It’s easy to fall into the background of life, or take a seat on the sidelines when your brain is a constant jumble of anxiety filled “what if’s”. Your friends try and help by insisting that “being yourself” will be enough to get others to like you, but you all know that in 2018 that’s just not true. No one is going out of their way to get to know each other, especially if both of you are too shy.
Here are my tips from one self-diagnosed socially awkward adult to the next on how to fake it til you make it.
1. Smile first at everyone first
With anxiety comes an awful lot of thinking. What I’ve learned from observations of friends is that thinking face can often come off to the people who don’t know you as the resting bitch face. Unfortunately this makes you unapproachable or appears to be a unfriendly person, which is usually wrong. So to fix this, smile. Sometimes at work people will say hi to me first, catching me off guard from not expecting it. Therefore I still look like I am constipated and come off rude while trying to say hi and adjust.
Smiling at everyone when you first walk in in the morning and say hi to everyone you pass gets that awkward moment out of the way for you. It might be hard at first, but once you start that habit, it will become part of your daily routine. People will think you are in a good mood and happy to see them, in return making them happy and more likely to approach you throughout the day even if you resort back to your anxious thinking ways.
2. Eat alone
One of my biggest setbacks with big groups is the assumption that people won’t like me before I even open my mouth. I become quiet before I even try to say something because I have talked myself out of it. Eating alone is an idea I had and this is why I think it will work. Someone at the restaurant you pick will undoubtedly talk about you. “Why would they be here alone?” Or something to that nature.
You know you are being judged and you can’t do anything about it, there isn’t a good way to change their minds so you just have to continue on. This situation also makes you have to be the communicator. When you go out to eat with other people, it is easy to have one of the speak for you, ask for the check and make the little small talk. When you are stuck alone, it falls on you to talk to someone you don’t know even if to say you want another water.
3. Flow with it
Those are three of the hardest words for people with social anxiety to hear and follow. Usually when this advice is handed out to us, it’s from those we know and love who don’t experience it. They are the ones who go wherever they want knowing that they will be able to strike up a conversation and crack a joke without a problem.
My advice is from the standpoint from your side. When invited to a social event that resembles a party, it is the easiest time to clam up and keep to yourself. You don’t have to strike up a conversation with everyone there, but do your best to flow with the vibe of the group. If people are talking in a group and you are there, give it a shot and add in a word or two.
What’s the worst that could happen? They ignore you like they were moments before? If so stay and listen for at least five minutes. Bring a game and ask people if they want to join in in playing it, it’s a great way to open up and talk to people without figuring out how to do the small talk mambo. If all else fails, show up for a few hours, place yourself in the same room as the majority of the people, try not to go to the other room where the books and one television is to hide. Make yourself uncomfortable and when you cannot take it anymore, leave.
At times it might feel like you are the only one out there feeling like you don’t fit in, or that the idea of a social gathering makes you sweat more than others. Trust and believe that there are plenty out there just like us, just trying to make it through without falling on our faces but faking it. So join in!
By Kara Anne