HealthyGamerGG - I Don't Speak Unless Spoken To

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Today Doctor K talks about how to start conversations, how to make friends, how to talk to strangers, how to talk to people, and more Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some people don't understand this because their comforts, breaking out of their comfort zone is not that hard. Whereas for some of us, breaking out of our comfort zone is very hard. It's like, I have a phobia of snakes. Great, we're going to have you swimming in a pit of snakes in three months. Right? They're like, oh, I dug deep and I overcame. I went to a job interview. I did it. And then what happens the next day? Does the anxiety go away? No, it comes roaring back. The reason that you think other people are going to be inconvenienced by you comes from you. It doesn't come from them. But what's the one thing that you haven't accounted for is your own mind and how it's going to like wreck you if you try?

So I don't talk unless people talk to me. How do I change that? I started college last week. It's a course I enjoy in the classes and professors are fun. For a while now, I was fantasizing about going back to college, so I'd finally break the cycle of being 24-7 stuck at home with no human contact. And here I am, and I'm underwhelmed. I dropped out of my previous course because of depression and mostly because I had no contact

with anyone there. And I fear I'm headed to the same route now. I finally understand the problem, though, not at its root. I do not engage in any interaction with anyone unless the person does at first. I simply remain quiet, completely silent. Everyone in the class seems to be getting along and I feel behind. I'm unable to start a conversation or let go of my inner voice that always prevents me saying anything because it might look stupid. I know I need to break through the comfort zone,

but I can't. It just does not apply in practice. I simply cannot enjoy talking to people, let alone when we don't know each other yet. I always feel like I'm bothering them when most are already in groups and I'm just there floating around. This is more of a vent than anything. So this is a fantastic post. My heart goes out to this person. So this is the challenge is that we know that we're supposed to like engage with people right and we even want to engage with people we feel lonely we feel isolated we know that like human contact is important and we also sort of hear about people like breaking out of their comfort zone right so we sort of have this idea that like okay like i need to just get over this anxiety or i just need to get over myself and i just need to

step outside of my comfort zone i need to put myself out there right we sit like we hear things like this people who don't suffer from these kinds of things will say things like this to us. Let's say, just put yourself out there, bro, girl. Just put yourself out there. Right? But the problem is that like we can't. Because like that solution works for that person because the hump that they have to get over is a lot smaller than the hump that we have to get over. Or what we end up concluding is that the hump is the same, but I'm just so much, you know, my ability to climb is so much lower that I can't do it and then I start to feel bad about myself, right? So this is a really common problem where people like are kind of stuck in this wanting a relationship,

but sort of passively waiting for it to show up. And even then strategically, you know it's the wrong idea, like you know that you should be putting yourself out there, but you can't really bring yourself to do that. So what I'd love to do today is walk through a couple of things with you all, okay? the first is what the hell is going on in your mind? Like how does this work, right? What happens in our mind? Why does our mind prevent us? Because that's actually what it's doing, right? Because you want to make connections with other people. Why does our mind prevent us from reaching out to other people speaking up? What are some of the mechanisms that go on in the mind that keep us from engaging with other people? How can we understand those? And then we're also going to introduce you to a couple of like cognitive things that you, you can do, this sort of draws on basically exposure therapy, to sort of think a little bit about what that hump is and how you can reduce that hump to position yourself to re-engage with people socially. Okay. So we're going to start by understanding, okay, what's going on in the mind?

So the first thing that you all have to understand is that when we are inexperienced with something, our mind is going to fill it in with possibilities. And because the mind fills it in with possibilities and has no experience, it has no way of assigning probability to the possibility. So if I've never, you know, gone swimming before, my mind is naturally going to fill it in with like all kinds of stuff could happen if I go swimming. And generally speaking, if we have an anxious temperament, depending on what kind of some scars we have, depending on our five factor personality level, like if we're high on neuroticism, the things that my mind tends to fill it in with tend to be negative, right? Because that's how the mind works. So our brain has evolved to sort of assume the

worst. They're like safe things, which we all do. And then they're like things that we tend to not do too much. So if we look at people who like are explorers, right? Explorers are like the mid, like the smaller section of our population. Most of the people that have existed didn't board a boat and just see what's out there. So generally speaking, exploration is discouraged in some ways by the mind, unless it's a very safe way to do it. And generally speaking, when there's an unknown, our mind fills it in with the most negative possibilities. And why is that? It's to try to protect us, right? Because if we don't know what's going to happen, think about all the things that are going to go wrong, we know if we don't talk to anyone, like, sure, we're going to be kind of miserable,

but like at least we'll be safe. And what the mind prioritizes more than anything else, and I think this is evolutionary as well, is safety, right? So it's like the body, the body, the brain, the mind prioritizes safety. This is why, for example, if you look at your favorite restaurant, so let's say you go to a restaurant and you eat there 20 times and you love the food every single time. If you get food sickness or food poisoning once, the 21st time you go out to eat, you get food poisoning like, what's going to happen? You're not going to want to eat there again, right? So our brain is actually biased. It doesn't say, oh, by the way, we're going to get food poisoning 5% of the time. Like, it doesn't make a probabilistic calculation. That's not how the mind

works. The mind works by like single things that are very negative have a larger weight in our experience and our behavioral calculations than all of the positive stuff. Right. So another simple way to think about it is let's say I've been married for 20 years and I found out my partner has been having an affair for the last six months. That's the kind of thing where it's like you can still have 20 years of good marriage and if you discover an affair that's been lasting for six months, it kind of wipes away all the all the good with a couple of bad things or maybe not a couple. I'm not saying that that's necessarily a bad thing. I'm not trying to place a value judgment.

I'm simply pointing out that there's a mechanism of mind that, like, one bad experience is way stronger than like a pile of good experiences. So that's a bias that our brain has. So when we get socially kind of anxious, we don't talk to anyone. That tends to be because our mind is imagining all this bad stuff. So let's take a quick look at this post, right? So let's look at this. So breaking the cycle because I have no contact with anyone, I fear I'm headed down the same route.

Everyone in class seems to be getting along and I feel behind, right? So that's where we start to think like, oh my God, I'm kind of like a loser. Like we start to have negative identity thoughts about ourselves. My inner voice that always prevents me from saying anything because it might look stupid. There it is, right? So what is that inner voice actually telling you? The inner voice is trying to protect you. It's saying, hey, this is.

unsafe, don't do it. I know I need to break through the comfort zone, but I can't. It's not a comfort zone, it's safety zone. And I cannot, it doesn't apply in practice. I always feel like I'm bothering them most when most groups are already there and I'm just floating around, right? So all of these negative thoughts kind of come up and they start to get in the way of us actually doing things. So let's take a quick look at how we sort of tackle this problem. Okay. So can't initiate conversation. So here's you. Here's the activation energy to initiate a conversation.

Okay. That looks to make it straighter. I'm at an angle. Oh, no. Okay. So here's the activation energy. So in order to engage in something, for those of you all that are familiar with like chemical reactions and stuff, there's this idea of an activation energy, right?

and actually if we want to be legitimate around chemical stuff, this is actually what the curve should look like, right? So we end up, we start here and we end up lower. So moving from a high energy state to a low energy state. So this is the gap that we have to overcome in order to initiate the behavior. So let's try to understand what that gap is. So for our friends who say, oh, just put yourself out there, their gap is going to be like smaller. Okay, so like when they say, oh, like, just put yourself out there, their gap is like this, right? That's why it feels easy to them.

And they're like, oh, like, sure, there's like, there's some activation energy. I know exactly what you're talking about. There's an activation energy for me, too. You just have to get over it. But what we face and what they face is a little bit different. So let's try to understand what are the components of this hump that we have to go over, okay? So even if we look back at our post, what we're going to sort of find is that there are particular, there's a lack of experience. and in that lack of experience, we're going to have doomsday scenarios, right?

And this, in turn, makes us want to be safe. So it's actually a feeling of safety here. Okay? Next thing to kind of consider is there's an identity component, right? Other people are social. But when we start to say things like fallen behind, if you all have been paying attention to our content and watching and stuff like that, you recognize that this is a comparison. a comparison, a comparison is born of the ego or the Ahamgar, and this in turn is an identity issue. Do you all see that?

So it's like you can chain this stuff very easily, right? And so then there are also like some of these doomsday scenarios, like we'll talk kind of more specifically here, but there's this idea that I'm bothering people. There's also the concern that I'll look like an idiot. So how do we overcome this stuff, right? So there are a couple of different things that we can do to lower this activation energy. The first thing is that as we sort of deal with some of these things, as we address these issues, it should lower the activation energy.

So even in something like exposure therapy, so let's talk about exposure therapy. For a second. What's the principle behind exposure therapy? Okay. So the principle behind exposure therapy is that what we want to do is like give you more data points. So let's say that I have one data. point. I eat at a restaurant once and I get sick. Right. I just have one data point and that data point is sickness. And therefore, I'm not going to engage in the behavior because, like, I had a really bad

experience, right? So let's say, let's use a kind of a better example. So let's talk about exposure therapy of like a phobia of, let's say, dogs. Okay? So I was bitten by a dog when I was a kid and I got terrified. And so now I'm scared of dogs. So any time that we have a hypothetical encounter with a dog, what our safety circuit fills it in with is negative possibilities. All we have is these negative possibilities. And really all we have is, let's call it, one actual negative experience. So this is our negative experience, okay?

But then we have all these negative possibilities that we're kind of like filling it in with. So the goal of exposure therapy is to try to have these kind of neutral sort of experiences that we're going to fill it in with. And then what happens is like the balance will start to change, right? It won't be all negative. So the way that exposure therapy will work is what we're going to want to do is we're going to sort of think about a dog. And this works physiologically, okay? So when I think about a dog, when someone, when a patient is sitting in my office and I tell them, think about a dog, what starts to happen? They have a sympathetic nervous system reaction. So what does this mean? This means adrenaline. increased heart rate, increased blood pressure,

diapheresis, sweating, tachypnea. That's elevated respiratory rate, hyperventilation. We have all these kinds of physiologic things. And then what happens to the brain gets this exposure of thinking about a dog, has this physiological reaction, and then nothing happens. So the brain is like, I thought we were in danger, okay, so there's no reinforcement of the danger. And then when they come back next week, we're going to think about the dog again.

Okay? We're just thinking about the dog. But this time, there's a little bit less sympathetic reaction. Because we thought about the dog and nothing bad happens. So our body's like, okay, not that big of a deal. Maybe I don't need to freak out as much. Then what we're going to do is we're going to elevate the exposure. Then we're going to look at pictures of dogs.

And now instead of just thought, what we're adding is actually like a sensory organ sort of activation. and then we're going to go sit on a park bench or maybe go sit inside a coffee shop that'll probably be safer look outside at dogs playing but there's a wall of glass right and then so what happens is like this is going to increase our sympathetic nervous system

right so we're going to get that reaction and then like the more we sort of what we're gradually going to do is then we're going to go sit on a park bench and then that person like the patient is going to have a rapid heart rate they're going to be like freaking out right they're outside of their comfort zone so like what we gradually do is we get like closer and closer to like encountering a dog,

but we do it sort of in a safe manner. Okay. So and then what happens is like remember that the mind has no experience or it has a limited experience. And so by adding a lot of other data points that are benign, we make it easier to engage in the task. Does that make sense? Can you do this with women? Absolutely you can do this with women. Okay.

we're going to talk about, I mean, I hope that's okay to say. What I mean by that, I don't know if you're a man or a woman, but you can do this with social interactions. Let's call it that way. Let's say that, okay? So let's talk a little bit about how to actually do this. So the goal here is that we want to have an increase in benign, so. social interactions.

So there are four things that we can do, four things that we can focus on to make it easy, okay? I may have opened a can of worms by answering a question from chat, but we'll get to that in a second, okay? I'll try to fix that and hopefully not offend people. So let's kind of focus on the core principles. So increase in benign social interactions, that's our goal.

So what we want to think about, first of all, is what will the social interaction be? Okay, we want to lay that out. And that's usually where people stop, right? So when people are like, oh, I just need to do this. So they just think about the action. And then they stop there. They don't explore any of the resistance that their mind will come across.

The second thing that we need to look at is self-image. What will people think? So I would recommend concretely asking yourself. So let's start small, right? So what we're going to do is say hello to the person next to you in class, next to you. And then we have to get more specific than this because what does hello mean? Right. So when I'm actually working with patients, what we need to do is be concrete.

So what we're going to say is, hey, how are you today? That's what we're actually going to say. So what feels natural. So think through actually what you're going to say. Is it going to be hello? Or is it going to be hello? Right? So is it going to be an elder school's NPC? Or is it going to be, hey, how are you today? You know, like, what are you actually going to say? What feels comfortable? So you have to think through that a little bit.

And even as you're thinking through it, what are you going to get? You're going to get a sympathetic reaction. Okay. Or you could say how, howdy? Hello, citizen. Have you heard of the Thalmore? The glory of the Thalmore? Is that? Hello, traveler. right? So then, so don't say Zug-Zug because we're going to get into problems with self-image. So then you've got to think a little bit about how are they going to perceive you if you say, hey, how you do it? Because what happens is in the absence of this structured, cognitive exploration, your mind is going to fill it in with like random negative things. They're going to think I'm trying,

they're going to think I'm a complete creep. No, they're not, right? So if you really like think about it logically and you engage with your mind, you may feel that way. you may feel awkward, but what are they actually going to think? If you say, hey, how are you doing today? Right? So think through it. Graple with it. And this is where some ego stuff is going to come up.

So like, how are they going to think about you? And then think, just think through that a little bit. So your mind may start with saying they're going to think you're a complete idiot. And then just sort of question that and be like, ask yourself, if someone walked up to me and said, hey, how are you doing today? You know, and I was sitting next to them. Maybe if they're walked up to me on the street, it would be weird. But if they're sitting next to me and they said, hey, how are you doing today? Like, does that really bother me? No, like, it doesn't really bother me.

So you think through that. Next thing that we want to do is think through the consequences of taking action. So what is actually going to happen? So we want to think about what the interaction is going to be. We want to think about, you know, what people are going, what, how will people view me? So you want to think through self-image. And then you want to think about what are the actual consequences? Like, what are people going to do if I say, hey, how are people? how are you today? And it's not going to be like, oh, they're going to stop showing up at class because I said hello to them.

Like, that's not going to happen, right? Whereas in a non-structured cognitive way, if you let your mind run wild, it'll actually think thoughts like that, right? It'll think like, oh, they're going to feel so inconvenienced by me. But if we really think about it, the reason that you think other people are going to be inconvenienced by you comes from you. It doesn't come from them, right? It comes from your own idea.

your self-image that you are a burden to other people. So that's where the ego component comes in. So think through the actual consequence. Then what we want to do is anticipate internal challenges. So if I were to stop there and say, go say hi to someone the next time you're in class. Not good enough. Because you've thought through all this stuff, right? But what's the one thing?

that you haven't accounted for is your own mind and how it's going to, like, wreck you if you try. So what is my mind going to do? This is the next very important question you need to ask yourself, right? What is going to happen? Okay, I'm going to feel sweaty, right? I'm going to feel awkward. I'm going to feel bothersome. And then kind of think through a little bit, like, okay, what could I say or what could I do that would make me feel less of these things? Even if I felt this way, what could I get away with, right? What could I convince myself or push myself to do? Because what you may discover is that, you know, like something like this is actually

is going to make you feel so awkward and so uncomfortable that, you know, like, it's too much to handle. So then maybe what you need to do is like downplay, like what you kind of do. So maybe the, you know, there are all kinds of modifications you can make. So you have to remember that like instead of trying to overcome yourself, so this is what tends to happen is we try to overcome. ourselves. And then we create internal conflict in the mind. When we create internal conflict in the mind, that does not increase our relaxation. It increases tension in the mind, ramps up our internal

energy. And the more that our energy is ramped up and the less relaxed we are, the more it boosts our anxiety. So if you all have seen Dr. K's guide to anxiety, you sort of know this with rebound anxiety, which is like this problem where like people run into this issue where they overcome their anxiety. They're like, oh, I like dug deep and I overcame. I went to a job interview. I did it. And then what happens the next day?

Does the anxiety go away? No, it comes roaring back. Right? So what you have to do is work with yourself instead of trying to overcome yourself. Because the part of you that feels unsafe is going to come roaring back. Okay? You can sort of bludgeon it into submission with enough time. So if you create enough experience, that can get better.

But generally speaking, what we want to do is work with ourselves, right? So if there's a part of you that's like, yeah, that's like, that's too much. I can't handle that. Then be like, okay, so what can I handle? So maybe this is something as simple as like sit in the same chair twice with someone else, the same person sitting next to you. So sit next to this person like three days in row. You're not sitting next to the person.

You're just sitting in the same chair. Because in my head and my anxious head, I'm so afraid that people are going to think that I'm trying to sit next to them that I keep on moving around. Right? I create all of these ways in my head that I inconvenience the rest of the world. And then what I try to do is like stop inconveniencing the rest of the world in my head. So I start sitting in a thousand different places. And then I'm sort of doing everyone a favor by like not sitting next to them.

Right. So you need to think through your own internal challenges that are going to arise and prepare for them. once you do that, then you actually want to take the action, right? So this is where what I'd recommend is if you're really like in a school situation, it's not sufficient to sit, you know, to say hello or like that's not enough. Like you need to do more. And don't worry, it's not going to be bad. So what I recommend if you're kind of socially anxious is that you find other scenarios.

Because let's say that you have a class that's Monday, Wednesday, Friday. If you say hello on Monday and then on Tuesday you're just anxious all day, it's going to be harder to do it on Wednesday, where you say hello, and then you felt so awkward that you're anxious all day. And then on Friday, you manage to say hello, but your voice cracks, because you rile yourself up, and then you're traumatized going into the weekend, and then Monday rolls around, and yeah, we're done with that. Your mind is like, yeah, we're done with that.

So this is another common mistake that people make is that, like, they think, oh, I've tried this, I've tried this, I've tried this, it doesn't work, it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And they're not wrong, right? Like, they're not wrong. This is your experience. The question is, why is that your experience? The question is, how can you change it? So what I'd recommend if you've been socially isolated is that you ramp up your activity and you mortify people in different situations. So even on Monday, we're going to say, hey, how are you? But then on Monday afternoon, when we go to the grocery store, we're going to like make, like we're going to say thank you to the person, the cashier, right?

If the waiter, let's say you go out to eat with some of your close friends who you can socialize with, you're going to ask them, you know, what's good here? And then you're going to feel super awkward, right? What are the internal challenges? The waiter is like, oh, yeah, the sandwiches are really good here. But you don't want to eat a sandwich. Then what do you do? You're screwed because the waiter said the sandwiches are good and I'm not going to order

a sandwich. then why the hell did I even ask if I'm not going to follow their recommendation? So think about these things. Right? It's okay. Right? So it's okay. So like you're going to ask for the recommendation. And then if you really want to, oh, thanks for recommending.

I'm not feeling a sandwich today. So you're going to prepare. Okay, thanks for the recommendation, not really up my alley. Or if you want to go like, you know, super Chad mode, you can even say like, I know it's super bizarre. I asked you for a recommendation. Now I feel like an idiot ordering something else. You can even joke if you want to and go meta with them, right? Y'all get that?

Like, you just say, like, I've done that before because I feel like an idiot asking and then, you know, not ordering what they say. You know, and like, they don't care. Like, they're not going to lose sleep over it tonight. You may lose sleep over it tonight. But you can just offer a small explanation if you want to. You can say, like, oh, like, thanks for the recommendation. You know what? this salad sounds amazing.

I think I'm going to try that. You know, it's not that big of a deal. Feels like that big of a deal. So you need to think about multiple interactions. We want to actually kind of pace them up, right? So Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we're going to say hello to people that we sit next to. We may even ramp up a little bit.

We're going to say, hello, how are you? Friday, you can ask, oh, yeah, have you, like, tried the homework yet? Right? You can sort of ask that. One day you can... By the way, I never got a chance to introduce myself. Easy.

So this is another... There are techniques you can use. So I don't know if you all have ever gotten to this kind of social anxiety trap, which is that I've been making small talk with this person and, like, I don't know their name and they don't know my name. So now I don't know how to interact with them because I feel like I should know their name. And it's been two weeks. And now we're like, Gigi.

So then like, you're like, I don't know how to ask this person their name because... it's too late now. So I guess I'll go sit on the other side of the room and just, never speak to them again. Right? And so then, you know, you don't want to walk up to them and say like, hey, you're an NPC, so I don't know your name. No, you want to say, hey, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself.

Right? And you can say, didn't get a chance. And how are they going to feel when you say that? they're going to feel relieved because they don't know your name either because you'll never introduced yourselves you just started talking and they're like oh thank god because every week they're coming into the class they're like oh fuck that guy's going to sit next to me again and i don't remember his name i don't

remember his name i don't remember his name right like they're going to be relieved oh by the way i didn't get a chance to introduce myself or if i did introduce myself i'm sorry i didn't i didn't catch your name it slipped to my mind. Can you please remind me, what was your name again? Whatever feels comfortable. So I personally, I keep track of this kind of stuff. So I'll say, like, you know, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself.

Hi, my name is. And then you can kind of do that, right? And so if you have these other kinds of social interactions, remember what we're doing, here's our vacuum of experience, of human experience, that our social anxiety is filling in with doomsday scenarios. right? And so when we have a waiter conversation, it's over here. Not even conversation. We say hi to the waiter. We thank the cashier. We say hi to someone in class. You know, there are other things that you can just like whatever opportunities you have for brief social interactions.

Like very, very brief social interactions. Right. Like if you're waiting on the bus, you can just like nod to someone. Like don't, you know, don't make it weird gender wise. You can just like nod to someone. So like I'm a big fan of. the bronon, right? Depending on what you're into, you can be the down nod or the up nod. So it could be like a, you know, like I acknowledge you. I see you as a human and you're a good person. Right. And so that's kind of, you know, that may be a bit much for other people. But whatever you feel good with, cashiers, grocery stores, family members, you know, like, whatever you feel comfortable. with. And you want to try to pack in as much mild social interaction as you can within one week.

Okay? Like, don't just do like one thing every 48 hours. Like try to have small things with people who will never talk to each other. So they can't, because there's the thing. Oh my God. Like, you won't believe. The weirdest person talked to me at the bus stop. Oh, that guy's, I took a picture of him. He's in my class. Oh, and then the rest of the world is conspiring and talking about you behind your back about how socially awkward you are. And then they go to a party and their friend is the cashier from the grocery store, and their friend is also the, and his roommate is the waiter, and all four of them are going to talk. And they're going to realize, like, there's like, oh, man, I met the most awkward fucker.

This guy came to my restaurant today and asked me what was good. I told him a sandwich of this asshole ordered a salad. Here, I got a copy of the security footage, and we can compare to the picture of the guy that, like, that's not going to happen. Right? You'll get that? Like, it's just not going to happen. But that's what your mind does.

And why does it do that? It's because it's got nothing else to fill it in with. Y'all get that? Like there's none of this over here. It's all gone. So then what happens? What happens with social anxiety? This is what happens with social anxiety.

I don't know if you guys know this. This is what happens. Nightmare scenarios. And they're like, oh, like, oh my God. And then it becomes this whole big thing in your head. And then this is where the hump comes from. Right? So by having these mild social interactions, what tends to happen is this.

I mean, sorry, we reduce this. So what happens when we have mild, we break this up, right? Oh, like this gets kind of broken up. And the nightmare scenario kind of disappears. We lower the hump a little bit. We're going to prep for it cognitively. We're going to recognize, hey, this is going to be tough. It's going to be hard.

It's going to make me feel uncomfortable. I'm going to get all sweaty. That's okay. it's really not okay, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to do what I can manage, right? So I'm going to ask myself, okay, what can I manage? Right? And if you can't, if it's too terrifying to ask the waiter, what's good, you can say

when the waiter asks you at the end of your meal. They're like, how was everything? Oh, everything was fantastic. Thank you. You can say that. I think you can get away with that. Right? We're not going to get to like some of the harder stuff because then later on,

when Dr. K really wants to screw with his patient's who have social anxiety, not really, but it's part of the fun of working with people, right? And then it's like, next time you go to the restaurant and a waiter asks you, how was everything? Because they've done like step one, step two, step three, step four, step five, step six. And they're like, okay, I'm good at talking to people not. Great. So the next time you're unsatisfied with something at a restaurant, tell them when they ask you how it was everything. How was that?

Oh, everything was great. my fish was undercooked and in edible. Let them know. Right? Just let them know. It'd just be like, hey, I thought this is like, I thought it was light on the seasoning, to be honest. Oh, I'm so sorry about that. No, no big deal. You know, maybe you try it, you know? You don't have to say it was horrible. Because oftentimes, like, restaurants and waiters and chefs and line cooks appreciate feedback, right? They want to know if they're like doing something wrong. Instead, they just keep on getting, you know, three-star reviews on Google or Yelp. And they're like, they're just forking over money to Yelp, I suppose. Try to fix the problem. Okay. So does that make sense? So really, really common.

So let's kind of summarize. So we run into this scenario where we don't know how to talk to people unless they talk to us. And this is where, like, our friends who are more socially comfortable than we are will say, get out of your comfort zone, right? I need to break through the comfort zone, but I can't. And why is that? It's harder than it appears to be. So some people don't understand this because their comfort zone is not that hard. Whereas for some of us, breaking out of our comfort zone is very hard. And so what are the factors that go into that? The first is just a lack of experience. That the mind in order to keep us safe, populates our head with hypotheticals.

Okay? Second thing we have to watch out for, if we've been this way for a while, there may be identity related stuff going on. The Humgar may be active. We may be comparing ourselves to other people. It's so easy for other people. People, I am such a bother. Right?

So when your mind starts thinking that way, it's not that my conversation is boring. It's that I am boring. So there's a difference between like when you identify with something and like, you know, some attribute. It's like, I suck at dancing, whereas like, I am a bad person, right? There's a big difference between when we get identified, when we identify with something. And so then we have all these thoughts like, I'm bothering people. So if you want to deal with this, what you want to do is we're going to, like the general principle of exposure therapy is that we want to have a graduated exposure to things, which is terrifying. And there's nothing more terrifying to someone with a phobia

than exposure therapy. They're like, you've got to be frigging kidding me. Like, exposure therapy has such a PR problem. It's like, I have a phobia of snakes. Great, we're going to have you swimming in a pit of snakes in three months. Fantastic. And I wonder why people don't come back. Okay? So generally speaking, it's because we have all these hypotheticals and what we want to do is create safe situations

that create a physiologic response, which then we acclimatized to. So we want people in exposure therapy to feel safe the entire time. Okay? We don't want them out of there. say here's your comfort zone, here's the danger zone. We don't want to move you from here to here we want to move you here and then here and then here. And then the inevitability of moving over there is what terrifies people when it comes to exposure therapy. So you don't have to go all the way if you don't want to. Okay? So there are four things you can do to increase that burden, that activation

energy that you have to overcome. First is clearly define the interaction. Second is think about your self-image. Like how, what are people going to think about me if I actually actually. do this. And don't let that answer come up naturally in your mind. Like, it's not the first thing that your anxiety thinks of. Actually do, like, a calculated introspective exploration of if I sit next to someone and ask them how they're doing today, like, how are they actually going to think about it? So you can even restructure that thought. Think about the consequences of taking the action. What is actually going to happen? Is there going to be a party the next day where the waiter, you're the cashier, this person from my class,

and this person from my class's roommate, are all going to, like, talk about me behind my back. That's not going to happen, right? So, but think through it, engage with those thoughts. And then anticipate your internal challenges. Ask yourself, what can I get away with? What can I manage? Because you don't want to fight yourself, right?

It's like, what can you manage? And the cool thing is that when you manage it, then what you can also do, pro tip, good job, you? Strong work. Hey, I actually did it today. Like, I know it was terrifying. Then you're going to feel like an idiot, right?

Because, like, if you, like, said hello to someone in class, you can't give yourself a pat on the back because you've fallen behind. You're so socially inept that I can't, giving yourself a pat on the back for saying good job for saying hello to someone. That's pathetic. So watch out for that thought, right? That's your ego as well. So you should give yourself a pat on the back. It's not easy to do. notice your ego.

Anticipate the internal challenge, right? Be prepared for that voice that says, oh, that was so pathetic. You had to work yourself up just to say hello. You're like, yeah, like it's hard for me. Like, chill, bro. We did it. Right?

Like, we moved one step forward. So you can reframe that a little bit, too. Next tip to remember is that, generally speaking, when people are trying to, like, socially integrate, they'll pick one thing, space it out over a long period of time. Like, I'm going to say hello.

Hello on Monday. Hello on Wednesday and hello on Friday. You need to pick it up a little bit, right? So you can do more things that are less mortifying. So like do a couple of different things so that you get used to more social interactions. And then watch out for the nightmare scenario, right? Because that's what your mind is going to do. And if you do these kinds of things, hopefully you can start engaging with people.

Remember to go slow. remember not to like, it doesn't matter, like, don't judge your, I mean, I say don't judge yourself. Your mind will try to judge you. Just acknowledge that. Say like, you know, hey, like everyone's on their own road. We all start from where we are. And like whether other people are further ahead or behind or whatever, like that's irrelevant. I am where I am. Okay. And just take it slow. Questions. So this is a great question. Can you help me? I'm too suss because I think my girlfriend might just be too beautiful to be with me. So that can be confusing. it's something I understand really well because I too thought my wife was too attractive to be with me.

And that's where like instead of assuming, so this is the interesting thing, if you think your partner is too attractive to be with you, this is where, you know, you can assume that that's sort of true, or you can recognize that your value is greater than what you think, right? Possible. How to continue from hello? You don't continue at the beginning. Okay? So like, you don't have to continue after the hello. You can just say hello and just stop it. And they're like, but that's awkward because I'm not saying anything. Well, it's like, well, there's another human being involved too. So here's the other thing. If you're socially anxious, the other thing you really, really need to remember is that you can't carry the whole fucking conversation, nor should you try to carry the whole conversation. When you try to carry the whole conversation, when you think to yourself, first I'm going to say hello, then I'm going to say this. Then I'm going to say this. If that doesn't work, I'm going to say this. If that doesn't work, I'm going to say this. If that doesn't work, I'm going to say is that's going to lead to a terrible social interaction. That terrible social interaction is going to make you feel more socially anxious going forward. Don't carry the whole conversation.

Don't map everything out. There's another human being involved. Let them carry it. Hello. Don't say anything else. Don't go to Plan B if that's the reaction you get. They say, hey, how are you? So if they say, hey, how are you?

You can say, I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing great. Cool. Enough for today. right next day you go in something man how's your day going

up non got it dude like let's see up nod what the fuck is it this guy do it so don't carry the whole conversation that's where a lot of socially anxious people like get tripped up is because they try to do all the work

because you have to like plan for everything that's going to go wrong right so it's like this happens I gotta do this I got to do this and then you're not having a conversation you're like playing it like a conversation simulator game in your head. Right? Like, then it really is turning into like NPC Oblivion dialogue. Where it's like, let me try this dialogue tree and this dialogue tree and this dialogue tree.

Right? So, so like it's a conversation with another human being involved. So don't, don't play conversation simulator, even though it's really comforting to do. Because what does conversation simulator do for us makes us feel safe? If I've mapped out all the conversation, if I've predicted every possibility, then I can go into the conversation and feel safe because no matter what I know what to say. Confidence doesn't come from mapping everything out ahead of time and knowing exactly what's going to happen. That's closer to cheating, right? Like confidence, like if you're playing an RTS and your map hacking, that's not going to build your confidence because you know where everything is going to be.

Confidence comes from playing the map blind. It's like, I can scout, I can handle it if they're rushing, like not that big of a deal. Like, right? So like these conversation maps that you make in your mind is like a map hack that just reinforces your dependence on the map hack and then you can't play a regular game.