Racing heart, breaking out in a sweat, the feeling of being completely out of place – sound familiar? Many people feel uncomfortable when confronted with strangers at parties or other social events. Especially when they arrive in groups or even already know each other, it can quickly send your pulse skyrocketing.
Many of my clients thought they would never learn to stay cool in social situations like parties or apéros. Many thought they couldn’t do it at all because they were “introverted”. But from experience, I can say that even introverts can learn to be more confident.
In this article, I’ll explain to you what happens unconsciously, and I’ll give you tips on what you can do to be more confident at social events.
Approaching strangers
If we want to know how we can feel less lost and more confident in social situations, then we first have to understand exactly what is going on there. Because the nervousness arises unconsciously, it is therefore helpful to understand the unconscious.
For this, I like to come back to human nature, or rather, to evolution. Our conscious mind might have somewhat arrived in the modern world, but our subconscious has brought us through the entirety of human history.
So imagine you are a Stone Age human, you are out and about somewhere, and you come across a group of strangers.
You wouldn’t immediately run up to them and act like you were best friends. No, you first look from a distance to see whether they seem friendly or hostile. You can see that from their body language, even without words.
This happens entirely without words and can ultimately mean the difference between life and death. Seen this way, it makes absolute sense not to be completely relaxed here. Who knows if you might still have to run away if they turn out not to be friendly.
All of this happens unconsciously, even in the modern world. And it also absolutely doesn’t matter whether your conscious mind knows that you are actually safe.
Appearing more confident in groups
Here it is also important to know that this uncertainty doesn’t just apply to those who are newly joining, but also vice versa.
Thanks to the perspective of our ancestors, it is therefore clear that it’s normal not to feel completely at ease right away in social situations. So this isn’t a flaw; it’s supposed to be this way. Or put another way: the people who didn’t feel this way didn’t become your ancestors…
Tip No. 1: Trust your unconscious when you meet new people and allow yourself to feel your nervousness and overwhelm. They are unconscious guideposts.
When we don’t listen to someone who wants to tell us something important, they usually speak louder. Exactly the same thing happens when we ignore this unconscious communication through feelings. So the feelings of awkwardness and nervousness get stronger and stronger in a desperate attempt to protect us.
Or we could accept that our instincts and intuitions contain the wisdom of our ancestors, then we know that we carry thousands of years of experience in dealing with strangers inside us. And that makes trusting them so much easier.
Fear of rejection
Something that makes things even harder for many is that introverts tend to close themselves off in social situations when their nervousness rises. Unfortunately, this protective mechanism in body language is often perceived by others as cold and closed off. This then triggers uncertainty and discomfort in them, which leads to them also closing off and becoming cold.
This negative feedback loop can then amplify the feeling of discomfort or virtually “confirm” the fear of social situations. Often this shows up along the lines of: “I knew they were going to reject me.”
To prevent this, there is a very simple trick:
Tip No. 2: Make it a habit to smile when you are overwhelmed.
Just as we allowed ourselves to be overwhelmed in Tip No. 1, we can also continue to keep our smile. Even if you only manage a weird, overwhelmed grin, it still shows your surroundings that your intentions are positive. Since most people feel similarly anyway, it also makes you much more approachable.
So the inner Stone Age human, or rather the natural unconscious, will not only switch to positive in other people, but also in you.
Because when you meet people with a smile, they will usually smile back, which then triggers a better and more welcoming feeling in you. So we are using the exact same kind of social feedback as above, but in a positive sense.
Small talk
Once we have approached the group and the attention isn’t immediately focused on us, we first listen to what is being talked about.
But at some point, we arrive at the next dreaded step: saying something.
Now, many people claim that they aren’t good at small talk. But this is often due to a misunderstanding of what small talk is actually supposed to be. Because small talk is very rarely about profound or valuable content.
Rather, it’s about synchronizing the mood or atmosphere. That means we talk about trivial things, but with a very profound intention: namely, to find out who is speaking and what kind of mood they are in.
Here, too, the Stone Age human still plays a role. Because we unconsciously want to find out whether our conversation partner is peaceful or aggressive, genuinely friendly or just faking it. That, too, is very important to notice right from the start. Because it could also be that someone smiles at us but is holding a knife behind their back.
That means everyone has to sniff each other out first. And if someone comes along right at the point where dogs would be sniffing each other’s butts, and wants to share something particularly profound, then that’s rather weird.
Fear of saying the wrong thing
Many are afraid of saying the wrong thing. There are lots of communication tips, but here too, a clear kind of openness is a good thing. Many of my clients have had good experiences with the following:
State
The best thing is often to briefly and clearly communicate your own state. Statements like: “I’m usually nervous at these kinds of events” or “I’m a bit overwhelmed by the situation right now” or “I sometimes don’t know what to say when I meet someone for the first time.”
Tip No. 3: Share your feelings. That way, you never say the wrong thing.
This creates a fundamental trust and an insight into your inner self. Because even if you sometimes get the feeling that others can look inside us, they can’t.
If we now communicate our own state of mind, then it becomes possible to correctly categorize other behaviors. So “He/She isn’t looking at me because he/she doesn’t like me” becomes “He/she is looking away because he/she is nervous.”
Through this understanding and this openness, an unconscious connection and thus sympathy is automatically created.
Deep Talk
There is yet another advantage to expressing your own feelings so directly and concisely. Because many are afraid of saying the wrong thing with other people. Sharing your own feelings is a good trick here, too.
Any kind of communication can rub someone the wrong way. But when it comes to communicating our own inner life, absolutely no one can say that we are wrong.
The only way that communicating about your own feelings can go wrong is through exaggeration. If we describe our inner selves in too much detail, we often go too far for others. Usually, it’s good to say how you feel in one or two sentences, and then wait to see how the other person reacts to it.
If your conversation partner also shares their feelings, then that increases trust and shows others that we are open. That way, connections can form more easily. Besides, it’s a good starting point for a conversation, since most people have feelings and can therefore join in.
On the other hand, we can test our counterpart: when we share our feelings, we expect our counterpart to do the same. If something else comes back, we can conclude that our counterpart is also struggling and is still rather closed off.
With this kind of communication, we are on the safe side in 95%+ of cases and can make a direct connection, without weird questions or the like.
Meeting new people
With these tips and insights, we can get the unconscious in ourselves and in others on our side.
A smile is always doable, and statements about your own feelings should also be manageable for most.
With this in mind, I hope this helps you and that over time you feel comfortable or even find yourself surprised that you can actually have fun among people.
If you need help with this or believe that there is more behind it, such as a social phobia, then you are welcome to book an appointment with me and we will look at it personally.
