Of All The Traits about me....

Hm. I'm not sure what the social climate is like where you are, Omni, but I do know that I've always had a little difficulty and a little apprehension when it comes to approaching new people, especially girls. A simple exercise, one that you can do with a friend so that you've got someone to kick you back into the fray, is to go to a mall and make it a goal to introduce yourself to 100 women. You can be very up-front about it, too: "Excuse me, I'm here with my friend trying to introduce myself to 100 women. It's an experiment I'm doing, to see if it'll make me more comfortable in social situations. My name's (insert name here), nice to meet you. Have a good day." It's EXTREMELY awkward and weird the first few times, but after the first 5 or 10, you start to see "Hey, most people will let me approach them, and the more comfortable I am, the more comfortable they are."

It was kind of like that for me when I first started working in retail, because we were required to approach every customer, let them know we'd be around to help, and exchange names even if they were "just looking around." It was tough to get used to it and figure out how to incorporate the name exchange smoothly, but just doing it more helped, and my coworkers were doing it too so I was able to ask them or observe them. Which is why bringing a friend along would help you approach people, cause you can compare "tactics" so to speak.

This exercise can help with a lot of things... your body language, your eye contact, and the way you speak to people when you first meet them. All three are important.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Haha! I've never gotten that reaction. I've gotten one or two weird looks and the question "Uh... what, did you not get out enough when you were growing up?" but usually I just laugh and say "Nah, I'm just one of those overly-nice guys who's always been really boring and really shy around women, and I'm trying to turn into a studly bad-ass witty manly man. But it was nice to meet you anyway!"

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Really? Do you really think so? Now you've got me curious. I know a promise on the internet is worth less than a penny, but I will honestly bet you $20 on this. If you're willing to just try it, and within 10 girls you're still only getting negative responses, I will send you the money. Seriously. (This is only an offer for him, everyone, cause I know some of you would sit there and lie about it, saying you tried it and it didn't work and you want your money, when all you did was play Final Fantasy all day.)

I don't even want you to send me $20 if it DOES work and you get some positive responses. It's worth it enough to me just to know the truth. Plus it'd be cool to think "hey, this guy's more confident with approaching women, cause he tried a suggestion I gave him. That's awesome." I really think that if you can get some positive responses within 10 women, that you could probably even get some phone numbers within 20 or 30, and you'd definitely have more confidence by then too.

What do you say? Willing to try? You don't have anything to lose, the only negative you could suffer would be just ten women out of millions thinking "okay, I hope I never run into him again." But I seriously doubt even THAT would happen.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Okay, but the $20 deal is for if you try it with women, using my approach. Cause that's kind of the point - seeing if it helps you become more confident and comfortable with approaching women. But you can start out with just people for now and build up to that. The offer's good whenever you think you're ready to try it. It's more effective if you do a bunch in the same few-hour period, rather than say, one or two a day, across a week.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?