A little background first. I'm your typical AFC and long time lurker, but ever since school started up in Jan, I've been making a concerted effort to get over my social anxiety by forcing myself to go out and talk to new people everyday. Before, I would get anxiety at the very thought of leaving my house and having to talk to the cashier at the store, but after forcing myself to approach and talk to 100 new people over a two week span, my anxiety has decreased dramatically and I feel great. I no longer have trouble looking people in the eye and am not so nervous about messing up my words.

I have also been reading Conversationally Speaking to improve my conversation skills and other things to just start living a more fulfilling life, like playing golf, going hiking and hitting the gym regularly etc.

I very proud of the progress I've made over the last month and do not plan to slow down at all, the problem is two of my 'good' friends keep bringing up all my shortcomings with women in the past. I'm trying very hard to put all of that behind me, but they keep bringing it up, especially in front of other people. I have already completely excluded several people from my life that were negative influences and I am considering adding them to the list. But my gut instinct tells me to just cut off communication for a few months and continue making progress without their negativity.

Has anyone else run into this trouble and if so, how did you deal with it?