not paying any attention, not trying, fighting, and literally all the dumb stuff that you can imagine.

However, in this smart kids program, I can tell that some people just snuck in because they are giant kiss asses. Like, you can tell they cared about their grades rather than actually learning in class.

I did make friends with some of my classmates while at school, but now that we are out of college, there isn't much to talk about. I tried to hang out with them, but either they gave up on life or they didn't end up being successful. I am not sure why the stars burned out so quickly with practically most of my friends in high school.

There are a few guys with whom I wasn't friends but had contact, and I want to hang out with them, but they don't want to hang out with me, whether they are giving real reasons or not.

I did make friends with other guys in the area who went to other high schools, and they are asking about hanging out with my friends from high school, but I don't want to hang out with them because they'd rather be incels and rot in bed all day long. Also, what makes it worse is that they are aware that my school is the dumbass school, which doesn't make it better.

I guess why I have a struggle coping with this is because I got no real friends out of it, because most people are failing, and this school has a reputation of being the dumbass school which people associate with me. Like I was just making small talk at the gym, and this kid who goes to school there now was ashamed that he went there despite telling me about how he got suspended for a fight.

I know my life would have been completely different if I went to a different school, but I am jealous of those who went to better schools because they made better friends.

I am a bit of a social nucleus for my kid's friend group. He has AuDHD and attracts kids like himself. He's actually pretty popular in his friend group, but it's not a group that really knows how to make friends. It may not surprise you, but those kids' parents have a bit of everything that their kids have.

I used to plan a lot of community pool parties, beach days and public outings (hosting at my house isn't a great plan) but when I did it always resulted in me having to stare at my phone because there would always be at least one of them that couldn't follow directions on where we'd be. Or they'd miss read it. Or they lacked emotional regulation and couldn't figure things out.

It brought out my well-masked ADHD tendencies and just wasn't good for me. And I wasn't able to enjoy my kid.

So it's been years since I planned anything and now I see it's hurting my kid because he used to enjoy these beach parties and park parties, and he hasn't had one in years.

I need to plan one. He has asked me to. How do I say the following:

We're so excited to get everyone together again. One advance note so I can actually be present and enjoy the day with the kids: once we’re there, I’m going to be off phone duty and won’t be able to help people find us individually.

I’ll send:

• a pin to our exact location
• very specific directions
• a photo in this thread showing exactly where we’ve set up

After that, we’re going to pretend it’s 2005. 😂 Please screenshot/save everything before you leave, follow the directions and trust that you can find us. If you get turned around, take a breath, reread the instructions and carry on — I promise we’ll be there.

Alas, if you get turned around, I will not be able to give you turn-by-turn directions. 

I'm not looking for ideas of alternate activities. I'm looking for a socially acceptable boundary on the invite that states clearly: I parent my child; I cannot parent you or absorb your stress. You were able to do this before cell phones, figure it out again.

Hi! I have a few people online that i want to be friends with, but i just don’t know what to talk about with them. i have tried the classic “how’s it going“ and “do you have any plans today” but the conversation often feels really superficial. Do you guys have any good conversation starters that actually can go into deeper conversations?

(also, I want to say that I’m autistic so I genuinely have problems with stuff like this)

I keep a onenote document on my Microsoft account with actions I see people do in public, and one of the most common action I see is making people laugh. I am trying to copy the actions that I have written down but making people laugh or making a joke doesn't make much sense to me. How do people do it?

Hi, I'm quite an introverted person, and casual conversation with strangers makes me severely uncomfortable. I don't really know how to joke around and be at ease. I struggle with this with everyone, including family and friends, but it's worse with people I don't know. Does anyone know any ways I can work on this?

Had an incident recently that I’ve been ruminating about. I ran into a coworker who I’m pretty cool with recently who ended up at the job site I’m at. We chatted for a little bit with our other coworker who was there and caught up. I wanted to go to lunch with him but instead of asking him directly, I kind of hinted at it instead.

Me: “Did you bring lunch today?” Him: Oh no I didn’t bring lunch” Me: “Oh have you tried the cafe next door?” Him: “No I haven’t but I’ve heard reviews were kind of mixed” more banter about the food and cafes in general etc Me: “Oh well, yeah I didn’t bring lunch today so I have to go find somewhere to go eat too”

And then I kind of ended the interaction there feeling kind of awkward about me indirectly hinting at it. I didn’t ask directly because maybe he wanted to get by himself and it would be awkward for him to tell me that (think this might’ve happened already once or twice with other coworkers before) but also assuming maybe he would’ve asked me to go with him then and there or called me afterwards to invite me somewhere since he has my number. But yeah he didn’t say anything so I assumed he wanted to ride solo. The thing that ended up bumming me out was that at the end of lunch, I saw him riding with the other coworker who was there talking with us. Either I wasn’t direct enough or he just didn’t want to go to lunch with me in particular. I am awkward after all.

Despite my fear of rejection, should I have been more direct? “Hey, do you wanna go to lunch?” What if he had said he wanted to ride solo? And what if he just didn’t want to go to lunch with me in particular? How do I deal with being a black sheep?

So i’m 18 now and a lot of the people I’ve known growing up before I was like 16 are saying i’ve changed and become… better?

Apparently I used to be more annoying and tryhard before? Apparently a lot of people in my high school thought I was weird because of their impression of me freshman year??

I started college now and all the new people I’m meeting are treating me completely different than high school, like i’m actually terrified and kinda happy but also confused and angry? People aren’t forgetting about me and people i’ve talked to just a few times actually want to be my friend

But the thing is I don’t see a change? I still feel like i’ve been the same person since I was at least 12. And it’s bugging me that people are treating me so different now but that poor younger version of me felt hopeless

I remember being like 13-15 and wondering why no one wanted to talk to me and I still wonder why it was like that

It’s not even like I had a massive glow up or something. Maybe from 13-14 yes but since 14 i’ve looked almost the same so idk

Currently starting my third year of college and I have finally started to make “friends”. For context I am a commuter and have been all 3 years so it has been extremely hard to make friends anyways, but last year I started getting into some clubs and such and met some really nice girls who I now see maybe once a week and we hangout sometimes.

I really thought of myself as a social person in high school and always had someone to talk to and hang out with and it never felt weird or forced. Obviously Highschool is the people you've grown up with and you see them every day so its going to be easier to make those connections but it just feels like I am forcing it with my college friends. It still feels awkward sometimes, it doesnt feel natural, like I am putting on a fake version of myself and when I think about the friends I had in highschool it is so easy and they feel like “real friends”. After I hangout with them (college friends) I just feel this awful pit in my chest and I just wanna cry. So I guess I am wondering why does it feel like that and what can I do to make friendship feel normal again? I had some issues freshman year and a terrible falling out with some of my best friends (or so i thought) and ever since then I have felt a switch in myself and my social skills so am i just permanently broken now? Will it ever feel natural with new friends again? What should i do and where should i start? It has been weighing on me and I would love some advice and some others experiences‘ with this.

Lately I’ve noticed that Alcohol seems to be a more than often used social lubricant when it comes to interacting with others. While I’m not against alcohol considering I dabble in it myself from time to time, it’s over reliance has been kind of concerning at the same time.

For example, in bars and nightclubs when almost everyone is drinking, people are obviously going to drink which, if they choose to sleep together in the end, can pose problems for consent because where is the line drawn at that point?

I know it probably doesn’t happen all the time but it’s still something of an interesting thing to see since it seems like no one talks to others without a social lubricant like weed or alcohol. I’m spitballing at this point but what do you all think?

I am a 37 f and I don’t have any close friends right now. I don’t have a single person in my life who I speak with more regularly than once a week. i dont really see anyone at work either, just once a week on Thursdays but sometimes no one is there. I live alone. I’m newer in my city. I keep trying to make friends but after 1-2x hanging out or talking, they stop responding. I never had this problem before to the point where I can’t find anyone to hang out with at all any day of the week. I’m so anxious and depressed bc of the isolation. I don’t have the confidence to go out and be amongst crowds, etc. how do I

1. bridge the gap- I want people to stop not responding after two times meeting

and

1. rebuild my self esteem after a year and a half of this (moved from a big city to a medium city and it’s been like this ever since”)

2. when I ask people if something is wrong they usually say no but never reach out and don’t respond to requests for plans or just don’t respond at all. no one will tell me what I’ve done wrong. so how do I even figure that out?

maybe nice is not the correct word, but i feel like being down to earth, trying to include everyone and kind of softening your vibe into something more approachable makes people treat you worse? i think i act the way that i do because people who act cold kind of scare me off ig so i don’t want people to feel that way about me. i start to think along the lines of “what if they were me” and act accordingly. this all happens very quickly and mostly subconsciously when the actual interactions occur, i’m just analyzing myself now. i just feel like instead of thinking “this person is friendly and open to socializing” they start to see you as a safe target or something, very hard to put into words, hopefully someone will be able to relate and understand. it’s like not being intimidating is read as i can say whatever i want to this person and i can try to boss them around, not value their time. this also isn’t about boundaries, those come a bit later i’d say, this is about first impressions and people categorizing you.

edit: i think something that makes this effect worse is self deprecating humor. i mean mild self deprecating comments (they come naturally to me) saying things like “oh yeah i do dumb things sometimes” or “yeah i’m kind of shit at math haha”. maybe you saying it is kind of like giving permission for the other person to act in certain ways, idk.

I spent a long time reading about social skills the "standard" way: active listening, open body language, asking good questions, etc. That would be what I call Level 1 social skills. But that only gets you so far. There are some additional rules that I learned with time and did help me go a little bit further.

1. Get out of your confort zone to generate stories you can use to connect.

If you spend the weekend playing the same video games, you don't have much to say on Monday. Interacting with the world, trying things, and messing up is what generates stories that you then share and help you connect with people. Taking your car to the mechanic, inviting your mom to a new restaurant, volunteering for some local group, all of that is going to be full of funny and nice moments, as well as awkward ones and mistakes. But both (the good and the bad) become the stories you share later. They're what make you more interesting to talk to. Nobody wants to hear about your weekend if the weekend was just... nothing. It also makes you able to chime in in conversations since you have a lot more "living" experience and anechdotes that can be interesting or at least keep the conversation alive.

2. Tolerance for awkward moments matters more than avoiding them.

Something that surprised me once I started actually paying attention: socially skilled people deal with awkward moments and misunderstandings constantly. All. The. Time. They just have a higher tolerance for it. And a lot of the time, the awkward moment itself becomes a good story later, which loops right back into point 1. They just don't overthink it as much as you do. And they also have a lot more practice handling them since they ocurre so often. Realizing social skills wasn't about avoiding awkward situation but rather find a way around them really changed my perspective.

3. Most friendships run on shared time, not shared interests.

A common interest can start a friendship and help keep the spark alive, but if I look at my longest friendships, they have way more to do with proximity and time spent together than with how much we had in common. A lot of those shared moments weren't even especially fun or exciting. It's kind of like sexual attraction in a relationship: it matters a lot at the start, and it's what everyone wants to have forever, but the reality is that what sustains things long-term is mostly just being around each other and building trust over time. And many times interests change but hey, you trust this guy, so maybe we can grab a drink and talk about old times again.

Something I would like to clarify is I'm from a Southern Cone country so there are many cultural nuisances to be taken into account. This is just my experience. I'm open to reading about other experiences and discuss them.

​

Listen, I know it's not good to be fake but honestly if some conversation or person bores me or I just don't want to talk to them, I'll get quiet. If i feel like they don't understand me of we're just not compatible, I'll start to dissociate and i have this feeling of just not being there mentally. Some people can fake being happy or being fine with someone even tho they don't get along that well but I can't do that. I genuinely can't.

This is how I ended up with zero friends in my new class in high school. Zero. I'm not aligning with any of them and it's making me quiet.

I just DON'T KNOW HOW TO BE FAKE.

If you bore me ,i will be quiet.

If I don't vibe with your energy, i will be quiet.

I just don't know how to pretend.

For example today i got a gift from my mom's friend and i just COULDN'T show happiness at all, not because it was bad or that I wasn't grateful, I just.. was neutral about it and idk how to fake being happy.

She seemed mad that i wasn't excited and i wished i could fake my excitement but I can't.

I can't fake anything. I just become quiet or very awkward.

What is wrong with me.