Mindslave wrote:
So you say you are almost there? Where are you at the moment? I'm assuming you mean communicating in person. Communicating over mediums such as the Internet, text message, and other informal means of communication is always difficult, because they are extensions of communication, not primary means of communication. If that becomes the norm (which it has) then people will lost the ability to communicate in a natural way (which is happening and is only getting worse)
There was a time where I was "almost there", and eventually I got "there", but I've since regressed. I can't speak for you, but for me the thing that was holding me back was that I didn't have a direction for my life. When I got a direction for my life (a career path) socializing became 10 times easier for me, because up until that point I had spent nearly all my time learning about socializing, but because it was my primary focus, I couldn't take the final step. It's sort of how if you throw a baseball at FULL STRENGTH, it won't go as fast as if you relax and throw it as hard as you can without trying to dislocate your shoulder, and it also won't go as smooth. Getting too emotionally involved in something clouds judgment, and with something like communication, which is all about emotion, it's imperative that it is driven on instinct, not on trying to establish a connection. Doing, not trying. When I'm playing tennis, I play well when I just hit the ball, and I'm hitting the ball and playing the game, not playing my opponent and what I think he is going to do, because I can't control my opponent, I can only control the ball. This is hard for me to do consistently. I no longer have a career path or a direction for my life, and so my social skills have regressed by quite a bit. The best part is that I know what to do at this point, I just don't know how to handle it because there are too many things I feel I have to worry about. When my life was in order, and I was organized, socializing was much easier and much simpler, and not scary, because I didn't have a stake in the outcome.
What I mean by that I'm almost there...is that firstly I'm able to have relationships, which is much easier than being able to make friends anyway, because most guys (in my experience - no I'm not saying ALL of them) have only wanted to know me for a potential relationship, and if the answer is a no, they usually stop being 'friends'. Secondly I have confidence and have developed the ability not to care, which can be powerful. My problem is stopping my mind from thinking all over the place when answering people. I have to shut down the chatter and all of the solutions I think up of on the same subject, and try to adjust quickly to the sudden topic change. I don't know if I'll ever be able to change the way I think, so someone advised me to adapt. How do you adapt, exactly?
Developing the confidence and the ability not to care has been powerful, but still hasn't got rid of OCD. I still have a COMPLETE lack of motivation to do anything. I hardly have any hobbies, and life is boring. I've never been someone to go out there and get something.
I suppose compared with when I was a teenager (I used to go up to people and ask, "Will you be my friend?") I've come very, very far. But I'm still not really there - I can come across as normal, but I can't keep up with conversation in a group of people my age. They talk too fast and jump from one new topic to another.
It's interesting that a career helped you, and makes sense. One reason I decided to do accounting was because I realised in the big a/c firms, there were a lot of middle class people. I'm not saying all, but a lot of them have manners and *can be* more accepting and less likely to swear in your face or react aggressively if you do something wrong. However, that IS a BIG generalisation and of course whatever class of person people will still judge and there'll be a***holes.
28 Aug 2011, 3:32 am
