The Art of Manliness - What's Going on With Your Social Anxiety？

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.420 Do you have trouble feeling comfortable when socializing? Maybe sometimes you do fine,

00:00:15.640 but other times you feel nervous, shy, and awkward. Or maybe socializing always feels

00:00:20.600 like a struggle. Either way, you know how frustrating and even debilitating social

00:00:25.000 anxiety can be. It can not only lead to avoiding potentially enriching experiences and a failure

00:00:29.680 to make desired connections can sometimes be hard to understand. So what's going on when you

00:00:34.820 socially misfire? Here to unpack that question is Thomas Smithyman, who is a clinical psychologist

00:00:40.340 and the author of Dating Without Fear, Overcome Social Anxiety and Connect. Today on the show,

00:00:46.620 we get into the dynamics of social anxiety in both romantic and platonic contexts.

00:00:51.200 Thomas explains what defines social anxiety, how to exist on a spectrum from mild shyness to an

00:00:55.760 outright disorder, and what causes it, from genetics to faulty thinking. We talk about

00:01:00.860 the protection strategies people often use to avoid the pain of social judgment and why they

00:01:04.780 actually backfire. We then get into what you can do to be more socially comfortable and confident,

00:01:09.480 including a key to effective flirting, why you should try to make a mediocre first impression,

00:01:13.900 and how to find your way into what Thomas calls the warm social world. After the show is over,

00:01:18.780 check out our show notes at awim.is slash social anxiety. All right, Thomas Smithyman, welcome to the

00:01:35.420 show. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. So you are a psychologist who specializes in helping

00:01:40.800 individuals with social and dating anxiety. How do you end up in this niche? I mean, it's I think like a lot

00:01:48.460 of psychologists, I ended up here because I was trying to figure myself out, right? Not uncommon at

00:01:54.940 all in my field. Yeah, so it was a, you know, me search, like research is me search. Yeah, yeah,

00:02:02.580 yeah, definitely. So I like when I was a kid, I was, I was at a like, like a nerd school. Basically,

00:02:08.000 I took all the nerds in Sydney, Australia, and they put us all in one place. And I like personally

00:02:13.040 didn't really interact with women. It was so far from my home. I didn't interact with 1.00

00:02:18.060 girls my age or anything. Basically, the whole way through Australian high school, which is age,

00:02:24.420 I guess, like seventh grade through 12th grade. And so then I showed up in the US. And I was

00:02:29.700 basically like a 12 year old socially, like a, you know, knew how to interact with guys. But

00:02:34.460 I discovered at that moment, oh, I'm pretty socially anxious when it comes to talking to girls. And

00:02:42.980 I did not know what to do. And so I suffered a bunch. And then over time, like, I'm, I'm very,

00:02:49.440 very curious and very scientifically minded. I don't want to understand what was going on.

00:02:53.120 So I couldn't find much just from therapists. I couldn't, I couldn't get much from the internet

00:02:58.300 that was of particular help to me. So I sort of went about trying to figure it out for myself

00:03:03.500 by going into research because I like science versus like just some random person's opinion.

00:03:10.060 So I went sort of collecting it and trying to put it together for myself. And yeah, over the course

00:03:16.020 of many, many years, basically, it was a big obsession. It still is. I'm 20 something years

00:03:21.260 into obsessing over this. But yeah, this, it became really my focus. And I developed a bunch of

00:03:26.580 expertise and helped myself. I was my own guinea pig. And then I very quickly started helping a lot

00:03:32.260 of other people because it drew me very quickly into studying psychology as a clinician.

00:03:37.320 So you are a clinician, you don't just do research, you actually work with patients?

00:03:41.360 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a clinical psychologist. Yeah. So I've been treating

00:03:46.000 people for, yeah, I guess, you know, 20-ish years. And I treat a lot of people with like

00:03:51.600 social anxiety and I have for a long time.

00:03:53.980 Are a lot of your clients men, primarily men?

00:03:57.060 Yeah, they are. Which I think is, it's partly because I think it's kind of rare to find psychologists

00:04:03.160 that are relatively young men. And so I'm not excluding women. I do have plenty of women

00:04:09.880 that come through. But yeah, guys, I see majority guys.

00:04:14.880 Okay. So yeah, you talk about your history in the book when you got to the United States

00:04:18.500 and you were, you know, in your 20s, trying to figure out how to interact with women because

00:04:23.940 you didn't have that experience in high school. You fell in at this time, this is like when the

00:04:28.800 pickup artist stuff was really big, correct? And you kind of got into that stuff?

00:04:32.560 Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I was, I mean, that's what there was if you looked for information,

00:04:38.160 right? And obviously it was very appealing, like the promise of it. It was like, really,

00:04:42.840 hey, here's these people that have like figured it out. They're going to tell you the answers.

00:04:46.440 This is how it works. Because really, that was my, I felt was my struggle. I didn't understand.

00:04:51.660 I just didn't understand how it worked. I didn't have a model for it. And I was very aware of,

00:04:56.600 I had a lot of anxiety in dating situations. I had some in other situations too. So I was

00:05:02.260 interested in general, but I didn't, like, I didn't understand what was happening. I knew

00:05:07.120 that there were times where I was, what I thought of as just my normal self and I had access to all

00:05:12.460 of my, my normal traits and I had a great time socializing. And then there were times where I

00:05:18.180 just suddenly did not have the ability to do it and I didn't know what was going on. So I was pulled

00:05:23.600 in to like, hey, these guys are promising the answers. And yet when I actually explored it,

00:05:29.380 it just kept not being a good fit for me as a person.

00:05:33.040 Yeah. And we'll talk about this later on in our conversation. Sometimes if you follow this,

00:05:36.880 the advice of like the pickup artists, guys, it can actually backfire and make your social anxiety

00:05:43.120 even worse. We'll, we'll hit, talk about that here in a bit.

00:05:45.600 Yes, very much, very much.

00:05:47.740 But let's talk about social anxiety in general. What is it? What are the symptoms of social anxiety

00:05:53.020 and how does it differ from just like regular general anxiety?

00:05:56.500 I mean, so rather than, I guess, sort of doing a full DSM diagnosis download, the way I think

00:06:02.120 about it is like diagnostically, really it's like fear of being scrutinized, judged, rejected,

00:06:11.080 and basically the extent to which that interferes with your life.

00:06:14.080 My way of looking at it is you have an underlying sense of in some way, on some level, I am flawed,

00:06:22.540 I'm not good enough. And if I enter a situation, whatever those problems are, are going to be

00:06:29.800 revealed. Other people are going to see them and then they are going to harshly judge me and it's

00:06:34.460 going to cause all these problems. And therefore I either will feel a ton of distress about it,

00:06:40.740 or I'm going to avoid doing important things in my life. So that's kind of the core of this.

00:06:47.260 And then like, it's almost like there's a scale for this because these are very human experiences.

00:06:53.520 Like humans, we, we have this, this is part of the struggle of being human is we worry that we're

00:06:59.780 not good enough. People will find out and there'll be rejecting consequences. And so I kind of think of

00:07:05.820 it as being on a scale, right? Where some people don't experience it very often. As you move up the

00:07:11.960 scale, like take special circumstances. To some people, you know, they might consider themselves

00:07:16.880 shy, but it's happening a little more often. You start to move up to having kind of more regular

00:07:21.960 social anxiety. Maybe it's happening in just one situation or it's happening across quite a few.

00:07:29.680 We get into disorder territory. It's really having an impact on your life. And then if it gets extreme

00:07:35.300 enough, there's avoidant personality disorder, which is sort of the, the end of that spectrum.

00:07:40.820 Okay. That makes sense. So it's a scale. It can go from just, I'm really feeling uncomfortable

00:07:45.420 about meeting new people because I'm afraid of what they're going to say about me, but I can still

00:07:49.100 power through it and kind of overcome that and I'll be fine. And then there's, it can increase where

00:07:54.240 you, those feelings of like those feelings of fear and anxiety of reject social rejection,

00:07:58.980 get to the point where you try to avoid the situation, any social situation completely. And that's when

00:08:05.100 it can become a problem.

00:08:07.660 Yeah. Yeah. And basically the, the more either like, uh, if you're having enough to stress,

00:08:13.060 Hey, you know, then it's problematic. Or if you are, what I see is kind of the bigger problem.

00:08:18.940 I'm giving up on things that I care about. I'm avoiding things that I want to do that matter

00:08:23.520 to me. I'm not connecting when I really want to be connecting.

00:08:27.800 Diagnostically, do you make a distinction between shyness and social anxiety? Like when someone comes

00:08:32.600 to you like, Oh, I've got social anxiety. Do you sometimes say, well, maybe you're just

00:08:35.320 kind of shy and you don't actually have social anxiety?

00:08:38.660 Yeah. You know, I, I don't differentiate it that way since it is a scale. Like if they're

00:08:43.900 coming to see me, then I'm trying to figure out what is missing. Like what's the problem

00:08:49.360 here? What are you not getting? And how do I get you there? Like a lot of times I'll find

00:08:54.080 when people come in, like if, if we're thinking like really like clinical psychology by the book,

00:08:59.960 someone might come in and be like, okay, you, you are above the cutoff for social anxiety

00:09:04.760 disorder. And then after a bit of treatment, people will be down below the cutoff. And some

00:09:11.220 people are like, okay, yeah, you know, I'm, I've moved myself down that scale. This is okay. But

00:09:16.760 most of the time people are like, okay, well, I'm down below the cutoff, but like there's a lot more

00:09:21.400 that I still want to do. And the amount that I'm having is getting in the way.

00:09:24.820 Okay. Do we have any ideas as to what causes social, like someone to develop social anxiety,

00:09:32.880 whether like that mild form or extreme form, is it nurture nature? What's going on there?

00:09:38.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, it's going to be, it's going to be a combo. So I think part of it is,

00:09:43.040 like I mentioned before, this is a human experience. So part of it is that the evolutionary

00:09:49.460 background of, we are primed to be this way. There's certain things that as humans with our,

00:09:55.480 our preexisting preloaded threat system is designed to protect us from things. And there are certain

00:10:04.020 things that it is very ready to activate and try to protect us from, you know, like snakes,

00:10:10.020 but also social injuries. So we are already primed to be worried about whether we are acceptable in

00:10:19.820 the group, whether we are performing correctly, whether people approve of us. So we have that

00:10:24.820 kind of background and then, you know, we all have that, right? But obviously there's individual

00:10:30.480 differences. And so there are differences in like temperament. So some of us are born like,

00:10:37.120 like myself, more like behaviorally inhibited, basically where our nervous system is more

00:10:44.060 sensitive and we're going to be more reactive to stimuli. So that's one piece of it. But also like

00:10:51.660 what happens over our time growing up, it tunes that, like it either turns our sensitivity up or it

00:10:59.780 helps it to calm down. And then where I find it gets really interesting is in that like nurture

00:11:06.760 piece and the experience piece. Like we're trying to figure out, like someone comes in for treatment,

00:11:11.380 right? We want to have a model and we want it to be individualized because people will not agree

00:11:17.540 on what situations are threatening. This basically will come out of, we'll look at the nurture piece.

00:11:24.780 Like we'll look at what are you specifically afraid of happening? In what situation? What is it that

00:11:32.400 you're afraid it is going to be discovered about you? Like what will you be giving away?

00:11:38.280 And people are judging. And we'll be able to say, this didn't come from nowhere. If we look for it,

00:11:44.300 we will generally, we'll be able to find, oh, this has been happening for a while. Where would this

00:11:49.500 idea have come from? Because at some point, a part of us, part of our brain learned that a particular

00:11:55.480 situation was threatening. And we learned at that time, here's how I'm going to cope. I'm going to

00:12:01.360 come up with a survival method for this. So I do think like having that background is really useful

00:12:08.140 for like for self-compassion to know, oh, there's not something wrong with me. Like we have tricky

00:12:15.900 brains as Paul Gilbert says, we set up this way. And we've been through experiences that have trained

00:12:22.600 us to be afraid of certain circumstances. Okay. That makes sense. So we might, you might be born

00:12:29.420 with more sensitivity to social or status defeats of being socially rejected. And then your upbringing

00:12:36.720 could fine tune that. Or even if you sort of are naturally an extrovert, you enjoy being around

00:12:42.280 people. If you had an upbringing where you didn't have the opportunity to socialize, you might develop

00:12:47.200 some social anxiety. Like in your case, you know, you grew up, you went to that all boys high school,

00:12:51.920 didn't really interact with women. So when you finally had to, you obviously had some anxiety

00:12:57.280 because you didn't have any practice with that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's definitely, you know,

00:13:02.280 would have a piece, right? If we, you know, it depends, we can go way far back, like early

00:13:06.720 childhood or we can look at definitely like the teen years, right? And the puberty. And then when people

00:13:13.460 start to shift from seeing other people as being like on the same level to suddenly, you know,

00:13:20.700 like I'm friends with that person, not that person. And then that sudden shift to like hierarchies

00:13:25.560 that kick in once you're in the teen years and what you've learned, like all this historical stuff,

00:13:31.020 like you are picking up these models, right? Of like, this is who I am. This is where I fall.

00:13:36.860 This is how loved I am. This is what's wrong with me. This is what's good about me.

00:13:41.480 This is how people are going to respond. This is what the world's like.

00:13:44.260 And going back to, you know, personality, a lot of people talk about, well, I'm an introvert.

00:13:49.740 I'm an extrovert. And I think with this idea of social anxiety, introversion, extroversion can be

00:13:55.500 related to it, but I think it's possible. You can be an introvert, but not have social anxiety.

00:14:02.080 I think that describes me. Like I'm an introvert. Introversion is just, you enjoy being by yourself

00:14:08.280 for just smaller groups. Like being around lots of people just wears you out. That's how I feel

00:14:14.220 whenever they go to a party and like, you know, press flash and hobnob. Afterwards, I'm like, oh man,

00:14:19.820 that was, that was really tiring. But I like to, smaller groups, I'm fine. But I'm not like,

00:14:24.320 I'm not shy. I have no problem introducing myself to people I don't know, going to places I don't know,

00:14:30.060 public speaking, calling people on the phone that I don't know. Not, don't have a problem with that.

00:14:34.320 Is it possible for you to be an extrovert, but also have social anxiety? So like you enjoy

00:14:39.060 being around lots of people, like there's something in your temperament, but then you also

00:14:43.340 like, it makes you anxious. Have you encountered patients like that?

00:14:46.800 Oh yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Think, think of them as being like, it's, it's easier to think

00:14:51.280 about them as being two separate factors. So yeah, you're, you're right. You can, you can be

00:14:56.660 introverted and just want a smaller group of friends, but you're not experiencing a fear of being judged,

00:15:03.100 a fear of being seen as deficient and having that get in the way. You just don't want that level of

00:15:09.280 stimulation all the time. And yeah, you'll have, yeah, introverts, not socially anxious, not going

00:15:15.940 to come in and try to get it treated because they're like, I'm doing fine. I just wanted a life that's

00:15:22.120 set up in this particular way. What's interesting. Yeah. Is you do get obviously introverted, socially

00:15:29.180 anxious people, but yeah, you're right. You get those extroverted, socially anxious folks. And

00:15:34.840 that's actually where I see the most pain, right? Because you are somebody who wants a full social

00:15:41.340 life. You want to be kind of the life of the party. You want to be around people all the time. You want

00:15:44.860 to be thinking out loud, connecting with people. And yet you are being really inhibited by the fear of,

00:15:51.700 you know, not being good enough. And you're shutting down, even though you want to be connecting

00:15:57.100 desperately. Like those are the ones who suffer the most. And like, that probably was what I was

00:16:01.620 like when I was younger and going through this. And I think, um, I've noticed this, that people do

00:16:08.020 this because I think one of the downsides of what we say democratizing therapy speak or psychology speak

00:16:16.620 is that people start self-diagnosing and there's people who they might have like social anxiety because

00:16:22.900 they just don't have the practice of socializing, but they're like, well, I'm just an introvert.

00:16:27.260 It's like, well, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe you would actually enjoy being very social,

00:16:35.120 except you just don't know how. And so it gives you anxiety. And so to avoid the anxiety, you just

00:16:38.980 don't go out and you're like, well, I'm an introvert.

00:16:41.220 I mean, yeah, I'm, I'm with you on that. Honestly, the, the way I think about it, anybody that comes in

00:16:46.240 to try to treat things, it requires a ton of courage and it requires you facing uncomfortable

00:16:55.280 things. And like most people are not going to do it because it's really hard and it's scary.

00:17:01.880 And for, for a lot of people, either it's like, I don't realize that's what's going on. Cause I

00:17:06.800 have this narrative or it's easier to say, I don't like something rather than I'm scared of something.

00:17:13.960 Yeah. That makes sense. And I think with social anxiety, the thing I'm, maybe I'm picking up on

00:17:20.040 is it can be context specific. So you might have social anxiety in certain situations, but not

00:17:26.560 others. So here's an example. Some people do fine in face-to-face conversations, but calling someone

00:17:34.660 on the phone just terrifies them. So they just avoid calling people on the phone, like even calling

00:17:39.480 the restaurant to make an order or something like that, even though they, you know, whenever I see

00:17:45.120 people have that social anxiety of calling people on the phones, like there's, there's people at that

00:17:49.380 place who are waiting for their job is to take your call. You don't need to worry about it. And then

00:17:54.260 there's also, you know, people could be fine socially with friends, with colleagues, with coworkers,

00:18:00.460 but when it comes to dating and thinking about relationships romantically, that's when the anxiety

00:18:06.560 appears. Yeah. Totally the case. You know, I'll, I'll have these like funny conversations with

00:18:12.560 people because like we each have our theories, right? Like our implicit ideas of this is how the

00:18:18.780 world works. This is what's safe. This is what's not safe. And a lot of change in that is I just

00:18:23.180 identifying it and then trying to challenge it. But I'll, you know, I'll talk to people and

00:18:28.680 somebody will, you know, be adamant, put me in a group. It is safe. I can hide. No one's already

00:18:35.740 paying attention to me. But if you put me one on one with somebody, that's where the real danger is

00:18:40.640 because then the person's going to look at you and they're going to realize, you know, whatever your

00:18:45.120 flaws are. And then I'll talk to the next person and they'll be like, Oh, you know, get me one on one.

00:18:51.480 I can read what the person's thinking. I can adjust myself. It's fine. But put me in a group. I don't

00:18:56.920 know what to do. I'm going to screw that up. And each one will be entirely convinced that

00:19:01.100 one environment safe and the other one is very dangerous because we've each come to develop our

00:19:06.980 own, um, yeah, particular triggers. And yeah. And so like for me dating, but if you have me talk to

00:19:14.320 like a guy, great, going to go fine. Have me talk to my date's mother. You know, I was wonderful.

00:19:22.060 I was the most charming guy you ever met, but it's yeah. The specific, each person is very

00:19:27.120 specific. And like when, when you are trying to figure out how to help, it's why you kind of can't

00:19:32.520 do just blanket broad things. A lot of times, like you want to have a sense of like, what is it,

00:19:40.480 what situation triggers me and why, and what do I think it's bringing? What is it revealing

00:19:45.560 about me? And what am I doing to trying to protect myself in those situations?

00:19:51.800 Yeah, that makes sense. So I think I'm, if I remember correctly, all the pickup artists stuff,

00:19:56.620 you know, it's like you got to increase your confidence in general and probably that's probably

00:20:02.500 not that useful. Instead, you should focus on like, what, what is it about interacting with the

00:20:07.140 opposite sex that makes me anxious? And then like figure that out. Cause I don't know if you can 1.00

00:20:11.620 really just increase general confidence. I think confidence is very context specific. You can be

00:20:16.900 confident in one situation, like we just talked about talking with the boys, but not so much with

00:20:22.560 women and in certain, and women in certain situations, like you'd probably be fine talking to

00:20:27.220 the bank teller and just have this great conversation and it's almost flirty. You don't

00:20:34.000 realize that, but as soon as you have an interest, like a romantic interest, that's, that's when it

00:20:38.940 becomes a problem. So you got to focus on that. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So social anxiety, like general

00:20:46.960 anxiety is based on faulty thinking. So when you have generalized anxiety, they just, you imagine

00:20:53.980 these things in your head that probably aren't going to happen. And you use that fear to make excuses

00:21:02.520 for yourself to just avoid life in the extreme cases. What's some of the faulty thinking patterns

00:21:08.900 that people have about socializing in general that can cause social anxiety?

00:21:16.880 There are, there are so many, like you could write a whole book on it, which I did. I mean,

00:21:23.740 I could honestly go on and on for any kind of anxiety. Like this is the simple version, right? For any kind

00:21:29.800 of anxiety you look for most likely you are some version of overestimating the likelihood that

00:21:38.240 things would go badly and underestimating your ability to handle it. So that's kind of the,

00:21:44.220 the broad version. But once you get deeper into social anxiety, there are like commonalities that

00:21:50.340 come up all the time. And so like I talk in the book about this idea of the, that comes from Dave

00:21:56.840 Moskovic, but this idea of an audience that people until proven otherwise are hyper focused on you

00:22:05.780 and the hyper focused on looking for flaws and things that are wrong with you. And when they see

00:22:10.980 them, they are going to be really critical, not kind, not thoughtful, not empathetic, not be able to put

00:22:18.380 it in context. And they're going to be judgmental about it. And if that happens, we will be unable

00:22:24.620 to go on. It will just shut us down. Our lives will be ruined. So I think, I think that kind of

00:22:31.140 collection is really important. Like I have a thing I get into great detail in the book about this

00:22:35.980 thing I call the social anxiety equation, where I sort of point out, here's a whole series of

00:22:43.000 cognitive biases that socially anxious people have that triggers all of the symptoms in, in the end to

00:22:50.280 protect you. And it's kind of those pieces, right? Because in reality, we know from research and

00:22:55.720 go about testing this all the time in, in treatment, but like, we know that the flaws that we feel like

00:23:02.180 we have, they seem much bigger to us than they are to other people. And so we might like, we, we get

00:23:08.900 anxious when we're going to enter a situation and we think some imperfection, some problem we have

00:23:13.880 will be revealed. But in reality, one, people are not super attentive. People don't notice things

00:23:21.120 particularly well. A lot of what we experience, we notice because it's maybe internal to us

00:23:26.480 or they don't notice because they are focused on other things. If they do notice it, a lot of times

00:23:33.840 they don't think these things are problems. Like they might even like them. I remember I, in college,

00:23:39.420 I talked to this, to this woman and like, she had like an interesting nose and I liked it and I gave 0.95

00:23:46.960 her a compliment on it. And she told me that it was the thing that she was most sensitive of. She saw

00:23:52.620 it as her biggest flaw. And I, in fact, had a different perspective. I liked it. And that comes

00:23:58.320 up again and again when I work with people. Their perceived flaws, there are some people who are into

00:24:02.980 those things. But even if they're not, people see things in context. Like we fixate on what we see

00:24:09.280 as a problem. But meanwhile, when someone meets us, they are seeing the entire person. Especially

00:24:14.460 if someone gets to know us. They get to know us as a full, complex human. And they see whatever

00:24:21.480 our downsides are in that context. And on top of that, people are way more empathetic than we give

00:24:27.780 them credit for. We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:24:30.980 And now back to the show. Okay. So let's kind of recap there. People who have social anxiety,

00:24:39.980 one of the things that faulty thinking that they have is they think that whenever they're socializing

00:24:44.900 with somebody, the other person's just looking for the flaws. Like they're looking for you to mess up.

00:24:50.600 They're hyper-focused on that. But the research shows like actually when you're interacting with

00:24:55.680 someone, they're not paying that much attention to you. And I think we've talked about this on the

00:25:01.280 podcast before. It's like the spotlight effect, right? Where you think everyone's paying attention

00:25:05.400 to you, but actually no one's paying attention to you. And they've done experiments where they've

00:25:08.360 had people wear Barry Manilow t-shirts. And then they asked, you know, people, did you notice the guy

00:25:15.400 wearing the Barry Manilow t-shirt? And like, I don't remember the Barry Manilow t-shirt. So yeah,

00:25:19.600 people aren't, so that's one of the cognitive faulty thinking. People aren't really paying

00:25:23.880 too close attention to what you look like or your flaws. And then the other one faulty thing is that

00:25:32.180 people with social anxiety, they catastrophize about if they do have a social misstep,

00:25:38.200 what's that going to mean? And they typically think, well, someone's just going to hate me and

00:25:41.920 they're just going to make fun of me and they're just not going to have anything to do with me.

00:25:44.540 And what the research shows is like, actually, most people are pretty forgiving and empathetic

00:25:50.460 and they're probably not even paying attention. If you did have some sort of social faux pas,

00:25:55.080 it went over their head. But because people with social anxiety had that faulty thinking of

00:25:59.060 catastrophizing and thinking everyone's paying attention to them, to avoid the anxiety,

00:26:03.980 they just avoid social situations completely. Yeah. Yeah. Like all of the things that we

00:26:09.340 do to protect ourselves or avoid, those are the real problems, right? So this belief

00:26:14.400 of, yeah, people are really vicious, they are looking for these things, they're going to catch

00:26:17.580 them, they're going to judge me, they're probably mean, makes it feel really risky,

00:26:22.900 makes it feel really threatening. And so the natural response to risk and threat is to avoid those

00:26:29.100 things. Yeah. Or if you cannot avoid them, to try really hard to hide them. And I guess that's

00:26:35.700 actually one of the other, for social anxiety, one of the really big biases in thinking is that

00:26:42.760 you've got to perform, it's this idea of I've got to perform really, really well in order for people

00:26:48.480 to be accepting of me or like me. And the research from just, I've pulled it from all over the place

00:26:56.840 and it keeps coming back to, no, you don't. Like social performance is not really demanding.

00:27:02.440 It's generally simple and it's generally being warm, being curious and being basically authentic to the

00:27:11.340 self or faithful to the self. And people aren't demanding this like incredible level of

00:27:17.060 like verbal performance and wittiness and humor. People basically want you to do just

00:27:23.700 straightforward social skills. And if you do that, it goes really well a lot of the time,

00:27:28.780 especially like early on. Yeah. Um, that those protective behaviors you take part in

00:27:34.680 when you do have to interact, like someone's social anxiety, they have to like, okay, I gotta,

00:27:38.980 I gotta be social. I don't want to, but I have to. And like you said, they typically,

00:27:44.120 someone will fall back to just like tactics, techniques to get them through it. And this is

00:27:52.020 like where that pickup artist stuff comes in. That's what they offer there. Well, here's these

00:27:54.980 things you can do when you're interacting with a woman and you're feeling nervous. You can do this

00:27:59.700 so you know what to do, even though you feel nervous. Yeah. But what your research suggests and

00:28:06.020 what you've noticed with your clients is when you start performing, you actually become more aware

00:28:11.640 of your social interaction. And that's like, that's going to actually cause your anxiety to go up even

00:28:18.000 more because now you're just paying close attention. Like, oh my gosh, I said that wrong. I'm an idiot.

00:28:23.080 And then this person's probably thinking I'm an idiot. And so that performative aspect just increases 1.00

00:28:29.260 the, the self-awareness, which increases the social anxiety and it just becomes this death

00:28:35.140 spiral. That is, that is exactly it. Exactly it. Like it's, and you got to think too about the,

00:28:41.180 like what's the underlying message that we're kind of implying, right? When we are trying to perform

00:28:47.920 because the underlying message is you, as you are, is not okay. You are not good enough. Your instincts

00:28:55.300 are wrong. You are wrong. Therefore you need to perform and act in these ways in order to be

00:29:03.400 good enough and acceptable enough, which that is like on a deep level, that is really reinforcing

00:29:09.720 shame, right? Um, which is going to turn on the threat system and bring down self-confidence.

00:29:17.460 The more you raise that performance standard, I've got to perform this. I got to come across this way.

00:29:21.820 I got to make sure I do this and not that. The higher performance demands go, the more anxious

00:29:26.300 we get. And especially as we have this gap between here's how well I think I can perform. Like here's

00:29:34.580 who I can be. And here's who I'm supposed to be in order to be good enough. That gap is anxiety.

00:29:42.420 So we want to be really careful about not demanding that we perform like to this really high level,

00:29:49.480 especially that's beyond our natural process. Yeah. Cause all that stuff will make us more

00:29:53.980 anxious. And yeah, the more that we have to focus on ourselves to make sure that we're doing it

00:29:58.940 right, the more anxious we get, the more things we're trying to remember at once, more anxious we

00:30:03.300 get. In reality, the good news is we don't have to do all that. The social skills are simple and we can

00:30:12.140 just focus on the core of like be warm to people. We have a great response to that. People really like

00:30:17.600 that. Be curious about people. People really like that. And it makes us less anxious and be

00:30:23.960 slightly harder version. Like that self-fidelity, be faithful to the self, which can be a little more

00:30:31.040 intimidating, but is really well liked. And you also highlight research in your book about when you do

00:30:37.700 take part in protective behaviors during a social interaction. So that could be just going through

00:30:44.380 very rote performative things that you read on the internet or in some self-help book. People

00:30:50.420 actually pick up on that. They're like, well, something's off about this guy. And so your

00:30:54.300 attempts to protect yourself from social judgment is actually raising more awareness of your issues.

00:31:03.740 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's many downsides to protection. Like honestly, you could say

00:31:08.440 that the protection attempts themselves are the biggest problem out of this whole process because

00:31:15.700 pretty much any protection strategy we use raises anxiety, but it also makes us harder to connect to.

00:31:24.120 And yeah, oftentimes it comes across weird because it's not natural, but like all of this stuff,

00:31:31.420 like all of those protective behaviors, like it's protection, like it's armor. And just from the,

00:31:36.440 all the years of working with people on this, so much comes down to this. It comes down to like,

00:31:42.040 I am sitting, interacting with people. I'm hearing about belief-wise what's driving them,

00:31:47.180 but I'm also looking and hearing about how they're trying to survive those concerns. Like what are these

00:31:55.240 different strategies that they're doing to try to survive and still connect? And sometimes it's like

00:32:02.420 the connection is just not happening because there's so much protection. And other times it's

00:32:08.060 like you're present, but you're not, I'm not actually seeing you. No one's actually getting

00:32:14.300 you. Like you can't actually connect with someone unless you have access to them. And so this is like

00:32:20.520 in going out and kind of pushing boundaries and testing out these social theories. So much of it is

00:32:28.220 looking at like what, what protections are you using and why are you using those? And what are

00:32:33.700 you predicting would happen if you did not use those? So for example, most people that I've worked

00:32:40.880 with, they will either be a, I don't like asking questions person, or I don't like self-disclosing

00:32:48.820 person. But the act of expressing social curiosity, asking people about themselves, asking follow-ups,

00:32:56.640 being interested. That piece or self-disclosure, which is this is who I am. This is me. Those two

00:33:04.380 sides, curiosity and self-disclosure, those are the engine of connection. Like that's how we connect

00:33:11.780 to people. That's how we start up really shallow and we work our way down to really knowing and being

00:33:17.540 known. And so if you've got a, due to fear, you have a protection strategy that is cutting off

00:33:23.260 one or both of those, then you're literally cutting off the, any ability to connect.

00:33:30.120 So I mean, yeah, another protective behavior you talk about in the book, I think you mentioned is,

00:33:35.160 especially in dating guys will be like, I'm just gonna play hard to get.

00:33:38.380 Like, I'm gonna just pretend, I'm gonna act like I don't, I'm not actually interested in this girl.

00:33:42.760 Yeah.

00:33:43.680 So that if, if she does reject me, it's like, well, you know,

00:33:46.640 you can play it off. Like, well, I just, I wasn't really into you anyways.

00:33:49.860 Yeah. Like when it comes to dating anxiety, this is, this is the biggest one. Basically not

00:33:55.980 taking the risk of showing any interest. Yeah. And like I've, I've, there's probably many stories

00:34:01.840 in the book about this because you see it all the time. And it, I mean, that's exactly what it is.

00:34:07.040 It is vulnerable to show interest in somebody because you are opening yourself up to that

00:34:13.940 interest not being reciprocated, which it will not be a solid percentage of the time.

00:34:18.460 So that takes courage that is brave to do. And so because it's vulnerable and we don't like

00:34:24.740 feeling vulnerable. Yeah. The, the most common thing to do is to feel it, but try really hard

00:34:30.000 not to show it. And if you have a rule of like, Oh, I cannot show someone my interest. I've got to

00:34:37.760 seem cool and calm, disinterested. I'm going to wait for them to show it to me. Then the burden's all

00:34:43.840 on them, which is not very thoughtful to them, but also that's asking them to take a massive risk,

00:34:50.120 right? Like they're not going to take this massive, and some people will, but not many people are going

00:34:55.640 to take a massive risk of saying, Hey, this guy's really communicating. He doesn't like me, but I'm

00:35:00.240 going to try to show him how much I like him. Yeah. That's a hard ask.

00:35:04.800 Right. And it doesn't work. Like you said, like most of you, if someone thinks that you don't

00:35:09.340 like them, they're not going to like you. But the thing is though, I mean, everyone's experienced

00:35:13.540 this. As soon as you realize someone's interested in you, like, Oh, they like me or doesn't have to

00:35:18.960 be romantic. You just be like, Oh, that guy thinks I'm cool. All of a sudden you think, well, that guy's

00:35:23.640 cool. Or that I really like, I like this girl too, because she's interested in me. So, I mean,

00:35:30.060 the takeaway there is if you have social anxiety, whether it's like making friends or dating,

00:35:35.880 express, like show that you're interested because that will likely cause the other person to be

00:35:40.680 interested in you. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. This is reciprocation. Like we know from research,

00:35:47.300 warmth is reflected. If we put out warmth, we get warmth back for the vast majority of people.

00:35:52.960 If we put out being cold, we tend to get cold back from other people. And especially if we're

00:35:59.140 authentic, right? If we like a person in particular versus we just like everyone, people feel that.

00:36:06.720 And that makes you like even more likely to, to reflect it back. And like, if you think about it

00:36:12.760 too, the, like the model of flirtation, like flirtation is basically, I'm going to display, I have all of

00:36:20.460 these psychologically attractive aspects to me. And I am suggesting that maybe I'm interested in

00:36:29.580 investing those in you. Those two things together are flirtation. If we just have, I am so great,

00:36:37.360 look at all these cool things about me, but no indication that we're interested in investing in

00:36:44.260 a person, it's not flirtation. Like you're just existing. Yeah. When you talk about flirtation,

00:36:48.860 I thought this was interesting. Flirtation, we're getting more into the dating anxiety stuff here,

00:36:53.520 but flirtation, there's ambiguity in it. You're not going out and saying, Hey, I really like you.

00:37:00.260 Like you don't do that right off the bat. Instead, you're like, I've got these great qualities and

00:37:05.780 maybe I like you. So I, I, cause I think ambiguity is really underappreciated. Um, people really enjoy,

00:37:11.780 uh, the ambiguity in a, in a relationship because it's, it's interesting. It's intriguing. It's

00:37:17.900 exciting. Yeah. I think people's brains really, they're really engaged by uncertainty and they

00:37:23.200 want to figure out, does this person like me? Do they not like me? So you don't, you don't want to

00:37:28.560 play hard to get, but you, you want to make your signals mixed a little bit and that generates some

00:37:35.380 chemistry. Does that, am I explaining that? Okay. Yeah. No, you, I say the exact same thing as you.

00:37:40.480 So I think what's interesting about it too, is the reason that what you're saying feels right is

00:37:48.780 because that's organically exactly how things work. Like not just for dating, but for, but for all

00:37:56.020 relationships, right? When you first meet somebody, you know, you know very little about them. So you're

00:38:02.200 not going to be like super sold on that person because authentically you just know a sliver,

00:38:08.380 like it's thin slice, you know, there's a little bit of them. And you also probably know from

00:38:12.180 experience that the deeper traits of people don't come out until you've known them for a while.

00:38:19.160 So if it's friendship, you meet somebody, you know, you're not going to be like, Oh my God,

00:38:23.800 you're amazing. You're my best friend. You're going to have probably a initially polite and then maybe

00:38:29.680 more enjoyable of a conversation with them. And over time, as you get to know more about them,

00:38:35.120 maybe there's more of a, more of a friendship connection and you become more obvious that you

00:38:40.300 like the person. It's the same for dating. You meet a person at first, you don't know them.

00:38:46.100 This stage one of flirtation is you treat someone the same that you treat any other person.

00:38:51.680 You're basically polite to them and you do your basic social skills. You're not, Oh my God,

00:38:57.060 you're amazing. You just met them. You don't know that maybe they're not amazing. And over time,

00:39:01.480 you are gathering information. And as you gather information, that mixed message, which originally

00:39:07.580 was like just basically politeness becomes more and more overt as you become more and more like

00:39:16.100 sold on them. Does that make sense?

00:39:18.560 That makes, that makes perfect sense. So you're, you're taking your time to reveal your intentions

00:39:24.040 or your, your actual feelings. That's what a natural social development looks like. Like you said,

00:39:29.400 you start off, you're going to kind of have these niceties you engage in politely, relying on

00:39:35.220 etiquette and manners and rules. But as you get to know this person, you start revealing a little

00:39:41.040 bit more, a little bit more. And really that's the best thing about a relationship is getting to know

00:39:47.420 somebody. Like that's my favorite part of a relationship is like getting to know the person.

00:39:51.180 Yeah. Which, which by the way, probably makes you a great person to socialize with because that's

00:39:56.400 people's favorite thing is slowly becoming known.

00:39:59.780 Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Let's talk about what we can do to alleviate if you have social anxiety,

00:40:06.000 or even if you don't have social anxiety, you just maybe have shyness every now and then how

00:40:09.460 maybe you don't want to be as shy. Some things we can do to mitigate that or alleviate that one

00:40:16.300 piece of advice you give. Well, I think the one thing is just understanding these,

00:40:20.520 this faulty thinking that we often engage in if you have social anxiety, or even if you're just shy.

00:40:26.980 Again, reminder that people aren't really paying that much attention to your flaws.

00:40:30.820 Even if they do notice your flaws, they probably don't care. And then this idea that you have to

00:40:36.140 perform and socialize in a certain way for you to have a good social interaction, that will actually

00:40:42.200 just make you more anxious because you're just so focused on yourself. So one bit of advice,

00:40:48.120 and you've kind of alluded to this already, is instead of thinking about making a great first

00:40:52.800 impression. So let's say you're going to a party, a new gym, where you can meet some new friends,

00:40:59.460 maybe a potential romantic partner. Instead of thinking about how to make a great first impression,

00:41:04.760 you argue you should just make a mediocre first impression. So what does a mediocre

00:41:09.740 first impression and mediocre social interaction look like?

00:41:13.460 Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm being deliberately a little bit kind of tongue in cheek about it.

00:41:18.300 Sure.

00:41:18.720 Yeah. But the, the idea is that the reason I mentioned that is because people,

00:41:22.040 whenever they are coming in and talking to me about this, they do tend to have these elevated

00:41:26.760 demands. I must perform this well. I must seem witty and I must seem this, and I must seem that

00:41:33.580 with all these rules and having those high demands, right? Makes us more anxious,

00:41:39.680 but it also very much makes us less likely to actually talk to people because it's hard to be

00:41:45.760 super witty and cool and intelligent and whatever else. So part of it is that it reduces our anxiety

00:41:54.100 if we can find a way to lower the demands and it makes us more likely to act and it's likable.

00:41:59.880 So my argument of what a, what a mediocre first impression means is you are going back to that

00:42:07.960 simplicity principle of social skills, which is be warm, be curious and be authentic to who you are.

00:42:16.100 And that is doable for us, right? So this means just those basic social skills of smile,

00:42:23.380 make some eye contact, ask whatever natural, like easy curiosity questions you have. I try to

00:42:30.900 understand the person a bit, try to get to know a little bit about who they are, what makes them

00:42:35.800 interesting? What might you like about them? Because that's really positive revalenced and then reveal

00:42:41.980 some about who you are. But you're not trying, I think the important thing is a lot of people I talk to

00:42:47.900 feel like when they first meet someone, whether it is social or dating or whatever, that you

00:42:53.360 are trying to like make some great leap in your relationship with that person when you first

00:42:59.160 meet them. That's really demanding. Like instead, my model is your goal is to take somebody from being

00:43:07.480 a stranger to being a non-stranger, not being a friend, not even being an acquaintance, just like

00:43:13.480 it's a person that you have interacted with on some level. So you're no longer absolute strangers.

00:43:20.480 What it means is like people really connect through repeated contact. That's just how we

00:43:25.160 sort of, we naturally form connections. So we're just trying to, you know, the next time you show up

00:43:30.340 in some social event, you've actually met some people. And hey, if you go beyond like a simple

00:43:38.140 introduction to have a bit of a conversation, great. So this is what kind of what I mean by like a

00:43:44.020 mediocre self-impression, like allow things to happen over time through repeated investment.

00:43:51.440 And then another bit of advice that you give is just to quit thinking about yourself so much,

00:43:56.020 because as we talked about, self-consciousness is what is getting in the way of you having a good

00:44:01.340 social interaction. So just put the focus on the other person, be interested in the other person,

00:44:06.240 ask them lots of questions. I think the trick is though, is you don't want the question asking to

00:44:11.740 become a protective behavior, right? Where you're not revealing things about yourself. There's none

00:44:17.500 of that give and take. But if you're feeling just really shy and, you know, just like really

00:44:22.060 self-conscious in a social interaction, just shifting the focus away from yourself by asking the person

00:44:27.360 lots of questions, that can be a great way to get over that initial hump.

00:44:32.060 Definitely. Definitely. And people generally, like we do want to over time have a, you know,

00:44:38.840 a 50-50-ish balance of how much is curiosity about the other person and how much is self-disclosure

00:44:45.040 about ourselves, because we have to self-disclose for them to connect to us. But both sides of that

00:44:50.740 are important. And they don't have to happen like one-to-one, like one question, one statement.

00:44:57.180 It can be like, at sometimes it's like, we have a chunk of time that's all about the other person.

00:45:02.480 And then that brings up, you know, if we are externalized, really interested in them,

00:45:06.880 really wanting to understand what are they feeling? Why are they feeling that? Why is

00:45:11.140 this important? We'll probably find at some point we have these light bulbs go off that it really

00:45:17.380 reminds us of like our own story or we see some similarity. Like, oh, I also have that. And that

00:45:24.460 will naturally lead us to self-disclose as well. Or the other person will often ask us questions too.

00:45:29.980 One of the treatments for just general anxiety is exposure therapy. This is where you actually,

00:45:37.520 you have to face your fear. So if you have a fear of spiders, you have to like look at a spider. You

00:45:43.000 might have to hold a tarantula. And the idea is by experiencing that fear response, but seeing that

00:45:49.800 you're actually not harmed, there's no danger, you can reduce your anxiety about that particular

00:45:55.240 thing. It could be heights, dogs, animal, whatever. How do you use exposure therapy in your work

00:46:01.640 treating people with social anxiety? Oh, it is fundamental. It is fundamental.

00:46:07.820 As much as we would love to sit around just talking about cognitions and changing thoughts and thinking

00:46:13.280 more realistically, honestly, all of that thought stuff is very, very important. But a lot of it is

00:46:21.600 important because it sets us up to do the right kind of exposures. So our emotional brain, it will

00:46:28.120 be a bit influenced by a shift in perspective, but it really learns through experience. So exposure is

00:46:35.700 really just getting new experiences that give us a different understanding of the situation. We're

00:46:42.540 trying to teach our anxious brain that socializing is safe. And so what that looks like is you were

00:46:51.320 trying to identify which situations am I avoiding? How am I trying to protect myself in different

00:46:57.000 social settings? Why am I doing those things? What am I afraid is going to happen? And then the

00:47:04.960 exposure, when I do it, I use the model of behavioral experiments, which I think makes sense where

00:47:12.060 we're experimenting with behavior to try to get new information. We're testing out the beliefs that are

00:47:18.740 making us anxious. And so in social things, that'll mean, right, oh, I am constantly hiding my hands

00:47:26.380 when I talk to people because they shake. And I think they're going to think I'm weak and reject me if

00:47:30.940 they see it. Well, then an exposure or a behavioral experiment would be, I'm going to go out and I'm going

00:47:37.460 to try talking to people with my hands out and see, do they notice? Do they care? Do they reject me? How bad is

00:47:43.660 it? So it's finding whatever we believe is wrong with us and whatever protections we think we have to do

00:47:50.760 and testing those out and then coming back and discovering, well, things actually went fine. Or if I struggled

00:47:57.900 a bit, it wasn't that bad. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And then you talk about in the

00:48:03.000 book, to get over your dating anxiety, you did just like you were brutal with it with yourself. Like you just

00:48:08.200 asked random women for dates and phone numbers and just get it. Your goal is to get rejected as

00:48:15.740 frequently as you can, which, you know, it works like that, that can work. But maybe if you don't

00:48:21.260 want to do that, I mean, you can gradually do some exposure therapy by, you know, if you have a general

00:48:27.360 fear of socializing, try practicing your social skills in everyday non-threatening situations. So like

00:48:34.500 talking to the store clerk when you're checking out, talking to the post office clerk, because like,

00:48:41.800 you know, you can have a social interaction. There's no threat going on there. You can kind of just have

00:48:46.020 like just some banter back and forth to practice that. And you say, oh, that actually wasn't that bad.

00:48:52.680 I can take this to the next level with another social engagement that gives me a little bit more

00:48:58.280 anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great way to do it. Yeah. Just if you can find, how can I be this

00:49:04.100 little bit more social than I normally would be? Yeah. Try to find where, where are those small

00:49:08.880 opportunities for like social snacks? I'll just talk to this person a little bit and say more,

00:49:14.320 like where you might normally say less than you have an idea of like, I'm going to practice saying

00:49:19.200 more the next time, or I'm going to focus on asking more questions this week. I'm going to try to like

00:49:24.660 ask a question to each person I come across. Finding any little opportunities to just do more

00:49:32.140 socializing, but also it's like with any of the protections, just really focusing on those.

00:49:38.040 Where can I be less protected? So how can I undo that as well? And then like on a, on a deeper level,

00:49:45.380 at the deepest level, right, is this belief of I'm not acceptable as I am. And so finding also,

00:49:51.480 rather than just strangers, like people that you do know, like the ones who seem the most

00:49:56.420 accepting, starting to show maybe the parts of yourself that you hide, not immediately and not

00:50:04.160 a ton and don't go super deep, but like starting to reveal maybe some of the things that you

00:50:09.340 struggle with, um, to someone who's safe because where you'd love to get to at the end of this whole

00:50:15.340 process is where there are people that know who you actually are and they accept and love you anyway.

00:50:22.540 That's what we're going for. Yeah. You talk about the goal with your, your treatment with

00:50:27.920 people you work with is to get to this, what you call the warm social world. Yeah. Where instead of

00:50:33.640 seeing the social world as a scary place, you actually, it's a place like, Oh, these people

00:50:38.780 are potential friends or potential romantic partners or a potential business partner. Yeah. Yeah. Like

00:50:44.020 that's, that's where we want to get to. Um, and I feel like most people, they probably know this

00:50:50.600 because I think everybody probably has times where they feel just like really socially comfortable

00:50:56.500 where they are around the right people or things have gone a certain way. And they're just like,

00:51:01.860 Oh, I just feel like just connected. And I'm talking easily to people. I met people that wasn't that

00:51:08.220 difficult. We've probably had that. Right. And there's times where it's the opposite. You might give

00:51:13.880 us the same situation, but we're really shut down. We feel really anxious. It's hard to connect.

00:51:18.900 And when we're in these different states, like the world looks completely different and it

00:51:24.640 essentially is because, you know, our perceptions shape the world that we live in and where we're

00:51:31.500 trying to get to, you know, the end of the whole process is we don't, we don't want to be in a

00:51:37.060 situation where our anxiety turns on, our threat system turns on, and we're fighting against it as

00:51:43.720 we socialize. Where we want to get to is where it just doesn't turn on. So we have our natural,

00:51:50.340 like social approach system is turned on. And that's a system where we like, yeah, we, we see

00:51:56.920 people seem like potential friends and allies. We're making sort of small comments to the people

00:52:01.400 that we come across in our day. We're connecting and it just, you know, socializing feels easy.

00:52:07.480 Dating feels easy. It all feels easy.

00:52:09.260 And then if you get rejected, you're like, well, not a big deal. That's not a problem.

00:52:13.960 They're not for me. Like I, you, you tell, you learn, you're like, oh, I don't like everybody.

00:52:18.240 That's okay. If they don't like me, that's fine too.

00:52:20.240 Yeah. Yeah. You don't need, and you've got, you know, you want to be at the point where you've got

00:52:24.380 enough people that already know you and like you where, you know, everything's not riding upon what

00:52:29.100 some particular person thinks or responds. You already feel good about yourself because you,

00:52:35.200 you have a community, you have friends.

00:52:36.980 Yeah. That's a good point. A lot of guys who might be struggling with dating.

00:52:41.700 One thing you talk about in the book in the beginning, instead of being so hyper-focused on

00:52:45.700 meeting a romantic partner, like just focus on making friends. Like just be like, if you're

00:52:51.820 talking about a guy here, like, you know, same sex friends, other dude friends, because you,

00:52:56.440 first you learn some social skills in that process, but then you develop that social capital

00:53:00.960 so that when you go out and you start approaching women, if you get rejected, well, you have these

00:53:08.100 guys you can go back to who can help you out. Like, hey, you're all right. Get back out there.

00:53:12.620 So that's, that's some like dating advice there. I think you have in the book that was really useful.

00:53:15.800 Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know, it's, it, people don't, I think, appreciate a lot of times how,

00:53:20.700 just how much the friendship world and the dating world overlap. The same traits basically are

00:53:27.120 attractive in both settings. And what makes someone a great friend makes them a great dating partner.

00:53:32.580 And the skills, the social skills you need, they overlap a lot. So yeah, work on talking to

00:53:40.320 everybody, you know, talk to people that are less intimidating. If you're intimidated by

00:53:44.380 a certain sort of person, practice on people that are less intimidating at first. And yeah,

00:53:49.360 and the bigger you build up that community, you build your own warm social world too,

00:53:53.660 like that you live in, where you have your confidants and you have your friends. And that is,

00:53:59.560 that is such a big antidote to the anxiety as well.

00:54:03.580 Well, Thomas, it's been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book

00:54:06.520 and your work?

00:54:07.620 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. Been great for me too. You can find my book, Dating Without Fear,

00:54:12.060 Overcome Social Anxiety and Connect. It's on Amazon. There's an, the audio book on Audible's

00:54:17.560 my personal favorite, but there's a soft cover book and a Kindle. But I also have a YouTube channel,

00:54:24.320 just my name, Dr. Thomas Smithyman. And I'm trying to put things out there pretty regularly.

00:54:29.560 Really on all these social world and anxiety topics.

00:54:33.780 Fantastic. Well, Thomas Smithyman, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:54:36.400 Yeah. Thanks a lot. I appreciate talking.

00:54:39.420 My guest here is Dr. Thomas Smithyman. He's the author of the book,

00:54:42.040 Dating Without Fear, Overcome Social Anxiety and Connect. It's available on Amazon.com.

00:54:46.640 You can find more information about his work at his website, thomassmithyman.com.

00:54:50.200 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash social anxiety,

00:54:53.440 where you can find links to resources. We delve deeper into this topic.

00:54:59.560 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at

00:55:07.080 artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives. And while you're there, sign up for

00:55:10.640 a newsletter. We got a daily option and a weekly option. They're both free. It's the best way to

00:55:14.720 stay on top of what's going on at AOM. And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if

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00:55:25.640 be something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time,

00:55:29.180 it's Brett McKay. Remind me to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - September 25, 2024

What's Going on With Your Social Anxiety？

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