There is of course Juggler's idea of calling up 50 random people and asking for advice on which film to watch. Are there any exercises or general advice anyone could give me? Thanks.

go into shops and talk to shop assistants. theyre obliged to be nice to you and speak with you. Then when you gain rapport change the subject away from products and continue into a regular conversation.


Practice.

Yer i have heard of this one. I suffer from social phobia so this is a hard one for me but am still planning on giving it a try. I don't live near shops either which makes it harder. Has anyone else got any suggestions?

i was very self conscious before and extremely shy.

now i realized most people are the same way its easy to approach anyone and if you open on them most of the time you can see some excitement build up, like cracked them out of their own ice block.

in Styles newer book he says to go out and start convos with 5 people a day.. start of trying situational openers etc and just get talking try make a question like sorry do u have the time... drag on for 10 mins,

it works but i love jugglers suggestion.

Anything with the word phobia in is not real outside your own head. I know it's real to you, just be aware of that.

There is no way to improve your conversational skills other than to have conversations. Doing this with people you know doesn't really excercise anything. You do it by forcing yourself out of your comfort zone.

If it makes things easier, grab a yellow pages and call 50 people from there. But it won't help you if you can't go outside, and your body language will still suck.

It's a first step. Baby step, but at least it's progress. If you have to excuse yourself as having a phobia, I do believe that you should be taking drastic action. The most common way to deal with a phobia is desensitisation.

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