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I've heard the term so many times but I have never completely understood it until I met some old friends from school with their girlfriends . When I was younger I used to study waay more and wasn't sociable at all and I lacked the confidence I have today . Apparently most of my friends know this already and they don't know the new me , when I engaged them I remembered what it was like meeting people when I was younger since they treated me the exact same way as before > Sure I had more energy , I was much more lively and humorous and I got a couple of laughs from every one around but still I understood the message they were sending me " we aren't gonna bite this " I had this feeling of being an outsider no matter what and that I was stuck inside this frame that had plagued me for much of my childhood . How to I reframe this image I had if I ever meet old friends ? Am i making sense ?
Change the frame. You're viewing your social interactions as negative encounters when I don't think it's that negative at all. Whether you bombed the interaction or did well in it, is besides the point. What seems to be the problem is you place a lot of importance on what others think of you. Stop that. Change the frame from "I really care what people think about me" to " I don't give a shit what people think about me"
I also don't do well in social interactions as I'm naturally an introverted person. I don't feel the need to build rapport with anyone, cause quite frankly, I don't really care about how I'm viewed. I like building rapport with women though, don't get me wrong, but with other men, especially when most men are quite sociable but highly unintelligent, I feel like I'm either wasting my time or I'm going to like this person, but after talking to them for about 20 minutes, he turns out to be someone I don't find myself ever wanting to hang out with. I like hanging out with men who are intelligent, good with women, and who aren't going to embarrass me on a night out. As we all know, those kind of men are hard to come around.
The key is not to care. I mean, being distant when people are engaging you might become confrontational, but after they realize that that's just the kind of person you are, they will accept it. You can win someone over by being someone you're not, but you can win everyone over just being who you are.