| I came to think of it like skilling up at a game. For instance the one I'm most familiar with, Counterstrike. When you first play Counterstrike you're clueless - you don't know where to aim, you don't know how to control the guns, it's a mess. How do you fix that? Practice. Lots of practice. So if you don't know what to say, the basic answer is to keep practicing. Your subconscious will eventually figure it out. (Edit: by practice I mean live practice with real people in the world - not on your own in your own head) As for myself, here's the place I came to: I be myself and I say what I want to say, and for social calibration I rely on my subconscious. I also let go of trying to control the outcome. The questions you're asking rest atop of wanting the social encounter to go a certain way - you want it to be "successful". Let go of that expectation and just let it organically be whatever it is - that is, take your hands off the driving wheel a bit. The final bit is a confidence thing - feeling good about yourself, feeling that you have value (your bit about wasting other people's time hints that you somehow feel low on yourself). For that it's the Mike Tyson quote - "success begets confidence and confidence begets success". For me there was a feedback loop where the practice started to feed into social success - people enjoying my company, successful dates with women, and so on. That final part's a very important ingredient as your subconscious needs the markers of success to latch onto as positive feedback signals on "what works". So basically you have to keep pushing and practicing until you reach the point where you get dividends. As for how long it takes to get there, it varies by individual - some are quick learners, some are slow, some have less handicaps, some have more. But in principle I believe that most people can learn to be charming and good company. |