[jrm4]

As someone who is 48 and could stand to do a bit more of this myself; I find myself alarmed and shocked at the extent to which younger folks appear to have normalized "social fear."

I remember being younger in college and me and friends were talking about dating and whatnot, and I'm just like -- look, you'll have a much better time, you just gotta get over your fear of rejection. And I was surprised then to the extent that people looked at me and got genuinely offended, like "how dare you not take how TRAUMATIC this can be seriously."

And this generation feels a lot like that. Most of those friends ended up agreeing with me, and I do get that it FEELS bad to, e.g. look stupid or whatever in such a situation -- but the fact that it's an "intense feeling" doesn't mean I'm at all wrong here -- if better socialization is what you actually want.*

*edit, and so I suppose what might be useful is to better hit this head on in our public discussions? Love this article for that.

[aetherson]

I worked through most of my fear of rejection in the 20s and then spent some time giving other people advice about approaching people. My phrase was, "She's already not dating you. What is she going to do, not date you with a vengeance?" The worst has already happened! Just ask.