Count me in - what a great idea!
The overall social values I would like to live by - and set goals in line with - are:
* Be a socially confident person when meeting new people
* Voice my honest opinions, regardless of the conflict this may bring
* Take initiative in escalating relationships (e.g. from acquaintance to friend) and be fairly resilient to resulting rejection
* Only help people when it's from the heart - not just to be liked or avoid rejection
Most of which are connected in some way. Fear of rejection, especially romantically, is probably what I need to work the most on.
I started facing my fears socially about six months ago, when my (first) girlfriend dumped me after an intense relationship. She went from being wildly in love with me one day - to not feeling anything for me the next, literally. This prompted an intense emotional response in me of feeling personally rejected. Today, I'm grateful for the lessons this has taught me.. that I need to lessen my fear of rejection, learn to be happy by myself and stop being such a "Nice Guy".
In the past six months - after the initial down period after the relationship - I've kept a "Fear To-Do List" with social goals I wanted to complete, which scared me. Some of the goals I've successfully completed so far are:
* Gone on dates with three different girls (three first dates and four dates totally with the last girl - no luck, though)
* Participated in a large singles dinnerparty without knowing anyone
* Participated in a private party without knowing anyone
* Participated in lots of training sessions with a group of mountainbikers - with lots of social interaction
* Asked a girl from the MTB-group over for dinner (this Friday)
* Tried out ocean kayaking without knowing anyone in the club
* Took a trial class in martial arts and participated in a lot of yoga classes
* Talked to super cute girl in spin-class a couple of times (working up to asking for a date)
* Written fourteen girls on an online dating site (with mixed results
)
Some of these might sound very trivial, but since I have a good deal of social anxiety, they're not. A lot of my future goals will be centered around dealing with the opposite sex, since this is the area in my life I'm having most trouble with. I usually end up being their friend, mostly due to the being too nice thing.
Apart from the social exposure exercises, I'm seeing a cognitive therapist as well to help speed things up and using mindfulness practice and meditation to lessen the impact of negative thoughts like "I must seem boring" or "She probably doesn't like me" and negative feelings of rejection. I'm beginning to see those thoughts that used to hold me back, as just thoughts and not facts. The approach is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and is pretty different from normal cognitive behavioural therapy because it stresses lessening the impact of negative thoughts instead of trying to fight them, remove them or change them into positive ones - since this in itself can create disorders, according to the ACT-people.
I'll compile a list of future goals and keep you up to date - and the best of luck to all of you!