I've been to my first meetup! · Skippy's Social Vault

I've been to my first meetup!

Hey guys,

I wanted to share with you a day I consider the beggining of my social life and overall turning point in my life. This happend about 5 weeks ago.

I consider myself to have little to none social and communication skills. I have almost no friends, I think I am seen by most people as boring and unspontaneous.

I went to my first meetup. A language exchange thing I randomly found on meetup.com. The meetup was in the evening in a bar. Only English should have been spoken there (not my native language). I was nervous the entire day, and almost didn't go, but I wanted to overcome this instinct of mine. The meetup ended up being amazing! There were about 30 people, but nobody knew anyone there which made it much more friendly for introverts like me. I kinda felt I fit it, a feeling pretty new to me. I was used to trying to socialize in groups where people knew each other, where I always felt like an outsider, there was the original group, and then there was me. But on these meetups, it's completely different. A lot of people didn't talk much, and it was completely fine, and fully respected by everyone.

When most of the people left, I went to the last small group, asked to join and ended up talking to them the rest of the evening. The amazing thing about this was, each one of that group was interacting with me, and they almost didn't talk to each other. That felt just amazing, for that moment I was in the center of attention. I almost started to question if I am actually introverted. I never thought that being center of attention in a group would feel so great. It seems very addictive.

I am still hyped from the first meetup. I am now going twice a week and continue to improve my communication skills (being funny, leading conversations,...) (I am looking for book recommendations on this topic).

There have been bad meetups where I really questioned my self and even left because nobody would talk to me. But I didn't give up and went across the city to another meetup where I've met amazing people. I realized, lot of times, things are just out of my control, and if that means leaving, that's fine.

Let this be encouragment for others!

Cheers guys :)

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