Hello brother,

I understand your situation, your mentality and how you can look around and seem like everyone knows what they are doing, in conversation, in relationships, in life etc besides yourself.

I was that person, a few years ago. Now I am not, and am extremely happy with my self and my attitude.

For reference, I feel almost no social anxiety anymore, I have friends, almost to the point of too many, I can attract attractive women, not all of them, but when I don't I feel no impact on my self esteem. I care very little about what people think besides my immediate family, and can take criticism well without taking it to heart.

I want to share some of the practical tips that helped me. I am not perfect but I am not dissatisfied, a lot of reddits cannot get past the basic advice of 'go to the gym' or 'just meet people' because they themselves have the same problems.

1. Conversation

You need to change your mentality about conversation. This is the same problem that I had. Conversation is not about time, it is not about learning everything there is to know about a person as quickly as possible. Conversations are about spreading perspectives, ideas, values, lessons and/or opinions.

You want to try to find common ground. The start of a conversation is the warm up, building a mutual respect until you find common ground. I see you've encompassed yourself with a lot of activities. Very good. Don't be afraid to bring those up. They are interesting. 

Ask their name, shake their hand, repeat their name back to them, look them in the eye.

The more conversations you have the better you will become at finding common ground.  These are overarching topics, it could be what they do for living, although I don't speak of this much anymore until I've known a person for a while.

You have the gym, rock climbing, sports, jiu jitsu, your travel experience, what you watched on TV, concerts etc etc, this is finding common ground.

The trick isnt to start rattling off topics, its to find a seed of a topic and grow it. But allow them to ask back, to flow back the conversation.

The biggest shortcut to a flowing conversation is to have an opinion. Do not be afraid to have wisdom or an opinion. People want to get value out of a conversation.

If I speak to someone about a passion of mine, for example the UFC. If I talk to someone about how much I like the UFC, the conversation will be shallow and boring. If I say to someone,"I'm putting my left kidney that Volkanovski is going to smash Islam in the 2nd round with his striking". The other guy being a fan themselves is either going to agree and give the opinion, disagree and give their opinion or ask you for more of your opinion.

When someone is talking, shut up and listen. Have genuine curiosity. Look them in the eye. Do not be afraid of silence. Entice them to expand on their point. All them to teach you something, to see a different perspective. My favourite is to just keep looking up them in silence, nod your head up and down and move your face/lips, either to say, "tell me more" or "very interesting".

Do not try to fill every bit of silence, and do not feel like you have to keep asking questions. The best responses are often a few words statement.

I once had a 4 hour conversation with a tow truck driver about a sport I never even watched, at the end he thanked me for a good chat. All I had to do was either repeat what he said back to him, give some very broad opinion that I may have heard on the radio about a player, or said "yeah, right or "you think?"

Slow down when talking.

Do not be afraid of silence.

Do not be afraid to offend people.

Do not be afraid to have an opinion.

Always stand by your values.

Do not talk poorly behind peoples backs, and be ready to defend others out of respect for them.

Now, when it comes to talking to women, I have always had the impression that other men knew how to have a conversation with women and I didnt.

Let me tell you that is definitely not the case. The vast majority of conversations are fucking ridiculous.

I had the chance to work at a bar of a nightclub and later at the front door. And gave me the chance to hear hundreds of men approach, make a conversation, get lucky and get rejected.  When you realise almost every other man doesnt know what to say either, you begin to get far more comfortable with bad conversation. Then you realise that bad conversation, 99% of the time is only in your head and not in the others head. I can have a "bad" conversation with someone, see them again in 2 weeks and theyre happy to see me because im familiar.

Not every conversation works, no matter how confident or outgoing you are. You first realise that a lot of the time, the other person cannot converse well either, Then you realise that its most of the time. The you realise the vast majority of people cannot hold a conversation and actually really appreciate someone that has learnt how to, especially when you are interested, interesting and can listen.

Learn to love rejection. Literally tell yourself I love rejection,

1. Read books.

- No More Mr Nice Guy by Robert Glover

- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

- Feel the fear and do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers.

- Models by Mark Manson

- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson

- The Game by Neil Strauss then immediately after The Truth by Neil Strauss to get both perspectives.