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[Leatra]

Y'know, this thread got me thinking. It's not a big issue enough for me to start a thread about it but it's not a small enough issue to forget about either. The issue is big enough for me to steal this thread though.

Scenario: I'm in the classroom and it's break-time. I, and 4-5 classmates, are talking about random stuff, showing each other funny videos in YouTube, etc. We are having a great time, making jokes and laughing and stuff. I get to make a few killer jokes as well. There is one guy who I almost killed by making him laugh and he takes revenge by making me laugh so hard, another friend steps in to the classroom with a "WTF JUST HAPPEN" expression on his face.

Scenario 2: Some hours later after the aforementioned scenario. The guy I mentioned earlier (made-me-laugh guy) and I find out that our houses are close and since we both take the tram, we go together. While walking, and while on the tram, there is dead silence. We can only make small talk about lessons and such, but by looking at us you wouldn't know that we had the most loud laughter on the planet a few hours ago. It's almost like an awkward and uncomfortable elevator moment where you make an eye contact with your neighbor but don't know what to say. You end up saying goodbye to each other in the most formal and cold fashion possible, then part ways.

Has this happened to anyone else too? It happens to me with, like, half of my friends. One minute, you are laughing and having the best time ever together while in a group, and next minute, you are walking together (without a group or anyone else) and never even talk with each other. It's making me feel like a boring guy who can only be funny if there are enough people around, for some reason.

By the way, Shook, it doesn't seem like you are the most asocial person in the world and your mother just could be overreacting. Mothers overreact to everything. I usually hang out with my university-friends at the university and the cafes around the university only, like you. I also meet up with my old friends from the high school from time to time. I currently deem myself "social enough". Sometimes being social feels kinda like a chore to me (interacting with puny humans is boring) so I'm not actively trying to be social and such anyway.

[Vector]

Sure, but in my case it's usually due to social exhaustion.  Just let it go and try to think of something you can do to make your time one-on-one go smoother, if that's a goal.  Then do that next time you're alone together.

[Trapezohedron]

Goshdangit, Scenario 2 happens to me all the time. My social skills are proportional to the number of people in a group, and in a personal me-and-that-other guy scenario, I really can't talk much.

[Leatra]

It's refreshing to know that it's not only happening to me. For me it's not because of social exhaustion but lack of things to talk about, I guess. I lived through lots of things with my best friends so we always have things to talk about. I just have to say something like "Hey, remember when we..." and keep it going. With my class-mates, however, I didn't do anything other than... being in university together.

Thinking about things to talk about shouldn't be difficult. New stuff is happening everyday. It just seems weird to talk about something suddenly when there is dead silence.

[sjm9876]

Goshdangit, Scenario 2 happens to me all the time. My social skills are proportional to the number of people in a group, and in a personal me-and-that-other guy scenario, I really can't talk much.

I have the exact opposite. i think i just have a massive inability to interupt people, but hey.

well I can't beat Vector.....

But seriously, just be yourself. I used to be like this, but then I just reached a point where my confidence got so low I stopped caring how other people thought of me completely. At which point I just started being me, and that seems to have worked.

As for the invite thing, I've been rather lucky in that I have mates who seem to get it, and will invite me just offhand. I think if you start talking to someone enough, they may just kinda ask you to meet up with their mates 'cause you might get on, and somehow a social life forms.

I found that whole "be myself" thing to be surprisingly effective as well, which i decided to do because i was sitting in a room full of completely new people. Nobody had any preconceptions about me (same thing as when i started in high school, with the difference being that i came from high school and not elementary), so i figured, hell, might as well make the first impression a good one. It worked beyond my wildest dreams. I don't know if it's because i did well or because the others are super nice (which they are), but man, it is AWESOME to be able to be myself and have people like me for it. c:
Perhaps... Perhaps i'm just worrying to much. I do that a lot. I've explicitly been told (by a girl even) that i'm a really nice guy to be around, so perhaps it's just a sterling case of "it's not you it's me" with this whole invitation deal (although said girl already has a long-time boyfriend). What i think is worrying to my mother is that i USED to invite friends home during elementary school, something that practically stopped the moment i graduated from that. Perhaps because i feel it's safe to hang around with my friends at campus now? Back in elementary school, i did NOT feel safe before i had gotten out of the immediate vicinity of the place. Now? The institution for geoscience damn near feels like a second home to me. Perhaps that could explain some things.

On a side note: If you don't want to invite people home, why not meet up somewhere else? It's a lot less awkward to just say 'hey, wanna go grab a meal in town at some point?' with a few people than asking them over to yours in my experience.

[Leatra]

Yeah, like I said, you can't exactly go to "kam to ma hauz!" that quick. Just hanging out together seems like a good idea.

[Shook]

It's been a year and a half, we're all quite comfortable around each other by now. I should probably have mentioned that. :U
Also, hanging out at other places sounds like a neat idea, actually. Maybe even a LAN party at Boomtown or something, that would be the raddest thing.

Oh, and scenario 2 is not an unknown experience to me either. Sometimes i sit or walk next to someone from class and think all "OKAY i should be saying something BUT WHAT SHOULD I SAY" and the other person isn't talking either. It feels awkward. It's possible that they feel the same way, i think. I'm fortunately not completely lost in one-on-one stuff though, there was this field trip to Norway where i lived in a hut with the same friend for 10 days (ho yay). It never really got awkward at all, oddly enough. Hell, if i had remembered my gamepad or if he had brought a laptop as well, we'd have been gaming the shit out of every evening (although we still mostly managed that with my singular laptop).

But yeah, it happens. Maybe it'd help if you lampshaded (aaa tvtropes) the awkward silence (hey dude isn't it totally weird that we were previously laughing like all fuck and now we're all silent and stuff)? That could possibly be a good way to overcome it, or at least get some kind of conversation going. Could just be that the other guys isn't very talkative in nature, which wouldn't be an uncommon occurrence. I got lucky in that respect, the two folks i regularly walk home with are both really nice and really talkative, so i don't HAVE to say many things myself.

[Devling]

I kinda have the opposite problem of Scenario 2. I usually am more entertaining when I fully command someone's attention, and I don't have people interrupting me all the time.

As to how my social life is... Seriously you guys are atleast 30% of it.
I have friends from school, but I rarely hang out with them in my free time (maybe once in 2 or 3 weeks), and only one of them is actually in my school.
Even then, I usually talk to all my friends via the internets.

I'm don't really care. Whenever I hand out with someone for to long I get exhausted, and sometimes even sick. I don't really care though. I don't have tons of friends mostly do to apathy.

My rant on stuff.

[Jo]

Social phobia a bit? A bit of a shut in? Introvert?

Don't worry about it. As you age your friends fall away anyway. Get a BF/GF from the internet and by age 30 you'll be the same as everyone else. Your partner will be the only person outside of your family you really associate with, and you'll be the same as all those social butterflies you used to see chatting up the whole room.

 

[Leatra]

Social phobia a bit? A bit of a shut in? Introvert?

Don't worry about it. As you age your friends fall away anyway. Get a BF/GF from the internet and by age 30 you'll be the same as everyone else. Your partner will be the only person outside of your family you really associate with, and you'll be the same as all those social butterflies you used to see chatting up the whole room.

 

Go optimism!

BTW, I see you are new. Welcome to da club! *high fives the monitor*

[Jo]

Ha! I ain't new. I just been hanging out at Temple of the Roguelike. But yeah, new to Bay 12 sure.

[Sigulbard]

Who needs a social life when you have the Bay 12 Forums?

[Trapezohedron]

Social phobia a bit? A bit of a shut in? Introvert?

Don't worry about it. As you age your friends fall away anyway. Get a BF/GF from the internet and by age 30 you'll be the same as everyone else. Your partner will be the only person outside of your family you really associate with, and you'll be the same as all those social butterflies you used to see chatting up the whole room.

 

Go optimism!

BTW, I see you are new. Welcome to da club! *high fives the monitor*

Dammit, you'll break the glass!

[Leatra]

Eh, my old (drug addict) CTR monitor used to react well to getting slapped in the face... er, glass. Whenever it's colors started to get weird and LSD-ey, slapping it for two or three times solved it's problem. If only drug problems of humans could be fixed by some sadomasochism too

[Shook]

ADDICTION CLINIC: SLAPS NOW 50% OFF

If nothing else, it'd help the people administering the slaps let off some steam.

Social phobia a bit? A bit of a shut in? Introvert?

Don't worry about it. As you age your friends fall away anyway. Get a BF/GF from the internet and by age 30 you'll be the same as everyone else. Your partner will be the only person outside of your family you really associate with, and you'll be the same as all those social butterflies you used to see chatting up the whole room.

 

Hah, i suppose that's true, actually. I should stop worrying as much as i do about... Well most things. It has made me feel physically ill on more than one occasion, which i presume isn't the healthiest thing in the world.