Social situations require you to engage in small talk and be able to enthusiastically chitchat with others.
For those of us who were not blessed with the gift of jab, not knowing what to say in social situations can create unease and feelings of dread.
Other than feeling like you don't belong, you find it almost impossible to start conversations with people, which portray you as you really are.
Instead you come off as awkward and maybe even as someone that is trying way too hard.
Upon getting introduced to Mr.
So and So, your mind goes blank, as you frantically think of something to say, he excuses himself politely in search of more interesting conversationalists.
You sweat, stutter and find it hard to control your body, getting increasingly more distressed as you try to figure out how to navigate the pitfalls of social anxiety.
In the grand scheme of life, it does not matter that you clammed up and had nothing to say until he just awkwardly moved on.
But when social anxiety reflects a pattern of missed opportunities and social misconnections, it is hard not to take it personally and become self critical of our own weaknesses.
The unfortunate byproduct of social anxiety is that we have a hard time getting failed interactions such as this out of our head and letting it go.
The ironic thing about these failed interactions is that the thoughts in our head create such internal agitation that it cripples us in those situations anyway and instead of finding things to talk about, all we can think of is all the ways we will say or do something to potentially humiliate ourselves.
Thus throwing us into a vicious cycle that actually serves to increase our social anxiety.
We obsess about it and berate ourselves for not being funnier, more engaging and better at small talk.
It is even worse when that critique comes from someone else, especially if that message is delivered unkindly.
Letting us know how miserably we failed at being social is one thing, when it is delivered with some sort of tone, it escalates our anxiety even further.
Social anxiety is not an easy thing to deal with; the symptoms and management of them may have serious implications on our relationships, careers and friendships.
This is amplified when our support system fails to understand the impact of anxiety on our day-to-day functioning and by doing so actually feed into that cycle.
As withdrawing and alienating is typically associated with feeling anxious around people.
It is important that we don't give in to removing ourselves from the social environment, just because we feel awkward.
Overcoming this feeling requires practice.
If you can challenge yourself to move past your own anxiety in social situations, the results will be incredibly rewarding.
Set small weekly goals for yourself, increasing the challenge as you go by slowly making more connections with people.
If you find yourself struggling on your own, therapy can be a great place to assist you with developing cheat sheets for social interactions, and uncovering other tools to get better at small talk, chit chat and to gain communication skills in general.