I have studied PUA techniques for awhile now. I've mainly been focusing on inner game, which is an issue for me. I don't often have confidence issues, and about half the time don't care what people think of me. I naturally tend to want to lead things, and get very uncomfortable when I'm not in the lead position on something. I'm not exactly what you'd call shy.
However, I have no social skills. I will inevitably be the most awkward acting person in a group. I try to act less awkward, and end up looking even more awkward. It's like there's a language everyone can speak but I'm alien to.
I've never had a girlfriend. I've never dated a girl formally. The little romance I've had has been few and far between, and long ago. However, it seems to me I should focus on learning social skills to compliment the PUA techniques.
I was raised in a very isolated environment. I was pulled out of public school at 5th grade and homeschooled. Any friends I had weren't good enough for my parents, and being schooled at home I didn't have much opportunity to meet new ones.
As a young adult, I've now moved to a new city, gotten a great job, and am living alone. I don't have the negative influences of my family around anymore, whose life advice seemed to be, "Be careful in everything you do. Don't take risks, you might lose what you already have." I'm done playing defense. With defense, you can only protect some of what you already have. You'll only ever lose, even if you lose less, and you'll never gain. I'm ready to fight and take it all, and damned if I care if the little I started out with goes by the wayside in the process. I've met a few real friends here and there, but I can count them on one hand in the year since I moved, and fewer that I hang out with outside social events.
I go to social events, and I improve slowly - but it's not fast enough for me, and the awkwardness is excruciating. It saps all my energy. The little moments where I 'get' everything that's going on and socially fit in perfectly are like magic. The moment when I know the exact gesture to endear someone to me, or the exact thing to say to shut someone up, or the exact eyebrow raise to make someone laugh. But those moments are few and fleeting, swept away in a sea of awkwardness. I simply don't know where to fit my actions into the social puzzle around me.
I replay the events later in my head, and only then piece together what this person meant by that action, or why this moment became awkward, or what I should have done there. I've taken to writing it all down later, but some of it only comes to me when I recall the event months later. I wonder what I'm absolutely ignorant about to this day, that happened right in front of me.
My lack of social skills often comes off as snobbish aloofness, so I get ignored. I tend to come off as either a rich, self-absorbed, lazy asshole, or a subdued, weak, awkward weirdo, depending upon my mood and how willing I am to tread all over societal norms by not giving a fuck about how I'm perceived that particular day.
I get IOIs, but act as though I didn't notice. I don't speak human, so let's save ourselves the heartache. I treat strangers I meet as though I were in a business meeting with them, very distant. My professional life has blossomed, but my social life has withered, and the one is starting to strangle my will for the other.
I really need some guidance on where to turn. I know where to find information on how to meet and attract women. But underlying that skill is basic social skills, which I don't know. I can't seem to find similar videos on that. Most assume that you just know all the social ins and outs because you learned them at a young age. My family paid me a huge disservice in severing me from that in an attempt to protect me, and it's a crippling wound. However, the cards have been dealt, and I will take the responsibility to fix it.
What should I watch to teach me social norms? What should I read? Are there classes I can take? Are there skills I need to specifically learn?
I really appreciate any help or insights you can provide.
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