[hacermo]

I'm a 23 year old student. I asked a friend from before what was my problem with people, and she said I'm cold or unfriendly. She's korean and I told her that I met almost a dozen of korean girls before who didn't try to contact me after a rendezvous or two. These weren't for dating, only for language exchange.

She used exactly the word 무뚝뚝하다 (I can't link) for reference. When I talked about that to other acquaintances, even family, they agreed. Another person who I spent a weekend with said I'm not energetic and didn't want to talk to me anymore.

I associate most of these things to anxiety, because I also know I hate approaching people and I'm always embarrassed when a stranger (even in my university) talks to me. During these 4 years of university I only had one friend who I don't meet anymore.

So the question is, can I change that ? My psychotherapist (who I think is useless) says I can change but doesn't offer me any solutions. I thought about trying Xanax again even though I'm not depressed. It's annoying because I can't seem to make any friends, when people get to know me they stop talking quite fast. I also never had a relationship before.
(family says I'm like that since I'm about 14 years old)

My sanity score : imgur.com/70NHF6e

Hey, I can relate. I'm in my 20s as well.

I pretty much can't seem to make or keep friends too. It's like when you open up, they run away...and if you don't open up, you lose friends.

I work in an office, so it's different from University but maybe you might be able to do something similar. I try to "act friendly" when I'm going to different places in the office -- smile even when I don't feel like it, say "Hi" and wave to people I recognise even when it feels really weird.

Some people have told me I seem more "happy and cheerful" and they smile when they see me or greet me first. It's usually when meeting in corridors or a few minutes just before a meeting.

Maybe we will stop to talk a little bit about nothing important. "How are you?" "Nice weather, huh"...stuff like that. I don't enjoy it and I find it tiring but I do it to seem friendly and if I focus on them, I come across as less unfriendly and anxious.

[Perna]

One thing I did was think of behaviors that present me as possibly more friendly, smiling, for example. I know when I am driving the car I will feel like I am smiling to someone but, because I am in the car and there's distance, it is hard for someone outside the car to see so I have to exaggerate the smile, make sure my teeth show since they cannot see my "eyes light up" :-)

Training yourself to look someone in the eyes (at least for a moment/glance at them instead of the ground), smile, and say, "hello" as you pass them walking can help a lot. It is action/interaction that triggers the next action so smiling and getting a smile in return, etc. is re-enforcing and can make us appear and feel better. We cannot get people to want to engage with us further if we don't first appear interested in engaging and like we are friendly?

[hacermo]

Hello, I thought I had subscribed to this thread to receive email notifications but it doesn't look like it. Anyway, this weekend I took a trip about 400 km far away from my home and spent it with a girl.

Long story short, on saturday we hugged each other and kissed, and on sunday she used the exact same korean word (무뚝뚝하다) against me. Saying I'm cold when I speak my language with her and my glance is cold sometimes as well. So that day she refused to kiss me, but we kept hugging a bit and held hands. It's hard for me to understand the situation, as I often need an opinion from other people. With her I often smiled and tried to laugh when necessary. But the last day I felt really exhausted, as I was so far away from home and I felt like I needed to be there. So I could barely ask her anything, my answers were abrupt and I felt like I had nothing going through my mind. But I don't know exactly what I can associate it to.

When she said I was cold, I thought it was a good idea to try to hug more, but I'm afraid I looked a bit clingy ?

Another thing is on sunday evening she invited me to eat with her friends and I didn't know any of them, so I felt ill at ease. I could barely talk, had nothing in mind, and at a point one of her friends said "did you smoke a joint ? are you drunk ? you look faded". I just replied I was shy.

I think one of the source of the problem is that I may be too self conscious. It's as if I could see myself from the eyes of other people and I didn't want to see myself change my expression too much in the fear of becoming ridiculous.

[Bipolartist]

Wow, this rings so true of myself, but not reality. Recently someone told me I was cold and for once I didn't try to defend myself. I can assure you it is just anxiety, we are not bad people or unkind, there's a difference! Just do what makes you comfortable. Make yourself look at people and say hi, I normally just nod my head at first and smile. If they don't respond, don't think of them as unfriendly just think, "Gee, maybe they have some bad anxiety too!" It does help my thinking about myself.

[JadeAmethyst]

I agree with you. People "think" what they think. We are such simply complex human beings. It would be great to take the social pressures off, and just enjoy a kindness.