Trying to get back into social life

Hi so I'm new here and I don't know how things work around here yet. Anyway, I really wanted to make a topic about trying to improve myself. Just talking about it will probably help me a lot and maybe it'll be of help to some here too.

So I have a low self-esteem, I'm prone to depression, I'm clingy, I have a bad relationship with my family and I have a major social phobia. I've always had a kind of feeling that something good will come my way and fix everything. Lately I've realized that I should be the one to force that good come my way, so to speak.

In the last few months I've improved myself a lot. I decided to make a bulletin list of things which I'll improve on. My social phobia seems to be the source of my current depression. I'm in my 20's and, well, I've never dated. I also didn't have a great many friends. The friends I do have are pretty amazing though. I have problems with talking to my boss and I used to be somewhat unable to stand up for myself at my workplace (or anywhere else).

Now that my problems have been pretty much listed there I should probably talk about how I've decided to tackle them..

I've decided to do the following:
Trying to see the good things in life
- Why not? I've learned that by being positive and seeing things positively the people around me get more positive as well and I feel somewhat more loved.

Taking initiative
- This has actually already helped me a lot, just by taking initiative in everything I can I've also learned to stand up for myself more. I mean simple things like helping someone do the dishes or cleaning up my house.

Getting into social events despite being afraid of embarrassing myself
- I have made some new friends as of late because I decided to start getting into sports. I have always had a problem with making new friends because I have an extremely hard time talking to people I don't really know. And because I haven't gone to any social events, if I do go there everyone already knows each other and it's even harder to make new friends because I feel like an outsider. My plan was to invite all of my friends into any social gathering or sports and then tell them to invite friends of their own. As a result I've found that it's easier to get to know people.

Smiling more
- After getting through the initial phase where I thought smiling made me look really ridiculous and stupid, I find myself actually feeling better about myself when I see someone smile back at me.

Making more small chat
- I've decided to try to make more small chat with people. I never chat with people in the bus or on the sales clerk or wherever but as of late I've noticed that there are some people who are actually into small chat even with strangers. As long as I smile and try to seem friendly anyway. At first it was pretty awkward (it still is) and I started with just smiling and saying have a nice weekend or something to the clerks at my closest supermarket. Since then I've tried making some small chat with elder people in the bus (elder people seem to enjoy chatting about weather and for the most part they seem delighted to have someone to talk to) and later with some of the people in the work/student restaurants I eat in everyday.

Trying to flirt
- Tried this twice but I didn't get any numbers

Went to gym and did more sports
- This helped me build a lot of self-esteem

I guess that's the positive stuff I've decided to work on for now.

Not that there still aren't problems. Today, for example, I went to sit next to some girl and tried to talk about the restaurant being open despite nobody working today. It's probably the first time I've actually found humor in a situation like that, she looked at me like I was out of my mind, said "ok ok" and left. I've found that the best way to start a chat is by going at a crowded time and to some table where nobody knows each other yet.

Some days ago I went to bar with a friend of mine and kind of embarrassed myself. My friend had some five friends there and they were all extremely social, nice and interested in me. Problem is that in a situation like that I have absolutely no idea what to say.

Maybe a part of it was due to the first question being whether I've dated. It's actually a pretty big source of insecurity for me so I said that I'm actually kind of a late bloomer. After that a lot of other questions followed but I was feeling a too insecure to answer any of them. One girl got offended because I wasn't being social enough with her and she thought it was her fault. As a result I told her that I'm actually pretty social phobic so me acting weird has more to do with that than anything. At that point I thought I should probably leave because that girl also happened to know most of my other friends and I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of my other friends as well.

Despite the set-back I'm trying to look at the whole thing positively. I mean I met five new people and yeah while I did embarrass myself and their view of me is now probably "some shy guy that is awkward to have around", I still got a lot of hugs there which I haven't got in a while (feels good by the way) and I actually managed to go there and meet five people knowing that the attention will probably be on me. So I think I can consider this a victory, no?

So that's my steps to better self-esteem but I guess the most important thing for me has been taking more initiative. I hope it helps and hey if you have some stories of your own I'm really interested in them! I'll be also scrolling through some of the other posts here.

Group hug?

Hi, I used to be a lot worse than you! I to struggle with similar issues in social situations at times. It helps that I'm on the right meds now, lol. Anyways, congrats on taking these courageous steps to try and meet more people.

It's very hard, so just take baby steps. Don't do to much at once. Perhaps you can just start talking to one person at a time at a party instead of a group? Practice being social by talking to cashiers and sales people. I used to avoid talking to just about everyone in the past, but now I can make small talk almost as easily as a so called "normal" person can.

Most of all, always surround yourself with positive and supportive people. Those people who might end up putting you down for not being social enough or "weird" are toxic and stupid and they should be avoided at all costs. I hope this helped you some!