For about 3 weeks, I've been actively working on battling my social anxiety on approaching strangers, as I've chronicled here...

my-battle-with-social-anxiety-vt66956.html

I'm still working on it, but that's not the focus here. My question is whether there is such a thing as social stamina? Prior to my jumping into the PUA community with both feet and learning to tread water (I'm still in the "dog-paddle" phase, by the way!), I spent about 8 months reading self-help books and focusing on my communications skills, mainly on story-telling and keeping a conversation going strong. After I joined here, I realize quickly that I should have focused on approaches instead of the mid-game. Still, I have noticed something about my conversations: Talking with friends, I've noticed that after about 10 to 15 minutes, I start to get a "tired" feeling and develop a desire to leave a conversation. After the 15 minute mark, I end up talking less and less, and if the other person doesn't have much else to talk about, the conversation peters out.

After this realization, I thought I was just being self-critical at first, but I asked my sister about this. She replied that I do indeed seem to start to drop out of a conversation after 10 minutes or so, but she had always just chalked it up to my shyness. But is it really? Or are my social muscles just so atrophied that everyone else seem like a social marathon runner compared to me?

Thoughts from the pros?

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I wouldn't call myself a pro, but, I agree with you.

Not sure stamina is the right word.

But the key is you have to ask yourself whether you are actually enjoying what you are doing. And do you ACTUALLY WANT to do this.

I've been getting some AA in daygame recently and I couldn't track it down. To give you some background - I never get AA.

I later realised that I am pushing myself to approach when actually I don't really want to or care to approach.

I found this out because once I did make some approaches, I had no anxiety whatsoever whilst walking up to them and talking to them.

So yeah, I'd consider your personal enjoyment. You may need to adapt your game to be more congruent with who you are too, this may give you more enjoyment and thus more stamina.

x

Nailed it

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"...so it goes"

I can kind of see where you are coming from, but my issue is that I'm battling some crippling shyness. I'm tired of isolating myself from people simply because I've built up 30 years of fear and loathing on walking up to perfect strangers and saying "Hello".

It really boils down to the fact that I'm having to choose between two evils: Being shy and dealing with my loneliness, or facing my fears and toughing-out the consequences. If you think I'm not motivated enough, you might want to reconsider.

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Hey, man. Firstly I wanna say nice one for putting in the effort to better your life, it's really admirable.

Secondly well done for being able to clearly put across your problems in an honest way.


Hey, man. A few things... who says you should focus on 'approaches' ? This post of yours, is regarding a problem to do with your "mid-game". If you suck at approaching/hate approaching, I can totally relate to you. I hate 'approaching' and 'opening' with a passion, but my midgame is insane. (And midgame I believe to be the most crucial part of any interaction).

Let me tell you a little something about opening though, I've found that what you open with doesn't matter. As the opener can last as little as 10 seconds and then it's forgotten about. So it's not worth wasting too much time on learning how to open (perhaps give your non verbals some work though - IF they need it)

I can immediately see what the problem is though (or at least I think I can )...

What I'm about to say, I believe will help you lots, but this is on the presumption that you're doing what I think you're doing...

I notice you say you've been working on conversation skills and story telling etc... I think that perhaps one thing you may be doing... is talking too much. That's right, I said it. To be a good conversationalist, you have to learn to speak less. Get the other person talking... encourage them to talk about themself, and what interests them.

You are likely finding yourself having less and less to say, because you are rightfully burning out. I imagine you're taking the bulk of the conversation, and constantly trying to 'conversate'. Good conversation doesn't have to be interesting or well worked out, just gotta be emotion filled. You're trying to hold / force conversation. Don't do this, take rests. Sounds like you're trying to run a conversation marathon.

Just skip about for 5 minutes, have a break, skip about some more.




LOL didn't realise you also used the word 'marathon' - perhaps this goes to show that you're doing exactly that... trying to run a conversation marathon.

Try conversation piggybacking. Get the other person to talk, encourage them to keep talking. Once you master this, they will bare the weight of the conversation and will leave feeling they've had a really good conversation. (You may be surprised by how happy people are to talk about themself).

Once you've sorted that out, there are interesting ways you can naturally add 'qualification' and teasing into this, also escalation. It's how I 'game' now. Interactions are more fluid and natural.

I hope this will have helped! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Also... I highly recommend you check out this guy and download his free e-book (if you haven't already done so)

Marcus Oakey http://www.yourcharismacoach.com/



Lemme know how you get on, bro.


Much Love
---
~Finesse

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Munroe: "I kinoed the hell out of that goat"
Jav: "bashing chodes 24/7 ftw"
Slywalker: "Neg the bagel"
Slywalker: "I had a 1yr old GF when I was 19"
SS_Trunks:I asked her for an extra pen, confidently....