Caltrops - Dwarf Fortress





	[quote name="99. Basic math (lawyers don't use t"][quote name="Mischief Maker"][quote name="Jerry Whorebach"]I guess I was trying to give an example of the kind of situation I don't handle well. I may have been breathing slowly, smiling softly, and maintaining eye contact (thanks, therapy, I'm sure I look totally normal doing all that stuff), but on the inside I was <i><u>FREAKING OUT</u></i>.[/quote] Well I'm no therapist. I know that if you force yourself to smile (spreading the feeling all the way to your eyes) your mood involuntarily perks up a bit, so maybe that's what the therapist was trying. I am, however, a lawyer/mediator and communication is my business. <I>Especially</I> in tense high-stress situations. If I were to rank the 3 most important parts of face-to-face communication in order of importance they would go: 1. Self Esteem 2. Matching your tone, body position, and energy level to the person you're talking to, and shifting the tone gradually. 3. The actual words you say. The reason I make #1 self <I>esteem</I> instead of self-confidence is because it's a rare soul who can convincingly bluff self confidence when their self esteem is in the sewer. On the flip side, if you have the necessary self-esteem, the breath control, eye contact and everything else comes naturally without you having to consciously think about it, and it won't seem forced. Now I have a question for you, and I'm not being facetious: do the negatives of your social isolation outweigh the positives? I imagine a big plus of being socially isolated is the extra time you get for playing time-consuming video games or watching entire seasons of TV at once. Do you feel miserable because <I>you</I> want to be more socially active, or do you only really feel bad about your current lifestyle because your therapist and friends give you a hard time about it? Because if deep down you don't want to hang out at coffee shops, you'd probably be ten times happier jerking off to the mental image of the cute barista than trying to go through the relationship wringer with her. But if you truly do want to become more socially active, then from a pure technique standpoint you must develop your self-esteem. Like I said last post, you have to drop the self-depreciating bullshit about not living up to some imaginary paragon of virtue. "Yeah, I managed to discipline myself for months and reach my target weight. Whoop dee doo, it's not like I independently designed the world's first commercially feasible private spacecraft in that time." Fuck that shit, it's counterproductive, stop wasting the mental energy on it. In your mind, if you are the kind of person you'd want to talk to and hang out with, all the right moves and all the right words, (or at least an acceptable amount of them) will fall into place. Here at Caltrops, you're one of the smartest, funniest, and most beloved posters around. Shit, I steal your jokes! It's not some wild fantasy that you could be just as much fun in face-to-face conversations. Just don't let your ego get out of control and start withdrawing into your shell because your delivery wasn't 100% Seinfeld-precise.[/quote][/quote]