It's recently come to my attention that I can't hold a conversation.
I'll put it out there that I've completed a large chunk of the approach anxiety program, so this probably isn't any form of approach anxiety.
It has nothing to do with making small talk with random girls either. It's literally everyone. These past few weeks, no form of conversation has really flowed naturally for me. Be it with my mother, who I've been talking to a lot recently, my close friends. etc
Off the top of my head I can think of a few situations that have given me some pretty crazy conversational anxiety:
-Went for a walk yesterday with a close friend of mine - I didn't have much to say and I even brought it up that I was having a pretty hard time with it. She mentioned that it was alright and that it's nice to just enjoy each other's company in silence sometimes. Which I do agree with, however I felt quite a bit of tension on that walk.
-A few months ago when my mom would call, I'd be able to talk for like an hour at a time with her about anything and everything. She still keeps up the calling every morning, however instead of blabbing as much as I used to, I find myself repeating the same, "Yeah, sure, okay, yeah, okay" and I become aware of this and get tons of anxiety, even though it's just a simple phone call.
-I went over to an old friend's house last night that I haven't seen in over a year, we've got a pretty big gap in our ages (he turning 16 next week, I'm 21), so I decided to go to his house and check up on how the kid's doing, he's always been a pretty big troublemaker, wanted to make sure he was staying out of trouble. So I sat in his room with him while he was playing videogames and we chatted a little bit here and there, but honestly, it wasn't what it used to be like. Then as I was leaving the house, his mother walked me to the door and she really loves to talk, so she was talking for like a good 30 or so minutes before I actually got to leave, even though most of my responses were 1-word or very short sentences. I caught myself thinking on several occasions "what the hell do I say next" rather than going with the flow of the conversation like I used to.
-Went over to a gathering at another close friend's house (we were 4 guys that have been together ever since the early days of high school, so I consider these guys pretty tight) the other day and I made very little contributions to whatever it was they were talking about - I was thinking too hard about what to talk about, rather than just talking naturally.
Long story short; I'm thinking too much about what I'm gonna say next rather than just going along with it.
I know this is going to be absolutely fatal when I hit on girls, so I gotta kill it off fast before it gets worse. Especially with school starting in a few days - there's gonna be plenty of girls to hit on there.
Any wise words? Tips, tricks?
Thanks,
~Alessandro
I'll put it out there that I've completed a large chunk of the approach anxiety program, so this probably isn't any form of approach anxiety.
It has nothing to do with making small talk with random girls either. It's literally everyone. These past few weeks, no form of conversation has really flowed naturally for me. Be it with my mother, who I've been talking to a lot recently, my close friends. etc
Off the top of my head I can think of a few situations that have given me some pretty crazy conversational anxiety:
-Went for a walk yesterday with a close friend of mine - I didn't have much to say and I even brought it up that I was having a pretty hard time with it. She mentioned that it was alright and that it's nice to just enjoy each other's company in silence sometimes. Which I do agree with, however I felt quite a bit of tension on that walk.
-A few months ago when my mom would call, I'd be able to talk for like an hour at a time with her about anything and everything. She still keeps up the calling every morning, however instead of blabbing as much as I used to, I find myself repeating the same, "Yeah, sure, okay, yeah, okay" and I become aware of this and get tons of anxiety, even though it's just a simple phone call.
-I went over to an old friend's house last night that I haven't seen in over a year, we've got a pretty big gap in our ages (he turning 16 next week, I'm 21), so I decided to go to his house and check up on how the kid's doing, he's always been a pretty big troublemaker, wanted to make sure he was staying out of trouble. So I sat in his room with him while he was playing videogames and we chatted a little bit here and there, but honestly, it wasn't what it used to be like. Then as I was leaving the house, his mother walked me to the door and she really loves to talk, so she was talking for like a good 30 or so minutes before I actually got to leave, even though most of my responses were 1-word or very short sentences. I caught myself thinking on several occasions "what the hell do I say next" rather than going with the flow of the conversation like I used to.
-Went over to a gathering at another close friend's house (we were 4 guys that have been together ever since the early days of high school, so I consider these guys pretty tight) the other day and I made very little contributions to whatever it was they were talking about - I was thinking too hard about what to talk about, rather than just talking naturally.
Long story short; I'm thinking too much about what I'm gonna say next rather than just going along with it.
I know this is going to be absolutely fatal when I hit on girls, so I gotta kill it off fast before it gets worse. Especially with school starting in a few days - there's gonna be plenty of girls to hit on there.
Any wise words? Tips, tricks?
Thanks,
~Alessandro