Comment by norome
6 hours ago
You said it yourself, you never developed the skills. there's a learning curve, but learnable skills they are. You need the courage to start developing a skill that you're completely incompetent in, and just do one thing each day. I was in the same place as you at 32 but four years later It's another story.
How?
I avoided people because I was treated badly. Once I got muscles people started laughing at my jokes and treating me well. Working out is the only thing that helped me.
Just to say the obvious, but gaining muscles gave you confidence. People aren't laughing at your jokes more because you're swole. I mean, I'm sure there is some of that. But with any virtuous cycle, it's never just one thing that makes a positive change. It's a reinforcing loop.
Literally any way.
If you're nearly a professional athlete then "how do I improve?" has very few answers that could help, and many ways that won't, but if you're a couch potato then anything is better than nothing. Any movement or club, from walking to bodyweight exercise, community hall dance group, exercise bike, treadmill, gym club spin class, climbing gym, Starting Strength, Couch to 5K running podcasts, Pilates, Yoga, Martial Arts, frisbee, volunteering to walk dogs - anything at all is an improvement.
Any book, blog, video, article, about developing social skills will have some ideas and approaches. Asking anyone - family member, counsellor, therapist, doctor, coworker, stranger in the street - for ideas could give you some. Take anything other people do and google "how do I learn that?" and try some of the suggestions.
Charisma On Command channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Charismaoncommand/videos
Harvard Business Review on enjoying smalltalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRG-YubP1rw
Dr Burns on empathic communication: https://feelinggood.com/2016/12/12/014-the-five-secrets-of-e...
Dr Burns on stop trying to "be somebody" and dare to be Average: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz_Iw3JLCb0
Dr Burns on stopping criticising yourself with "I should XYZ" to everything you do or don't do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Zl12LS3bg
anything on improving your fashion, haircut, body language, giving genuine compliments, making people feel happier around you, helping interactions feel fun and less like a competition you have to win, how to start conversations, how to keep conversations going, how jokes work, some jokes to memorise.
Imagine all the "how do I learn programming?" posts on the internet, if you want to make a 100fps 3D game in C++ there's only a few useful ideas, if you want to "learn programming" it does not matter what language, computer, IDE, editor, book, article, video, tutorial, you start with. Anything is more progress than doing nothing.