How do you know you are improving socially?

sexualsidefx · 2016-09-25T14:38:59+00:00

Do you feel better? Do you make other people feel better? Then you're doing better.

ThrowawayPUA · 2016-09-25T15:27:32+00:00

Metric: are you happy? With depression it can be hard to judge, today seems just as grim as yesterday. So think back weeks, months, maybe years, and compare.

Conotocaurious85 · 2016-09-25T18:37:01+00:00

I don't know anything about depression. For social skill, I measure my progress by recording my interactions with women.

There are specific, measurable metrics I use for evaluating the quality of the interaction. But without going into details, I go through the previous weekend ones on Friday before going out. I cringe with the early recordings, no wonder I made them feel so uncomfortable. Recent recordings are almost fun to listen to.

CapitalistMarxist · 2016-09-25T20:30:52+00:00

This is a very good question which I can relate to quite well. With depression, you can not rely on your usual instinctual perceptions because they are usually skewed towards the negative.

When you choose a metric, you need to settle for one that is not easily "hackable". Like you might observe that outgoing people have a ton of facebook friends, and then start to amass friends by sending countless random internet strangers friend requests. The metric will indicate that your social skills have improved, but in reality you had no actual interaction. A better approach would be to make a rule to not go out of your way in order to make new facebook friends. If you meet new people, are less awkward and can hold more interesting conversations, you will get more facebook friends.

You might say that facebook friends are meaningless, and I agree that they are not a goal worth pursuing. However, it's a pretty valuable indicator of things and skills that do matter. Similarly, you should not discount the things you mentioned in your own post. That is precisely your depressed self perception speaking. I always find it helps to imagine another person: if you knew about a person who regularly makes out which girls in a night club, how socially retarded can he really be?

Some other suggestions: Number of people who initiate a conversation on whatsapp, non-work related calls, length of your conversations with people(suggests both that other people find your company pleasant AND that you feel more comfortable in social situations). You do not need to meticulously track those numbers in a spreadsheet or something, just get a feel for them and you will notice how they improve.

Title	How do you know you are improving socially?
Author	beef1111
Upvotes	4
Comments	13
Date	September 25, 2016 1:25 PM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/seduction
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/54f2r2/how_do_you_know_you_are_improving_socially/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/seduction/how-do-you-know-you-are-improving-socially.1412970 https://theredarchive.com/post/1412970

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