Question by Will T: How do I fix my social problems?
I am a 19 year old male who just transferred schools to a college in North Carolina. I am staying in the dorms and I have a roommate and two suite mates. The reason I switched schools is because I had a hard time at my other school (in Cincinnati, OH) because I had trouble connecting with people. Here, I wanted to start over, so I say hi to everyone I see and introduce myself. Everyone knows I am nice, but it is extremely difficult for me to get past the point of being acquaintances with people, and move towards stronger friendships. My biggest problem is my social awkwardness. My face turns red a lot because I am embarrassed, and I have a very hard time figuring out things to say. When I try to explain something, I often lose my train of thought and completely forget what I am talking about. Also, I stutter a LOT and it becomes extremely hard for me to put my thoughts into words. When I tell stories, I usually leave out a vital piece of it because I can’t organize, or I will forget to say a word. My conversations lack flow, and I feel like I can’t contribute anything to conversations. It’s usually me asking people questions, and having them do the talking, and I just sit back and listen, hoping that they will continue talking so I don’t have to. It’s just extremely hard because I feel like I know nothing about the world, so I don’t have any interesting points to contribute. Other people are extremely knowledgeable, and they are often telling me about things I have never heard before, and I feel stupid because I never have things that I can educate other people about. It especially embarrasses me when younger people know more than me, and are more socially matured. Returning to my problem about not being able to be more than just acquaintances with people, I have a lot of trouble. Most people here LOVE to joke around with each other, and their jokes flow effortlessly and they are very witty, and their reaction times are instantaneous. For me, I have to think of a response for a long time, and when people crack a joke at me, I tense up and can never think of anything witty, so I resort to a shy seriousness. This causes people to be uncomfortable around me and they never talk to me again. It is even fairly difficult for me to communicate with my family. Today, in one of my classes, I had to eat lunch with these two guys who were very funny. I had never met them before, and when one of them commented on how nice the wine bottle opener that the server used was, I said “oh yeah, I hate those other ones with the….” and then I stopped because I couldn’t describe the ones I was thinking about. I have tons of trouble describing things and I always end up just not finishing my thoughts. And then the guy at my table said “what?…” and I just said “never mind”. This happens to me very frequently. I wish I could just be witty and comfortable around other people but I have been working on this for so long and I have seen countless therapists who just tell me I have social anxiety. I take their advice but not much has changed over the last five years. I am tired of everyone telling me the same thing because it’s clearly not working, so I am scared that something is wrong with me and I will be like this forever. Does anyone know how to help me? I don’t know how much longer I can live this kind of life.    Read more...