I go out several nights a week. I make a conscious effort to approach each time.

I have two sticking points presently:

  • When conversation stalls and I don't know what to say, I often say something polite, supportive, and usually meaningless. I notice that this is a turn-off for reasons that I don't think I fully understand other than being approval-seeking, lacking in flavor, and quite possibly very unnatural to how most people speak in a high energy environment

  • I tend to duck out of sets very early for fear that I will say these things or some other awkward turn of phrase. Sometimes this works in my favor because I am not needy of their company/suffocating, but more often it just wastes the interaction

Did you have these specific bad habits? How did you break or modify these behaviors?