You’re shy. You’re possibly introverted. Perhaps socializing is just a weakness of yours that you’d like to improve. How can you guarantee social failure for yourself? Let me teach you.

Each of these four horsemen of the apocalypse are bad on their own, but combining them all will assure disaster. Keep these in mind when you enter the social world.

Assume the Worst

Historically, you’ve been shy and antisocial. Convince yourself that it won’t be any different this time. You can guarantee it’s going to go poorly.

People are so judgmental.

You assume that the minute you open your mouth, everybody around you is going to be critiquing what you’re saying. Conversation is one big battleground after all and you’re a weak combatant.

Furthermore, they reached out with an actual invitation so you can assume it’s a trap.

You can’t quite put your finger on it, but there has to be some catch here. Why else would somebody invite you to their gathering if not to laugh at how awkward you are?

Even worse, you’ve met most of these people before.

They already know you’re bad in group settings. You believe that a person never truly changes so you can’t possibly come into the situation any differently.

Guess What People Are Thinking

Fine. You force yourself to go the event and hang out, but you spend the whole time guessing at what other people are thinking. You’re a pretty poor mind reader but that doesn’t stop you from trying.

Someone starts talking to you. It’s been ten whole minutes and you can’t believe it.

There’s something about the angle of their mouth and the movement of their eyes that throws you off. Despite them sticking around, you get this feeling that they don’t like you.

That must be it.

You think you’ve likely offended them so the other person stays out of obligation to right the wrongs you’ve committed. Nobody in the history of your life has shown any interest in you before, so your brain scrambles to remember all of the offensive things you said.

This is perfect. Getting in your own head helps you agonize over what to say. Rather than just naturally responding, you can calculate your response. “What does this person want me to say?”

Now, rather than showing interest in the other person, you’re almost entirely focused on yourself and how you’re speaking.

There could be ten more minutes or ten more days of conversation. It makes no difference to you because you’re barely hearing what they’re saying anyway.

All according to plan.

Be Agreeable With Everything

One thing is certain at the social gathering. You need to ensure that you’re this smooth-edged, amorphous marshmallow of a personality whenever you talk to anybody.

Don’t stand on anything. People hate personal opinions.

If anything, your opinions should shapeshift to match those around you. It’s important to claim you have an opinion on everything, but it just ends up mirroring the opinion of the person you’re talking to.

Definitely don’t say you’re not sure or haven’t given things enough thought. “I’m not educated on the issue” is always inappropriate. People only want to hear their own opinions reflected back at them.

There’s an opportunity for bonus points here. If there’s more than one person in the conversation, then just ping pong between everyone’s beliefs.

If one person thinks A and another thinks B, then you obviously see a world in which A and B can both be true. You can successfully blend any thought into an inoffensive gray tone.

That sets you up for success since nobody can be offended or disagree with you. You’re already agreeing with everything they say.

People definitely won’t leave the conversation thinking you’re the most milquetoast person ever. How could they? You were practically the standard bearer for every one of their opinions.

Base Your Personality On Those Around You

Always take the opportunity to act like the people around you in a group setting. This goes beyond just basic tone matching like formal, casual, etc. Truly act like the people you’re with.

Authenticity is like a personal opinion, nobody wants that from you.

If you’re surrounded by new-age hippies, then you’ve been a hippie for as long as you can remember. Somewhere else, if you’re in a group of basketball players, then ball is life.

It’s important not to set limits here. Do things you disagree with just to be a part of the group. That has literally never backfired for anyone and can ensure you find yourself in the group’s good graces.

Think chameleon. You should be able to blend in with any surroundings. Don’t stand out. Don’t make waves. Don’t be an individual.

Be Selfish With Your Personal Details

As people come up to you during the event, hold all of the details about your life close to the chest.

Go in with the assumption that there’s no way the other people care about your life. You’re not a unique individual with characteristics, experiences, and opinions that only you have. Instead, you’re an incredibly boring person.

Focus on the idea that you don’t do anything exciting or noteworthy.

Make it a habit to deflect any attempts that try to get you to open up about yourself. If someone does ask about you, they’re likely just being nice and don’t really want to hear the answer.

You’re nothing more than a sounding board in the conversation. The only reason someone talks to you is so they can hear themselves. This goes back to agreeing with everything someone says.

Make sure you don’t make waves.

Assume that everybody else is a more interesting person than you are. This should set realistic expectations for you before you even start.

Everyone else scuba dives with aquatic giraffes off the coast of the Maldives each weekend while you simply sit at home and watch TV.

People don’t listen, they just wait for their turn to talk.
– Chuck Palahniuk

Don’t put yourself out there.

Give One Word Answers

If someone asks you something, make sure you only provide enough detail to barely keep the conversation going. Again, they don’t truly care about the answer. The other person is merely waiting for their turn to speak again.

Chances are, people don’t even listen to what you say, so it doesn’t even matter how you respond. You could respond in a fabricated alien language and the person across from you would go, “Ah, interesting point. Anyway, back to what I was saying…”

This should be liberating for you. You don’t even have to try in the conversation. The rest of the group will handle the entirety of the chat so you’re free to sit largely silent.

People like nonparticipants. It gives them more room in the conversation for themselves.

Deflect Like There’s No Tomorrow

However, if you do find the rare person who pretends to care about what you’re saying, keep your answers brief and vague.

“What do you do for work?”

“I’m an engineer.”

“You know, that’s a pretty common job, but I just never know what it actually entails. What’s your average day look like?”

“Nothing too crazy. I work in an office on my computer basically all day. Meetings are a given most days.”

“Sure. What made you get into engineering?”

“It pays the bills.”

Perfect! You’ve given your conversation partner just enough to satisfy their pity asks.

Anyone in a discussion should be able to work off of one or two word answers to keep the words flowing. Look back, they had key things like engineering, computers, and meetings to bounce ideas off of.

Everybody has bills too. That’s a softball topic you’ve given them. They should have no problem keeping the discussion alive.

Also take note here. You didn’t ask about them in response because it’s assumed that you care about what they have to say. You’re obviously telling them, “The runway is clear. Speak about yourself at will!”

Nice work.

Pick Yourself Apart After the Fact

Once you’ve had your fill at the social gathering, head home for some necessary wind down time. This is your opportunity to reflect on all of the corrections you need to make for next time.

Repeatedly think about all of the things that went wrong. The only way you’ll learn from the experience is if you hammer this in.

Think about the bad stuff for days so it has time to set. If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not ruminating hard enough.

At this point, the experience is in the past so it would require a time machine to change any of the outcomes. Hold that fact close. It should help you learn even quicker.

All of the mistakes you made are set in stone.

Bonus points. Focus on the fact that the people you talked to will likely never forget the slipups you had. Those people went home laughing about the things you said and did. This is good motivation to never make any blunders ever again.

Expect Perfection

Further, hold yourself to a golden standard.

Obviously the dialogue you find in social media and TV should act as your guide. It’s always perfect and polished just like any conversation you have should be. Anything short of perfect has room for improvement.

When in doubt, reference point number 1 in this article again. “Assume the worst.” It’s unlikely that you had any shining moments during the conversation, so everything should be a target.

Maybe you don’t like your posture after the fact.

I’m sure you paused too long before answering some question.

You probably didn’t make enough eye contact.

That joke you made when you went off script and gave something more than a one word answer? It felt like you got pity laughs in response.

Nothing should be free from scrutiny at this point. You’re simply trying to get better.

Ignore the Wins

It’s important to focus on the negatives when you reflect after social gatherings. The positives are likely few and far between, and you only truly learn from mistakes.

Toss feelgood items aside as chaff. Sift through them without a care so you can get to the meat of the issues.

Remember, conversation isn’t an art, it’s a disciplined and rigid science. You can hold yourself to obvious and documented standards. Given these standards, it should be easy to mark your socialization report card with red ink where appropriate.

Look for these things. You truly don’t want to focus on the positives because you’ll never grow that way.

Another important thing to remember is that socializing is easy for everybody. All of those things that you did well were gimme items. Of course they went well. They’re supposed to go well.

If you struggle in social situations, it’s obviously because there’s something wrong with you. Smalltalk and conversation are like breathing. Everybody should just know how to do it.

Don’t give yourself any room for error. Remember, everybody but you speaks perfectly and always gets their point across eloquently. Anything that you do “well” in a group setting is luck at best.

Do better.

You’ve Failed

Congratulations. You’ve successfully set yourself up for social failure. You likely feel horrible about yourself.

Rather than enjoying socialization as this carefree adventure, you’ve made it a standardized test complete with critiques and a report card.

The assumption that you’re bad at socializing, you’ll always be shy, and there’s nothing you can do about it set the tone from the start. There was no way you could succeed.

You got so wrapped up in your internal dialogue that you could barely focus on what the other people were saying.

Rather than being authentic, you attempted to be this doppelganger that could morph into whatever character you thought people around you would like. Little did you know, inauthenticity is easily seen and not desirable.

Even worse, you locked yourself down stiff as a castle wall whenever someone tried to get even basic information out of you. Clutching at your personal details only ensures that the other person will have nothing to talk about. A one-sided conversation quickly dies.

At the end of it all, you lambasted yourself for everything that went wrong. Given the above, there was plenty to stoke the fire. You’ve now successfully fed the cycle. You can now enter the next social gathering with the same assumption that you’re bad at socializing.

Don’t do this.

Tell yourself that a meetup is a fun opportunity for you to get to know interesting people.

Those interesting people want to know you as well. The real you.

Given that, they want to know about your life. I don’t care who you are, there is something interesting you can tell them about yourself.

When done, congratulate yourself. Socializing may not be your strongest skill, but you put yourself out there.

Keep going. Thanks for reading.

-Two-Bit Stoic