Milo's major breakthrough

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Me too.

By the way, social skills can be learned, just like basketball skills or computer skills. Some people are naturals at one set of skills or another set of skills. But anyone can practice and learn any set of skills and at least get reasonably good at them.

You can get books to teach you social skills. Just read them and practice the simple exercises (meeting and greeting people, basic social chatter) with any and every stranger in the vicinity until the exercises start feeling natural. Or never mind the books. Just get out into social situations and keep keep banging your head against that wall until you’ve made so many mistakes that you run out of mistakes and finally get it right. Either method is valid. But you have to get out and do the work.

As for dancing: Dancing is easy. Just buy a dance videotape, pop it in the VCR, and practice the moves until they feel okay. You don’t need to learn programmed steps like the tango or swing dancing. You just need to get through a basic dance or two for starters.

Here’s a quick lesson for you total non-dancers.

  1. Put your feet shoulder-width apart and plant them firmly on the ground. Don’t move them at all throughout the entire exercise. Both legs should be straight and unflexed.

  2. For the first beat, keep your right leg straight. Bend your left knee so that your knee moves forward 4-6 inches. (Remember, don’t move your feet.) Your hips should naturally move 2-3 inches to the right, and the left hip should move downward about 2 inches.

  3. For the second beat, straighten up your left leg and bend your right knee as described in step #2. Your hips should move to the left, and the right hip should dip downward.

  4. For the third beat, repeat step #2. And so on.

And that’s it. Do this slowly at first. Practice it five minutes a day for a week or two until it starts feeling natural. Eventually, as you start getting faster, your arms and shoulders ought to join in the movement of their own accord. (Clue: When the left knee bends and the hips move to the right, then the right shoulder tends to move downward and backward a touch.) Once you get the leg movements down, the rest pretty much comes natural.

Keep practicing until you can do it at the speed of a disco beat. Then try shuffling your feet a bit as you do it so that you can shuffle backward or forward or around in a circle. If you have any questions about shoulder and arm movements, go to a club and watch how much the average dancer moves his arms (generally, not too much).

Once you have all this down, keep doing it five minutes a day until it becomes so natural that you don’t need to think about it and can chit-chat while you do it. And once you’ve learned and practiced what I just described, you will probably be as good at club dancing as 75 percent of the dancing public.

My girlfriend and I dance all kinds of ballroom dances–swing, foxtrot, waltz, cha cha, etc. Most dancing comes down to learning one single repetitive move and practicing it over and over again until you can do it without thinking about it. Then you just start adding flourishes.

22

Come to think of it, the same thing can be said of social skills…

23

Deep admiration and congratulations, Milo! You’ve done more than I’ve managed in 40 years of living. (Notice how many shy people there are here?) After much effort I can now approach strangers in business settings, but can’t in social situations. Talk about choke and freeze.

All the other posters are right, too; it’s a learned skill and the only way to learn is doing it. So your leap of faith/courage is damned impressive. I’m so glad the lady was friendly and positive, because betcha dollars to donuts you’ll go on reaching out to people.

You’re pure hell on wheels, Milo! Good for you and keep on!

Veb

24

I for one and surprised that so many dopers are a shy lot. You had me fooled with some of the posts I’ve run into.

Congrats Milo.

As a person who’s been in the bar business can attest to, there’s a whole 'lotta shy people out there. They want to meet each other, but can’t get over the initial, ‘Hi’, ackward stage.

But as you’ve noticed, once you make the first move, it usually works out for the best. Hopefully you’ve learned an important lesson. Keep meeting people.

Some will be rude, some will ignore you. But it’s a game of numbers. Hopefully you will continue.

I only mention this because of the people I’ve seen trying to talk with strangers at the bar. Most just sit there and stare. The one’s who are successfull, simply go up and introduce themselves.

Just some anecdotal observations.

25

Uhh, awkward.

26

Uhhh… JTR… we’re not talking about classical dancing, buddy. We be gettin down to da jamzz. :smiley:

rockstar… sooo… how you doin?

Paddy, tell me about it. We need shirts that are black, with white letters that say “You are very attractive. I just don’t like to dance.” The letters are white so they can be easily read even in the blacklights. And when you get drunk enough, no need to slur, just point to your shirt.

–Tim

27

Fair enough. But the specific step or style doesn’t really matter. They can all be picked up pretty easily if you break them down into their constituent parts and then learn the constituent parts separately.

Dancing is a lowest-common-denominator phenomenon. That means that if the general public can do it, it must be pretty damned simple. Take a close look at a crowded dance floor some time. Ignore the good dancers and look at the average dancers. The average dancers are going to be doing one or two or three basic moves over and over, with little variation. And the moves can be picked up easily enough, even if you have never danced before. Just break them down into their constituent parts and then learn the constituent parts separately. If you simply aim at being as good as the average dancer (rather than the good ones), you’ll find it very easy to attain your goal. Later on, once you’ve learned to crawl properly, you can aim at being a virtuoso.

The same goes for social skills and even chatting up girls in bars. If the general public can do it, then these things are automatically lowest-common-denominator phenomena. Break them down into their constituent parts and practice the constituent parts separately, and you’ll see how easy they really are. It’s easy to become average at those things. I think perhaps shy people assume that you have to say novel or interesting or soul-searching things in order to engage in conversation in a bar. But none of that is necessary. You just have to do and say what everyone else is doing and saying. And that’s quick and easy to learn if you think in terms of breaking down the process and practicing the parts one by one. Later on, if you want, you can work at becoming truly great at those things.

Oh well. I’ll quit hijacking the thread. Milossarian, congratulations. Please don’t think I’m downplaying your achievement. I know from experience it’s quite a revelation for a shy guy when you find you can, indeed, talk to a pretty girl in a bar. I’m delighted to hear of your achievement and I wish you many more such successes in the same vein.

28

Don’t mind the hijack, JTR. I think you’re right.

In fact, I’d probably be in with this lovely lady if I’d grabbed her by the hand and headed for the dance floor. That’s where she spent most of the rest of the evening. So I think you’re on to something there.

I also think Homer’s T-shirt idea would sell big.

29

I think its all a cover. You have clearly lost confidence in your Fantasy Football team and now you’re inventing this lovely lady so you can say you were distracted when we kick your butt…

[Sledman ducks and runs while making a mental note to have his roster updated before playing Milo]