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Foreword:
Alright, another boring self-improvement thread. The Blog-Section sure has its fill of those, but I do feel that expressing oneself in written words is a great way of introspection. Sometimes one doesn't realise how ridiculous one's thoughts are, unless one reads them directly.
Feel free to skip to the end, but you'll be missing a great deal of schadenfreude!
Neurological Problems and other Excuses
Health can quite easily throw a wrench in your gears, so the best laid plans may not work.
I am fortunate enough to be generally really healthy, except some neurological hiccups:
Following a rather severe meningitis that bound me to a hospital-bed for 6 months, I often experience migranes that hit like a motherfucker and crippling depressions, but dealing with them is just another challenge and I'm lucky to live in an age in which medicine provides super efficient painkillers. Go science!
Me 2.0, the first reboot:
About than 4 years ago, I was in a really dark place. I was highly overweight, I had just broken up with my live-in girlfriend so she wouldn't have to deal with my depressions anymore, I was working the most tedious office-job you can imagine, my best friend had just killed himself by driving from a bridge and when I wasn't working, I played WoW all. the. time.
I decided my life had to change, so I isolated the problems:
Unhealthy condition, shitty job, no real hobby.
I bought a racing cycle, started eating healthier, quit my job, went back to school, moved to another city far away from home, got myself a guitar and things started to look a lot less bleak rather quickly. School was fun, I lost 60 pounds rather quickly and another 10 really slowly and playing the guitar was much preferable to playing WoW.
Also, I discovered SC2 and TL, which was great as well.
The downsides were rather minor:
Obviously, having just quit my job, I had to move to a smaller appartement and had much less money in general, but that's fine. I missed having a car a little, but again, a very minor issue.
I didn't regret leaving work for even a second.
Yet somehow, happiness still eludes me and isolating the issues is much more difficult than the last time. I think it's the fact that I spend most of my time in a solitary fashion. I haven't had a long-term relationship since the mentioned one and social acquaintances rarely become friends. Moving to 5 different cities in as many years doesn't help the fact, but I think most of the solitude stems from my own behaviour, which needs to be altered.
Antisocial Conduct
I often ask myself why I'm having such a hard time getting in contact with people.
Maybe you guys can relate: although I'm 25 years old now, the world still seems really foreign to me. I have trouble gaging other people's actions and reactions, I'm terrible at reading faces, I express myself mainly via sarcasm and I'm terrible at small-talk. I don't understand people's allusions to pop-culture and my mind just wanders when the conversation bores me.
Add to that the fact that the few people who are actually interested in getting to know me really take it ill when I shut myself off for a couple of days due to my neurologic issues.
Don't reply to text messages and turn off your phone for a day or four and people immediately look at you as if you've just fingerbanged their cat.
What's next?
I just got accepted into one of Germany's best universities and I'm going to move to a lovely little city. I see this as a great chance to do another "reboot" and hopefully become a little more social.
There will be certainly be situations that force me socialize, which, at the same time, I'm looking forward to and about which I'm rather apprehensive.
I've made the resolution not to spend the entire day in libraries or my appartement anymore.
Wish me luck!
How can TL help me?
I'm sure many of you have been in similar positions, or even are still in 'em.
Any advice on how to socialize casually, how to easier relate to people or how to work on any of the many issues I mentioned would be greatly appreciated. If you're in the same position and have trouble yourself, do share!
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To socialize, you have to start with a basic opening and build order that is best suited for your playstyle. The key to executing your gameplan properly is to practice! Socializing isn't easy (I'm only low master/high diamond) so you need to stay on top of your mental check-list to make sure you are prioritizing your actions and executing them smoothly.
- Remember to scout people's facial expression early and often! Reading them can be difficult if you are denied scouting for a long period of time. If you can't scout, just be patient and play safe. Don't try to be too aggressive for no reason; wait until you find an opening.
- Watching replays can be very educational to your learning process. Having a friend hide in the bushes and record your social interactions will help tremendously. That way you can go back and look at your play again, and ask yourself "How can I do this better?" or you can post the replay on TL (recommended) so gosu players can have a look at it.
- If you aren't sure where to focus your actions per minute, make you are always macroing properly. Having a good supply of raw words (even tier 1 vocab) is better than silence. Make sure you are always making production when your money is high or expanding, make harvesters, construct additional pylons, et cetera. Sometimes simply having more "stuff" will mean the difference between walking away with a win and walking away with a loss.
gl hf!
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You are over thinking. Forget about the word socialize, its stupid. Shit will take care of itself. Good luck
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On March 17 2013 06:00 Fattah wrote:
You are over thinking. Forget about the word socialize, its stupid. Shit will take care of itself. Good luck
That didn't work out too well for the last... let me think... 25 years of my life. 
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One thing that can help is taking a customer-facing job in a service industry. Work in a cafe, at a market, at a local shop and you'll have people coming up to you all day. There's already a script to follow if you can't improvise, but there are plenty of opportunities to engage socially by treating your customers well. You'll also build up material for later conversations, with co-workers or friends outside of work, "You won't believe what this person did this morning. . ." A little extra cash probably doesn't hurt either if you're looking to try out various other social experiences.
Recreational sports leagues are another good way to get in touch with others. My friend's engagement has roots in a couple rec. frisbee leagues, and he's got a wide network of friends he met through practice and tournaments. Again, you're face to face for a reason beyond just "Socialize! Go!!" so it makes starting out easier. Also, providing you've picked well, you share at least one common interest with your teammates, probably more: the game itself, winning or at least playing up to your potential, improving fitness, meeting other people.
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Now that you are more healthy, and have picked up a racing cycle, join a cycling club. For real, get a cycling partner, join a club, profit. From there, especially at a Uni, join a ton of clubs. Find the ones you want and keep up with them, leave the others by the way side. Recreational sports are amazing, I'd steer clear of book clubs and such.
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On March 17 2013 07:24 docvoc wrote:
Now that you are more healthy, and have picked up a racing cycle, join a cycling club. For real, get a cycling partner, join a club, profit. From there, especially at a Uni, join a ton of clubs. Find the ones you want and keep up with them, leave the others by the way side. Recreational sports are amazing, I'd steer clear of book clubs and such.
All of it is good advice, but i think this is best advice. So much easier to begin talking about your new hobby and how you also play the guitar. But the best part of socializing isn't you talking, its the talking that happens between you and the other person/group  . In other words, the key to small talk is to talk as much as you listen.
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Ok, along with everything that's been said, join clubs etc, but don't feel like you've failed if you don't have close friends for a while. By that I mean, if you aren't hanging out with people at their place within 3-4 months of club socializing (biking, soccer, volunteering etc) it's no big deal. Sometimes the whole group doesn't have anyone taking the initiative to build relationships and it just needs a kick start.
Definitely DON'T believe shit will take care of itself. That's horrible advice that sounds like it's coming from a female worldview. If you're female, yeah shit will take care of itself because females aren't expected to take the initiative. Is that a sexist view? I hope not. But really, unless you take action opportunity will pass you by time and again. If you see something on a flyer that you might be interested in (anime club? sure!) then GO and MEET PEOPLE. The ACTION is the KEY. You don't go, nothing happens. You don't do shit, you don't get shit. Good luck!
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My best friend was a very quiet shy person and then when he started university he promised himself he would become a lot more social (he actually read books about it), so he started to get into exercising, body building, clubbing, he joined the volleyball team, he found a circle of friends from his study and from sports that he would always ask for dinner. He even took a year off from studying for some management position in the university student sport thingie. So he's super popular these days and he never has time for me anymore, so I have spoken to him twice in the last year or so. :p
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Hey there, I can see myself in some of the things you mentioned that I do not really have the courage to post here openly on TL.
There was already some good advise here except -off course- of the "shit will take care of itself" part, what I think is the worst mindset for a situation like yours.
Going to a cycling club if you like cycling or finding someone to play music with (which I personally found great and really easy to do from the social standpoint) obviously would let you meet people but I do not think that your problems lies in not knowing that.
What helped me meet people I have become really friends with was -as stupid as it sounds- moving in a student dorm (oder wie auch immer man ein Studentenwohnheim auf englisch nennt /sorry for the german, mods) with 24 people on one hallway I obviously didn't like them all but there was a group that was hanging out in the living room/kitchen and that I met when cooking/eating. For at least half a semester I didn't really talk a lot to them but finally there was some contact and it grew. Today (about 2 years after I moved in there) I do almost everything with them (one brought me to SC2) went to holidays with some of them and all that great stuff.
Well but not talking about me, how might that help you: you said you are going to move to another city and I don't know if you have any experience in flat-sharing at all and if you have if it was good but living together with people is one step that makes it really easy to get close contact to people.
And another thing that I don't know if it is your problem, but what I saw at myself is that I didn't grab opportunities to be social even when it was really easy. I still have problems going to a group of people just starting a conversation or just talking to a nice girl in a club (which I really rarely visit anyway) but I even avoided conversations when other people came towards me and were just really nice. I do not want to offend you but if that is part of your problem I think you really should kick your ass in that particular area. I sometimes catch me when I have the instinct to just get out of a conversation or group activity and actually it is not that hard to just do it and often it ends up to be way more fun than sitting in your own room. The problem is that unrealistic expectations however make hard to just do stuff.
You want to be more social, do social stuff, but do not expect from yourself that you be that super social guy from this second to another.
Maybe I am just writing about another problem than yours but to be more social it sometimes is a first good step just to not block off other people and if you like someone it is not a bad thing when they know that.
I am a student in Germany, too, and if you want to PM me in German that's totally fine with me.
I really hope none of the above was offensive for you since I know this is a sensitive topic and off course I hope there was something helpful in there if not then -well- thanks for the chance to write that off my chest
And if an easy SC2 win helps your mood I would gladly take a beating from a good TLer :D
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Ask people lots of questions. Everyone likes it when someone is interested in them. GL
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For me i honestly believe that you should find your own purpose. Once you have chosen your path, you will meet people, and people will follow you.
When i began dancing i met friends and they were fun. Then i started to venture into business and investing. I meet people there, and some became friends. So yeah, you kinda build a social life when you actually go out and do things.
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Like most people have said, all you have to do is find a group of people who enjoy the same things as you. From there on, you will be able to expand your social group easily =)
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TLADT24920 Posts
I think the best thing to do is find other people that share the same hobbies as you do. Join clubs, converse with these people, etc... this will allow you to learn how to small talk and you can slowly translate that with strangers. Start a small talk with a quick introduction then a question about the weather, how busy a store is etc... then just answer and ask follow up questions. If the person seems like they are bothered or aren't interested, how they reply and their body language is indicative of that. Really, you just have to force yourself to do this several times. Heck, just stand infront of a mirror and talk to it and practice, practice, practice! Imagine this is a SP game of SCII and you get achievement points for any small talk you do with longer small talks earning you more experience points lol. Aside from that, a job in customer service where customers will come to you and ask you where things are and you have to talk with colleagues(or just work cashier) will do wonders with your situation. Again, just saying 'hi' is a good start then once you feel it's more natural, start talking to the customers, usually talk like 'how are you?' etc... Just give it a try and keep at it and you'll see improvement! GL!
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Hey man! So far, there's been lots of good advice and I love the way that you take on "problems". Structured and clean. Kudos.
This is gonna be a lengthy post, but I'm a bit in the same situation so hear me out! I'll be mostly writing my own experiences and using this as an excuse to structure and plan my own methods of being king-of-social during my next stage of life. Which I will put in a spoiler 1 (just to minimize the wall of text).
I can imagine that being "social is equal to going to many social activities" might be a hard concept to understand. So I'll try to give some other useful advice. I'll write how I'm going to manage and CONTROLL my social life in my new environment in the end. Which I will put in a spoiler 2.
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+ Show Spoiler +I'm GENERALLY not that super-social guy that everyone knows, that guy that likes to party, talk with random people, taps a different chick every night, etc. In fact: I would classify myself as an introvert, BUT at the same time, I've been the super-social/popular guy in multiple stages of my life.
This might sound really strange, but being "really popular in general" can be quite simple and rewarding, yet difficult and unrewarding. It is simple because being popular in general simply means: "appeasing the crowd", and it can be difficult because it might contradict the nature of yourself.
What I mean with appeasing the crowd is to find out what the interests are of the general target-population and to become the packleader of that interest. To become the person that holds the banner. The banner that everyone follows. It can be difficult because that same interest might not be what you really are, but only what you perceive you want to be. Because let's face it: every person needs attention, and everyone perceives that being the center of attention is equivalent to high-level of happiness.
Being main-stream popular is not exactly the same as being king of social though. Being main-stream popular or king of social doesn't exactly mean you'll be more happy aswell. It all depends who you are as a person, what you want, and what fits you best.
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Just as you, I've moved from place to place many times, mostly in search of new experiences. One of my better (and more socially active) experiences has been during my university exchange. I wasn't particularly popular, but I had a group of 10-15 people with which I had fun on daily basis. For me it is a great collection of memories, I met some great people and had extreme fun for a certain span of time. Yet, I can't call any of those people my real or close friends. Nowadays I hardly talk to them, and "connections" simply waver when untouched.
On contrary to the experience of "somewhat populair": I've been the total opposite of populair during MOST of my highschool but still found myself a handful of people that I'm still very best friends with. People that would stick through tough times, people that would stick over the years, even if I don't see or speak with them for long periods of time.
There have been many different stages of my life where I've went from super-popular or super-social to awkward/shy/anti-social. Actually, I'm still figuring out what fits myself best as I just moved from Europe to Asia last week to start a new challenge.
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I don't claim to be king of social or popularity or that I understand the entirety of this concept. But, I do know FOR A FACT that I'm great at reading people and understanding situations, how to overcome problems and look for solutions.
I can happily say your doing it the right way. Analyzing, structuring, planning, and achieving your goal step-by-step is the way to fight yourself out of the situation your currently obviously unhappy with.
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+ Show Spoiler +Let's get on with the important part: Remember, You can become anyone you WANT to be, but that doesn't mean that person/idealogy is your nature. About me: I'm a person that's generally described as: shy, quiet, being in my own world (think much), introvert (don't like going out, dancing, bad with alcohol). New Environment: Asia, can't controll language 100%, no friends at start, few friends of parents to help me out, Going to a course to study the language in morning. Goal: Besides my true intentions of being here, I obviously need to have fun and make friends + connections. I don't want to be extremely busy with socializing, nor do I want to be alone during a period and environment where I have very few ppl to rely on. I'll settle on being "seen" and "known" by >50% of people of my course (few hundred ppl in my foreigners language university), be actively part of a small group (10-20ppl), and have a select few of those as close friends on daily basis within a time-span of 1year. How: 1. Generally be open as a person. Think: bodylanguage (e.g Don't look down all the time, don't cross arms, etc) 2. Introduce myself to everyone that seem to catch eye of me and leave an impression 3. Have small talk to random ppl in right situations. (e.g. im bored, see some girl thats alone) 4. Never say no if someone ask you out. You always need a valid excuse! 5. Ask other people out if I have nothing to do. 6. Always join activities of interest in case I have time. 7. Dress well, look healthy and neat 99% of time. 8-100. Ask me.. It's easier said than done. But you rly have nothing to lose. Im only gonna be here a year and Im not even here to really socialize. I need new ppl around me, and honestly, I don't give a shit about what ppl think about me when I screw up a situation, and just try to have fun during my stay. So far Ive been here a week. Been going out 7/7 days. Morning till evening always planned full and just getting started .
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"If you're not going to do it now, then when? Probably never."
I keep reminding myself that when I'm afraid to take risks. Socializing to me is making small talk as much as you can. You can read many books about it and how to do it. It sounds trivial but being able to talk about essentially nothing is a good skill to have. No it may not interest you on a deeper level initially but thats how you meet and evetually get to know people. I look at most of my friends and if I hadn't made small talk then I wouldn't even have the opportunity to establish a deeper relationship.
Nothing lost, nothing gained.
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Thank you guys so much for all the positive messages and great ideas.
I will pick out the three I found most helpful:
1. Joining a sportsclub
Possibly the number one on my list. In my teens I did Taekwondo (soft martial arts) and I always regretted not getting the black belt. I will definitely be on the lookout for a good dojo in my new hometown.
2. Getting a small job that foces social contact
This is kind of a two birds, one stone kind of idea and I really like it.
Getting out of my comfort zone could really help me in the long run and I think I'll go for it.
The money earned is obviously a nice little added bonus!
3. Moving into a student dorm thingy (Studentenwohnheim, I also have no idea what's the appropriate English term)
Same as 2., as it saves a shitload of money and forces me to get out my comfort-zone even further.
Great idea that could come with a lot of opportunities for socializing. I'm still apprehensive about sharing my bathroom and kitchen, but again, I need to get out of my comfort-zone.
I will write a little more later on and react to the great replies I have ignored so far.
Cheers again, much much appreciated!
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It's two months later, I have followed some of your advice and try to realize the rest.
So here's what I did:
1. Get a shared flat in a student house
Done, been living here for about a month now and sharing my flat with another dude and two girls, all students.
It's been quite challenging, sometimes I feel like I live at a busy train station because there's always somebody here.
2. Work for a charitable cause
Done, I found a job delivering food to homeless people, underprivileged kids etc, so I'm not surrounded by students 24/7.
3. Join a sports club
Done, though the course hasn't started yet, so I have no experience.
4. Talk to random people randomly
I never thought this advice would be of any use at all to me, but forcing myself to do this helps a ton. Examples:
+ Show Spoiler +For instance, I inquired: "Nice view from up there?" to a dude in my building who pushed the button for the highest floor in the elevator. We actually had a pleasant 30 second conversation and I felt good about being such a daredevil all day. Another example: I said "Sometimes I think it's a pity that etiquette doesn't permit talking to strangers on a bus." to a girl who sat next to me on, you guessed it, the bus, which resulted in a nice chat for the duration of the bus ride. Neat.
It obviously helps living in one of the loveliest cities Germany has to offer and having some really friendly people around me during my courses and lectures, so without these pleasant outside influences thing mightn't go so well, but all in all I'm quite satisfied with the progress so far.
I'm still mostly keeping my head down and keep to myself, but at least I had some minor measures of "success" on my ongoing quest for, well, something.
Your advice has been unexpectedly helpful and I wanted to say once more how much I appreciate it!
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EPT
