I dont suppose any of you would like to join the socially awkward society I am going to start?

[MumofTrioTrioIwanaTrioIwant1NW]

free membership Or is it just me?

Am annoyed at myself for being socially awkward (several instances today in company),

I do try thats the annoying thing I just dont seem to be able to be anything else! pah!

Please come cheer me up somehow

Oh yes, and then there was the time when I was having endless problems with my garden's irrigation system. An oldish man came along to have a look at it (he was one in a long line of people who tried to fix it). He said to me that he thinks that it shouldn't be to hard to fix and I said to him: "If you can fix this, I will allow you to impregnate me." WTF??? I have never used the work impregnate before in my life, so where did that come from? Anyway, I spent a good 6 months hiding away from him, because he would show up to my house uninvited, at odd hours, asking if I needing anything done/fixed

Blimey, this thread has moved on since this morning!

AnyFucker, did you see my post earlier? ("God, no AF! It was lovely, apart from the fact that I was scared shitless. Was just a rubbish joke, forgot the " )

Have been really worried I offended you and everyone else at the meet up. It's like a masterclass in social ineptitude- make a joke that no-one gets, worry you've offended everyone and then sound like a wierdo when you try to backtrack. Sigh.

Oh NinaJane, that is genius. Me and DH have been pissing our sides at the poor old guy, bet he couldn't believe his luck

Does anyone else hate ringing for services, like pizza delivery or something? I hate that. However, my DH hates it as well, so we end up bickering about who has to call whenever we order something.

Thank heavens for online ordering

rofl at impregnate

yes, saw it, HM, worry not

I thought you were joking, then thought maybe you did have a really bad time and none of us ignorant cows noticed....

christ...we tie ourselves in knots sometimes

< considers joining nunnery >

there must be some people lurking on this thread who are thinking "wtf ???"

I would join but I don't know how to ask if it is ok

Laser - I seem to have explained myself badly - ironic I am so on a thread of socially awkward people, sigh. I suppose I was getting at so much of the social nature is innate - I suppose for good or bad - of course there's things we can do/learn to improve matters, but if a kid is going to be naturally socially skilled, then having a social klutz of a parent won't be relevant.

/digs hole even deeper

Oh, you don't need to ask, RW - just blunder in like the rest of us have .

< omg, have I offended anyone??! >

Can I just say that I am pretty much universally considered to be a 'confident' person (whatever that means) who can talk to strangers and make them laugh, and be taken anywhere and be guaranteed to keep the conversation going....but: I do all the things you've all said ALL the time. I make jokes then worry that they will be taken the wrong way, waffle endlessly to cover awkward lulls in conversation, then feel like a twat who's hogging the conversation or boring everyone, I suffer from a form of 'social Tourettes' where I blurt out something stupid on the spur of the moment, but the alternative is staying quiet and cringing at the silence, which I find is like torture. I frequently go home worrying that people will say 'who was that dreadful woman? The point is, we all do it! Even people who get labelled as confident. I get told I'm confident all the time which is bizarre because it's the last thing I feel, frankly.

Oh thank you for letting me in.

but if a kid is going to be naturally socially skilled, then having a social klutz of a parent won't be relevant.

i wonder about this. DD is so forwards and confident with other kids and adults i think y reticence won't rub off on her. or it might. Or she might pick up the social anxiety whilst still being very outgoing (so, always talking to people, but worrying baout it..)

meh. can't predict it. my parents are different to me though, and i am different to my siblings (though we are all weird) and some social diffidence is gneally to be found in all of us.

I hate the phone. Email and texting are lifesavers for me. I had to text my DH and beg him to phone the nursery we've put DS down for to check all was well with the application because I was just paralysed with fear over it. Strangely, I'm fine with work calls - I think its because I know what I'm talking about and its easy to lead the conversation.

I hate answerphones though in all circumstances - get myself tied up in knots and it just descends into farce.

hairymelons - I realised you were joking but wasn't sure of the social niceties of pointing it out....

Well Chaos, hopefully DS will inherit social skills from Pa, who is far more at ease with life and is also articulate, which is more than can be said for me.

I'm desperate to know if oldish feller did actually fix NinaJane's irrigation system!

oh god, I only just found this thread. I could have written the OP.
I come accross (allegedly) as bubbly and confident
But socially I mostly feel boring and crap and terrible at small talk.
I think I have made a connection with someone and then find out they have been out for coffee 15 times with my best friend with whom I thought they had only ever exchanged 3 words ...
I do have friends, but I feel very lonely sometimes.
I also have a terrible memory which doesn't help.
And I have a hideous habit of 'speaking' my thinking process before getting to the point.
I really despair of myself.

ROFL, Nina.

Hi everyone. What a great thread.

I had a bit of an incident two days ago when I met two lovely ladies in the hot tub at my housing complex with children of a similar age to mine.

They wanted to know which house I was in and I'd completely forgotten the number. There was a long pause while I panicked/tried to remember. Then I was all, "Aha! I know it!" and I gave them the wrong number. As I walked back after a swim, the right number was staring back at me. I ended up sending DH down to the pool with my card and the correct number scrawled on it.

I think social anxiety has got worse for me in America. Everyone's so bloody cool and I come across like Hugh Grant trying to propose even when I'm just ordering coffee. Argh.

Funnily enough I haven't heard anything back from either of them since...

LaserWidow lol!!! Yes, the oldish feller did fix my garden's irrigation system (which meant I owed him an impregnation session), not MY irrigation system.

Probably oldish feller has been chatting to your daughter's Headmaster...

I've just re-read Frakkit's message: You're a teacher and you're face blind? Crikey. Do you have any problems recognising your pupils at all? Not trying to be funny in any way, BTW. Identified totally with your post, except I'm a bit dim and couldn't teach you to get wet in the rain (poor DS - the genetic inheritance he stands to get!) What's your weird thing about eating in public? Because eating in public is horrible and I can't even watch people on TV eating, I have to look away.

I hate the phone. And am so socially scared / inept that I have not met up with the NCT people in my area, despite the fact they send round jolly emails the whole time headed up things like "NCT Tea Group - June" saying "thanks to Jemima Jane (or whoever) for agreeing to host this month's tea, do let her know if you're going to attend" blah blah. I am sure these people are really nice, but I am too scared of them to meet up, and too much time has passed now for me to just rock up at one randomly. My poor baby. Her mummy is letting her down.

You see, if this was a work situation I'd be fine - able to speak up in meetings, do presentations, I even lead training course on various subjects. So am very good at appearing to be self confident and assured.

But put me with a cohort of my colleagues standing round sipping coffee while waiting to go into said presentation and I would rather dissolve into the wallpaper than actually start a conversation.

I think it's the pressure to make spontaneous, sociable, appropriate and entertaining conversation that floors me every time.

LeQueen, how do you cut out all the crap. I would love to make friends with more mothers, but I just cant do the small talk and minutae about babies/schools/sleeping. I want to run screaming. But I would like a couple of more friends with children. But I want to like the mother of those children. Life is too short to spend going to play and then having to chat with people I would never know if we didnt have children.

Someone mentioned earlier, ask questions, people love to talk about themselves. I am the champion question asker, but you know what, occasionaly I'd like someone to ask me a question. I feel like Paxman, firing them off on University Challenge.

Why does it have to be so hard?

LeQueen I am so glad to hear that social skills can be improved, and I like to think I am working on mine all the time, but the thing that worries me, and I think loads of people have touched on it in the thread above is that I simply cannot be spontaneous or think fast enough on my feet.

I'll give you an example. I was at a toddler group a few months ago and a woman said that she was giving her son an egg-free biscuit. Now there was a conversational opening - she was obviously inviting me to say 'Oh, does he have an allergy?' or something similar and we could have had a conversation about children's food allergies or whatever. But this did not occur to me until an hour later when I was pushing the buggy home (doing my usual mental post-social event beat myself up routine), so at the time I just said 'oh' and that was the end of the conversation. I am just that SLOW!!

So I guess what I am asking is, is it ever possible for me to become a quick-witted, interesting conversationalist, when I have such a tortoise for a brain?

see? I can't even make a bloody connection on an internet forum....
I am nondescript and invisible to 50 pc of the population and annoying to the other.