I wish i knew how to talk to people

Wake up and smell the coffee! Listen to music! Feel the beat! Move to the beat! Get up and dance! Once you've freed yourself in that way, sing out loud and dance around the house! Now go use that energy or feeling you got with people. WOOOOO!

 

hahaha, omgnoway, you're hilarious!

Seriously: if you can't feel like you can talk to people, write things down instead: letters, messages, whatever suits you. Before your appointment with a professional, for example, make a list of points you want to cover. And make sure those points are heard: make sure your voice is HEARD.

Hope this helps.

 

Keep trying! You can do it.

Realize it'll take some time but the sooner you start the sooner you'll feel comfortable just being. Keep expanding your comfort zone at your pace, but remember you must start and actually do it. Comfort zones suck! Destroy it!

 

I used to be terrible with people - I still kind of am - but I've gotten better mostly through practice and exposure.

After a lot of time around people and a bit of positive feedback, all that negative crap bouncing around in my head just settled down (kind of). It's a state of mind, and as I stopped being so critical of myself and everything I said, interaction with people became much less stressful. I worked with customers at a local grocery chain at one point, and even though I expected to not be noticed at all or worse, disliked, customers actually complimented me to management and sometimes asked for me specifically. That reeeaallly made a difference to me.

Then again, I don't know the specifics of your situation, so I'm not sure how similar to mine it is. I think there's a good chance that you're being a little too hard on yourself, and it's really nothing more than how little you put yourself forward that's keeping you away from new friends. Try not to overthink it (especially any slip ups), and just do.

 

Hello,
Listen I have troubles with that too, sometimes. I think you can do this: Be with the people and join the conversation at first just listening and maybe after some minutes you will feel more confortable.
I do this sometimes and it doesn't cause my trouble cause I'm just listening. Ypu maybe can make some comments during the conversation and I hope soon you can talk more with people Wish you the best

 

I used to be, and still am to a degree, uncomfortable being among many strangers, so I completely understand what you're dealing with. Major kudos to you for stepping out of your comfort zone by going to all these social events.

Throwing yourself into the social scene after reading advice on what you should say or do in a conversation is like trying to live like a Frenchman after learning French by rote memorization. It will take a certain degree of practice and comfort before you really get good at carrying a conversation, and practice naturally involves trial and error. You really need to initiate conversations or voluntarily join them if you hope to improve, because socializing is one of those things that you need to feel your way through.

 

It's not a problem. I still hold to the "state of mind" point though. As much as it is a learned thing, it's also about where you're coming from and your mental/emotional state. I don't know if that's as easy to practice or adjust as things like body language, conversation topics, etc.

I hope this professional you'll be seeing will have some more advice, because he/she will probably understand it better.

More information could also help us, though, because it's hard to pinpoint where exactly things aren't going as planned.

 

I know it has to be frustrating, but it all really comes down to practicing and learning on the go. You can read as much as you want about it, but if you don't practice it then there really isn't an easy way to just flip a switch and have it all figured out.

If the anxiety is too great then your psychologist might be able to help you learn how to deal with the situation and be able to interact with people.

The only advice I can give you is to challenge yourself little by little until you get there. I hope you get a better answer when you talk to a professional about it.

 

I understand where you are coming from, to an extent. For anyone to be able to help, including professionals, you'll have to do some self analysis to figure out what is causing the problems. I know it isn't all that simple, but if you can figure it how some it will make everything else easier to work on too. The anxiety you get before talking to someone isn't the problem, its only an effect. It could be self esteem, but thats not simple either. Whats causing low self esteem? Something else could or like for me it was the fact that I over analyzed every situation and everyone to the extent that I was putting distance between myself and everyone else. It made me feel like an alien. Which made it even hard to talk to people because then I felt like I was nuissance to people.

Theres a lot more to that, but anyway, my point is that it is hard for someone else to help and have advice that is 'just for you' without knowing more. If you don't really know why, thats fine, maybe we can help. I know the professional will, and they'll help you get to that point too.

For now, it does help the more you do it, and I mean pushing your limit and talking more then you have been. And when you don't HAVE to. Start off by prepping yourself. Don't over think it or try to get an exact script. There is nothing wrong with you, you are your own person and you are a human. It's normal to communicate to people, and everyone else will see it as normal too. They will probably like it, sounds like you are pretty nice. Picture yourself, in third person, acting completely normal with people if it helps. Calm yourself before you're around people, and try to push it away. Decide you'll do what you want, and say fuck it. It helps me, lol. Besides, you will never say anything that will haunt you forever. Just figure out what helps.

 

Well, I regret to say there’s no miracle cure to make anyone a social butterfly overnight (if there was, I’d have taken a good dose of that 15 years ago), but absent of that, I always got some mileage out of listening first, and talking later.

By listening, of course, I don’t mean “stand there blanking out while the other one talks”. It’s actively listening, to some extent. Which means basically that you need to get somewhat of a conversation going, but after that, mainly encourage the other party to keep talking. Many people like to talk about themselves, and are happy to have someone enabling them to do just that.
You might need to pick a peron standing there somewhat alone, and use a generic opener (Such as, depending on how many people are there:“seems like a bit of a slow/busy day today?” or “So, do you come here often?”), and then lock on to the answers the other person gives and encourage them to talk more. Finding a further question to ask is already a bit easier than trying to shoehorn in one of your own premeditated talking points.

Obviously if you get bad luck, you strike up a particularly curt person, but in any group there’s people who reply with some sort of lead to further questions. Hobbies, work, how often they come to the place where you’re talking… all of those can be causes for a “tell me more about that”.
Usually at some point, they’ll also start asking questions of their own, but it’s easier to answer those than to try and inject your own.

Also, you might try not aiming for the jackpot here directly. If you’re stressing out over these short conversations already: keep them short! Keep it going for a couple of minutes and unless you feel like it’s going somewhere, say “well, it was nice talking to you. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll check out this place a bit further!” and move on before a lot of awkward silences can happen.

You’re not going to make very good friends on your first night like that. But few people do click enough on first sight to talk for hours. However, if you try short, nearly meaningless conversations with a few people, then to come back, tjey know your face, you know their face, and the initial anxiety has somewhat decreased, making it easier to go for a “Nice to see a somewhat familiar face again! How have you been this last [week/month/time since you last talked]?”


Probably still not a miracle cure to make lots of close friends, fast. But not bad at getting some acquaintances who might grow into friends later.

 

you do not need to memorize lines. you have anxiety to talk to others becuase you are not comfortable in your own skin. therefore, it's hard to talk to others because you have zero self esteem and you're immediatley thinking you are less then them or they are better than you or judging you in some way or will reject you. the only way to really get passed this is to start developing self esteem. you can do this by being good at something and really putting your energy into that. for you, try and get out of your comfort zone by trying to do somethign you really want to do that may involve other peoplel. if you want to learn a new language...take a class, if you want to paint, take a class. find something that you can do where you have to be around other people. do not try and perfect something you can do alone. as you begin to develop esteem, you will feel more comfortable around others. also the group activities will force you to talk to others.