| All my life, I have been the guy no one goes looking for, no one tries to talk to. I always have to go try to get involved in other people's business. No one really comes looking to talk to me. Maybe sometimes they do, but also, I am not sure how to respond. I try. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I fail.
There are a lot of examples, but the best example is probably at work. I have worked at this restaurant for just under a year. There is this one girl I was attracting when I first got there, and she seemed fairly into me for several reasons. I was getting her to laugh. She was coming to talk with me, "accidentally" putting her boobs on me, I even got her to come hang out with me at my house all alone one night (which is when I tried to make a move on her and got fairly stonewalled, so I froze her out hard and almost made her walk home). That obviously died, and we don't talk unless we need to for work.
I havent gamed any of the other ladies, I havent really wanted to, but still, there is this vacancy where people don't talk to me. One or two girls attempt to chat with me here and there. I don't know how to handle it. Some of the girls are blatantly dismissive. There is this one girl who acts such a way, even though I have been there longer than she has. I have tested both being nice and both being offensively dismissive back. I feel more respectable throwing her shit back at her. Sometimes she asks me to do things that she could do herself. Every once in a while I do it just to be nice and perhaps extend the olive branch of friendliness, though she still never seems to chat with me. I am thinking of freezing her out hard and dismissing her every chance I get. If she won't be my friend, she can suffer as my enemy. There are some girls who seem open to small talk with me, if I ever figure out how to have a decent conversation.
Then there are the guys. None of the long termers are "good friends" none of them would call me to hang out with me. One guy had a party and invited just about everyone, except me. I never heard about it. I had pursued talking with him about a subject we both found very interesting, and it seemed to work fairly well as we went to do it just the two of us the other day. Still, I am the friend he wouldnt bring around his other friends.
There is this one newer guy who is fairly friendly with everyone. He came salsa dancing with me the other day. He seems fairly open to me, although it seems he is not sure what to talk with me about. It is from him that perhaps I get my best perspective; I see in him, that I am a hard guy to talk to. I just dont have anything in common with anyone. Sure I have interests, and my interests just so happen to be everything that divides people and drives them away from you. On my journey to become more sociable, I have noticed that the best thing for me to do is to avoid "being myself". The problem being that when I am not myself, I have no self to be to share with others.
So this is kinda all I know, and it is the frame I bring with me when I am out there trying to talk to people. Honestly, salsa dancing has been my best game yet, because it requires so little talking. In fact, my goal has often been to talk as little as possible, as the more I say the more I risk messing up. Unfortunately, with this goal in mind, I never talk enough to figure out what TO say.
As far as work goes, the thing that has seemed to work best for me, is to double down and push people away harder. I say hi to no one, and come into work with "the look"... except this look says I am ready to kill someone today. I might be friendly to anyone who initiates with me in a friendly manner. Otherwise I dismiss the disrespectful and push around the lazy and foolish. I see no reason to be any other way. If no one is trying to work with me, I see no reason to try for anyone. I am kinda irreplaceable at my job, and so people there are somewhat forced to deal with me. I am sure that if I were to quit, the restaurant would eventually implode. I should probably be working my way to a better job anyway, I am just... comfortable.
But really, work is just the best example of my problem on a larger scale. I don't know how to be the friendly social guy. I never have been. I go around trying to open people, the whole time just tensely waiting for the time the talking is over. It never goes anywhere of course. Part of me does not want it to. Really, a large part of me just does not want to talk at all. I am a doer, not a talker. If I am not doing something, I am unhappy and anxious. I don't know how to make this work, except for things like salsa dancing, which is where I am doing something, and even "talking" with my body language. Obviously this is only applicable in such situations. But to improve my game, I have to figure out how to make the talking stuff work more, and I am not sure how.
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CHAT
