I've wanted to write about this for quite a while, as it is the one aspect of overcoming SA that stumps me. So I'm hoping my fellow SA'rs out there might have some insight into this. Particularly those of you who have overcome a good chunk of their SA.
Ok, so here's what I see as a dilemna. Let's say you're 35 or so like me, you've had SA you're entire life. Which means, throughout your entire life, your development years, your grade school and perhaps college years, you haven't been involved in the day to day activities and conversations that most people have. Basically, you haven't experienced life. You haven't played sports, gone to concerts, gone on lots of dates, parties, vacations, etc. You haven't had the thousands of conversations that most people have had. You haven't had this ENORMOUS mountain of a lifetime of experience from which to draw on to be able to jump right in to most conversations.
In other words, even when I'm NOT feeling socially anxious, even when I'm comfortable around a certain group of people, I just don't feel I have the life experience to be able to add anything to the conversation. It's not that I feel my contribution is not valid, it's that I just don't have any stories or experiences to share, literally!
For example. Let's take a dinner between yourself and maybe 5 other people. All sitting around having a good time. Inevitably, multiple topics of conversation will come up during that 2 or 3 hours. Now, it seems like the typical socially balanced person in the world is able to contribute 'something' (a similar experience or story) to whatever the topic happens to be. It's SO rare for me to have any story to share in this type of situation. Unless they just happen to be talking about something I know a lot about.
So, to be constructive about this problem, I've tried to figure out how to improve my personal 'stockpile of experiences' to draw from. To try and figure out how to play catch up in this world. The best I can come up with is to just try to experience more, try to live my life more to its fullest. Through things like travel, activities, music, concerts, reading, finding friends to go out with and try various restaurants/bars, anything that is most likely to come up in common conversations. And hope that over time, I'll get better at this.
Anyhow, just curious to know if anyone else out there has thought about this and what they are doing about it or plan to do about it.
Ok, so here's what I see as a dilemna. Let's say you're 35 or so like me, you've had SA you're entire life. Which means, throughout your entire life, your development years, your grade school and perhaps college years, you haven't been involved in the day to day activities and conversations that most people have. Basically, you haven't experienced life. You haven't played sports, gone to concerts, gone on lots of dates, parties, vacations, etc. You haven't had the thousands of conversations that most people have had. You haven't had this ENORMOUS mountain of a lifetime of experience from which to draw on to be able to jump right in to most conversations.
In other words, even when I'm NOT feeling socially anxious, even when I'm comfortable around a certain group of people, I just don't feel I have the life experience to be able to add anything to the conversation. It's not that I feel my contribution is not valid, it's that I just don't have any stories or experiences to share, literally!
For example. Let's take a dinner between yourself and maybe 5 other people. All sitting around having a good time. Inevitably, multiple topics of conversation will come up during that 2 or 3 hours. Now, it seems like the typical socially balanced person in the world is able to contribute 'something' (a similar experience or story) to whatever the topic happens to be. It's SO rare for me to have any story to share in this type of situation. Unless they just happen to be talking about something I know a lot about.
So, to be constructive about this problem, I've tried to figure out how to improve my personal 'stockpile of experiences' to draw from. To try and figure out how to play catch up in this world. The best I can come up with is to just try to experience more, try to live my life more to its fullest. Through things like travel, activities, music, concerts, reading, finding friends to go out with and try various restaurants/bars, anything that is most likely to come up in common conversations. And hope that over time, I'll get better at this.
Anyhow, just curious to know if anyone else out there has thought about this and what they are doing about it or plan to do about it.