Any social life success stories?

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I just thought of posting this to see if anyone here has gone from at first socially awkward, very quiet, having no social life, little or no friends, to having a social life, having friends, and being socially normal?

If so when did you start becoming more social, making/having friends, and not awkward?

For me I have had some social successes with making friends, but in other areas say school or work I still feel socially awkward and/or anxious to some degree. In the past for example, I have had great bosses and they have told me you are great, and blah, blah. Then at another job, the boss is a total jerk. So it comes in waves for me and I will have great friends, but a poor boss. Or I may feel awkward and have few friends and a great boss, etc, etc.

I'm slowly...s l o w l y...coming out of my shell. In a few months I'll have no choice because I'll be out there promoting my first book. I wish I could just sit back at home and wait for the royalty checks to come in. Unfortunately, I have to hit the bricks. Silly me, wanting to be a writer.

My new goal in social situations is to limit myself to two- or three-sentence replies. When I try too hard to be interactive I often end up delivering a monologue.

My son has struggled socially all of his life and he is 12 years old. This year, however, he has earned some friends. He still struggles with certain social rules but, listening to him interact with his buddy (over at our house!! !) he seems to be doing quite well. He is able to carry on a conversation even though he may not know what it's about. I was eavesdropping on him last night and I couldn't help but smile. He sure has come a long way! Lets hope, next year, when he enters high school, he'll keep up with this trend of development. Boy, could he really use a long term friend!! ! .. and let it be a friend with good morals.

Mine is an total fiasco thanks to the "Mass!"

I used to be a very quiet person in my early teens if I wasn't in the company of family or very close friends, but over the years in my late teens it has gotten significantly better for me when socializing, I also do a few clubs at my HS and am president of one. One thing that I've noticed is that I can socialize very well with adults, but not with my peers unless it is a structured conversation (relating to topic xyz), or if they're a close friend.

I'm not sure if this is a success story exactly, but my social abilities have varied over the years. As a kid I had no skills, and was bullied badly in school. I was kind of ok with it because I didn't know anything else. Then I hit puberty and suddenly boys that had previously bullied me wanted to go out on dates with me. I couldn't handle the change, and withdrew completely forcing my parents to homeschool me.

I was totally alone for most of my teen years. Around 18 I decided to try socializing. I decided to try to look attractive since it seemed like the only time people were nice to me was because they liked how I looked. I didn't really know how to dress "like a girl" or how to wear make up, but I liked video games and anime so I tried to copy those characters. In hindsight I probably dressed in far too revealing a manner (shiny, tight, red, black, or blue vinyl, etc.), but it worked. Men were very nice to me. I wanted to talk to people that didn't fit in with mainstream society either, so I looked for social groups locally that seemed more accepting. I found a "goth" club and a coffee shop where people hung out at. Most of the people liked things like computers, science fiction, obscure movies and music, etc. I had a hard time talking to people at first, but as long as I was attractive people tended to be nice to me. Also they tended to drink, and then they wouldn't notice when I said stupid things or missed jokes, etc.

I started dating people, but I had a hard time making things work past about 6 months. I felt like I had to create a fake personality, and it would run out of steam by then. I really wish I'd not bothered to do that. I should have just been myself and risked rejection from the beginning instead of getting invested in the relationship first. Anyway, after about the 10th person I met someone like me, and we've been married almost 7 years now.

I made a couple really good friends at work that seemed very cut off from society as well. Even when single I found couples made better friends. I haven't seen them for a while now because I have kids and all my social energy is gone. I'm happy just hanging out with my husband though. I don't really need more people.

I weigh a little more now than I did before since having kids, and it's destroyed my social sense of self worth. I realize now that hiding behind my physical appearance socially was not the best plan.

So, to sum things up, I never got "good" at socializing, but I did find that if I found the right people and looked nice I could have lots of shallow friendships and date freely. I found a life partner by accident or luck, and a few good friends the same way. I don't think physical appearance was as important to everyone else as it was to me outside of my head, but it gave me a social buffer and confidence. Success? Probably not, lol.

I don't know if is it just me or do girls/women in general have it easier when it comes to socializing, not become socially awkward, have a social life, and make friends?

I think that from a sociological perspective it's generally accepted for girls/women to be shy. Whereas for guys society generally expects them to not be shy.