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How old are you?

Some of the things that have worked for me:

* Find extroverted people you can tolerate, they can introduce you to a lot more people.

* Find the groups of people who have problems with the tech/startup world but are still interested in tech (Who I'm assuming you're one of), there's a lot of people out there like that and you'll have a lot to talk about.

* If you're not great at conversation, try to focus on just being with people, say something like "I don't really have a lot to say, but I appreicate the company". Find people who want to just be around others.

I'm 30, with very millennial attitudes except not as anti-establishment. Thanks, those sound like good tips.

Try this http://www.refinery29.com/rejection-therapy

Then this: http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm

Focus on learning to really listen to what people say. IMHO that's generally the most important and underdeveloped social skill, the rest will follow.

I feel crushed by small rejections. Burned once, twice shy is true for some people. For me it's 1,000x shy for the rest of my life. Even a minor rebuff can pollute my personality for the rest of my week and increase my pessimism and fear of people. Rejection therapy just seems like it'd push me over the edge into anger and bitterness.

Yes, and if you lifted heavy weights tomorrow you'd get very sore. If you lifted them every day you wouldn't feel sore and they wouldn't feel heavy. Overcoming discomfort requires enduring discomfort.

What he said!

Go out, talk to people, repeat. You have to learn that a rejection is no big deal. The cliche questions are fine to get started. What is your name, how is your day, what do you do? If they answer with anything more than 1 word answers then they are also interested in talking. Two of Dale Carnegies best items of advice: 1) Remember their name and 2) let them do the talking. Listen and ask a question, listen and ask a question. It is very true that the person who does the most talking in a conversation will typically feel like it was a good interaction.

I was once very shy, and decided to change. It took work, but people I know today think I am the most outgoing person they know. They simply do not believe I used to be terrified to talk to other people. I also used to think no one liked me. It just so happened the vibe I gave off was to stay away because of my shyness.

Have you seen a therapist? It's hard work to reprogram your own brain, and even harder if you try to do it alone. I think of it as a microscope trying to examine itself.

Even a few sessions can do a lot to point out your blind spots, give you objective feedback, and drill down on questions that you subconsciously avoid asking yourself.

+1 this sounds like a job for a therapist, not a Dale Carnegie class.

As someone who used to be very shy and learned to get past it, I found that the only thing that worked was to talk to people. All the time. Get used to the rejections and you'll eventually realize that they aren't usually personal. Say hi to people walking the other way in a doorway, hold the elevator for someone and smile. Say good morning to people in stores, get used to just talking to people. Soon enough it becomes second nature. Be nice, try to listen when people talk.

I hated bars, so I figured I'd go to a few just to get out of my comfort zone. A couple girls offered to buy me a drink, big ego boost. Get used to being around people and interacting with them.

The end result is that I am still quite introverted, but no one except my wife really knows that. I understand that people aren't rejecting me, it's just the way they are or they're having a bad day or want to be left alone. It's not all about me.

And by extension, it's not all about you. Accept your lack of importance to the universe and life becomes easier to live in.

Your last point is the most important one to me. I've got to realize not everything happens because of me, not everyone's paying attention to me through the day. Regarding your bar experiences, holy shit. I've been to my fair share of bars and clubs alone and the most attention I ever got was another man teasing me for looking young (short, minority). I can't deny a small amount of envy for introverted-but-attractive people who get an automatic leg-up from their appearance. That must help enormously.

I am short and minority. If you want attention in a bar, get out on the bar floor and dance! If you want more attention, walk to the front of the dance floor, turn around, and dance facing everybody! I am short and minority and the one time I did it, all the girls went googly-eyed staring at me for the rest of the night. One girl who wanted my attention wasn't happy I was talking to other girls and not her, and when she left hours later, she made the point of deliberately walking past me rubbing her chest against me, I got the idea she wanted to say "You missed out!".

Make sure to take a few hours learning dancing from someone who's really good at it, or go to some sort of dance class, and pick the right club for your dance.

In my experience, your appearance only matters for the first 3 seconds of meeting someone, after that it's all down to your personality.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm also short and a minority. But if that's going to be your excuse, you'll have to do a lot better!

Remember: everyone is attractive to someone. The point of mentioning women buying me drinks wasn't to brag, it was to point out that as you become more at-ease and confident, it shows.

It crushes me but then I look back and realize that after probably hundreds if not thousands of rejection, I am still here, I am fine, I work, I have friends, etc. In the grand scheme they didn't affect me one bit.

Yup, it's not going to be easy.

I enjoyed 'How to talk to anyone' - http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Anyone-Success-Relationships/... for general advice.

There is also Dale Carnegie's 'How to win friends and influence people' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...

Apart from that, maybe join some kind of regular group that is more oriented for social than physical? Toastmasters or something like that or even board game groups (most games have some social aspects to them). Wine tastings also come to mind. Just choose activities where you know you will have to speak with people.

I've got both of those books and even took a DC communications course (for which I paid out of pocket). They got me into some paralysis by analysis. Every interaction becomes a frantic tree search through the set of conversational rules I learned from those and other advice books. Win Friends in particular seemed very glib and sales/business oriented, rather than aimed at connecting on a sincere level.

Different approach then, have you tried having one or two beers (wine/scotch whatever) before? Not enough to get drunk, but enough for some of that paralysis by analysis to fade?

This is not bad advice. I'm naturally a bit reticent, but a beer or two and I'm chatty and can break through some social barriers. (There's a limit of course, moderation is best.) People call drinking a "crutch" but it's no more so than any other self help advice; alcohol can break down some inhibitions and lead to interesting conversations. (I've heard pot works similarly though I've never used it for social disinhibition myself.)

> Every interaction becomes a frantic tree search through the set of conversational rules I learned from those and other advice books.

You have Aspergers?

I don't, but this basically sums up how I fell about these types of books. I think the answer though is to practise until it doesn't feel like a that.

Practice doesn't help if you're brain is literally wired differently. Practice can only cover up with intellect a deficiency in behavior that others do automatically and unconsciously, which means no matter how good you get at faking it, it's still going to be exhausting and aggravating because you lack the underlying natural behaviors.

> They got me into some paralysis by analysis.

Have you considered any improv humor stuff, where un-planned-ness is almost the goal?

I see this constantly in engineers. My theory is that we're trained to see life as pass/fail and that starts to become a general theory of life. I found this guy to be quite helpful.

http://yourcharismacoach.com

He's got some great videos like how to warm up to conversations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtZUx6VLoY0

His stuff was so helpful to me I went to a seminar and then hired him and my social skills went through the roof. I got better clients (I run a consulting company), my marriage improved, and I just feel all the more outgoing despite a lifetime of being introverted.

I definitely have some advice. My social skills still aren't very good but they used to be terrible. I was able to at least improve them.

* Read How to Win Friends and Influence People

* Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

* Join Toastmasters (and, importantly, participate!)

* Make it a part of your life to continually study psychology and human nature

My life has also improved personally/professionally/socially since I got fired from my last job in 2013 and went freelance. Having to run my own business has forced me to develop social skills and freelancing has given me the opportunity to regularly change the group of people with whom I'm surrounded, which has allowed me to "collect" people I like along the way, which can happen at a regular job but much more slowly.

   Read How to Win Friends and Influence People

This is a tremendous, potentially life-changing book with a title that is unfortunately a huge turnoff.

This is a book that very much should not be judged by its cover.

The title seems skeezy today, but it was written in the 1920's and probably didn't come across that way. It helps to say it in your head in an old time-y documentary voice.

>> My coworkers are middle aged, suburban folks, while mostly nice it gets tiresome explaining what a selfie is or how Twitter works

Assuming you work in technology, you really know and work with middle aged people who are not aware of the terms selfie and Twitter?

Not all technology is mobile phone apps. Some of it is geological engineering, or heavy machinery, or genetics, or...

Learn how to tell stories.

As part of a PIP* I got assigned to Toastmasters. I have no use for that since I already know how to tell stories, but... that's what they do.

If you have nieces, nephews, read to them. That's how I learned it.

oh yeah it ended ... like that why do you ask.

And please understand that I am probably risking my immortal soul by saying this. But life is more fun when you can tell stories. It's the* basic fundamental thing of human cognition.

Perhaps try other social activities? Pick three very different sorts of meetups and go to them? Ones where you'll be interacting with people, but in a structured way where it's ok if you don't have anything interesting to bring up to talk about?

For me social dancing ended up being great, even though I never would have thought of myself as a dancer.