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Want to know how to be less awkward? You've come to the right place!

With social anxiety becoming increasingly widespread, we've all come to fear the dreaded social awkwardness. We all want to avoid having awkward situations in our social life, including me. Thankfully, as a style expert and life coach featured in places like HelloGiggles and OutwitTrade, I can help you learn how to talk to a guy and be a less socially awkward person.

Ready to have a great conversation? Let's begin!

Contents

More Tips - #More-Tips

What Is Awkwardness

True Love - #True-Love

Benefits

Tips - #Tips

Strategies

How to - #How-to

Examples

FAQs - FAQs

FAQs

More - #More

More Tips

What is Awkwardness?

Awkwardness is the measure of how embarrassing or difficult a person or situation is. When a situation is awkward, both the one causing the awkwardness in the first place and everyone in that situation feel embarrassment and sometimes even shame. Interacting with an awkward person can be embarrassing to witness - perhaps they lack social grace or missed an obvious social cue.

It can also mean that they're either having difficulty doing something or are having difficulty dealing with themselves. Either way, awkwardness causes discomfort and embarrassment in people who see it.

Benefits of Overcoming Awkwardness

As you can imagine, people want to avoid awkwardness as much as possible. There aren't many situations in which awkwardness can help you; most of the time, all they do is embarrass you in front of people and fill you with shame. However, awkwardness is difficult to avoid, especially when you're somewhat inexperienced in social interaction. That's why it's easier to overcome awkwardness than to prevent it.

Overcoming awkwardness has many benefits. It reduces the chance you'll have an awkward moment, lessening the chance you give yourself unwanted embarrassment and shame. You'll also gain confidence that you won't make that same mistake again. And by being a more confident person, you'll be able to have more enjoyable, rewarding interactions with others.

Strategies for Overcoming Awkwardness

Overcoming awkwardness isn't as simple as deciding, "I won't be awkward anymore." Awkwardness tends to be a result of inexperience and unfamiliarity in social situations. So, it takes time, effort, and the right strategy to stop being a socially awkward person. That's why we're here: to help you! These helpful strategies for overcoming awkwardness will set you on the path to becoming a more confident person.

a. Being Mindful

A very common awkward situation is when someone misses obvious social cues, resulting in embarrassment. For example, someone asks a rhetorical question that's very obviously meant to be rhetorical, and someone answers anyway, completely missing the point. To avoid these types of situations, one must take note of social cues, both obvious and not - in short, one must be mindful.

Being mindful doesn't just mean paying attention to what is being said. One must observe the physical actions other people take, too. Take note of their facial expression, where they're looking, their subtle body language, and more.

Pay attention to every little detail, no matter how small, and you should be able to figure out the best course of action. If you are mindful enough to spot social cues, you'll have a much less embarrassing time interacting with people. It'll also teach you the best course of action for every situation, making it easier to overcome your awkwardness.

b. Practicing Self-Awareness

It's not important to just be mindful of others. Being aware of your own personality, especially its faults can go a long way in helping you overcome awkwardness. For example, if your fault is that you often jump into situations without thinking of how it will come across, try remembering this the next time you interact with somebody.

If you pause for a second and think about what you're going to do, you may stop yourself from creating an awkward situation. Ultimately, being mindful of your own flaws and shortcomings can help you become a better person in many ways - not just by making you less awkward.

c. Do Your Research

Part of overcoming awkwardness is lessening the unfamiliarity you have with social situations. For that part, you can't just wait for the right situation to gain experience from it. Doing some research in advance can lessen the number of awkward moments you have.

For example, you're trying to console a person, and they lash out, creating some awkward silence. What will you do in this situation? Without researching in advance, you'll be stuck dealing with the awkward silence that situation makes.

Study situations, look at everyone's faces, and find the most graceful way to handle them. That will go a long way.

d. Embracing Imperfection

We've all heard the saying: "Nobody's perfect." And the thing is, we shouldn't strive to be perfect, either. Perfection is unattainable, and those who try to pursue it gain a lot of negative thoughts about themselves.

Thinking like that won't make you a better person. So, while we shouldn't give in to imperfection and refuse to change, try to embrace your imperfection - while still trying to take steps to better yourself. While you can never be perfect, you can always be better.

That includes trying to become less awkward as well. So, while accepting and recognizing your flaws and imperfections, keep trying to be better.

e. Recognizing Your Limitations

Part of embracing your innate qualities is also knowing your limits. If doing something that will make you less awkward isn't in your character, and takes tremendous effort, don't force yourself to do it. Don't become someone you're not.

To be less awkward, you've got to find a way that's in your character and personality to do. So if being louder and more energetic isn't your thing, don't force yourself to be that. Anyone can overcome awkwardness, even with the limitations they have.

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3 Examples of Overcoming Awkwardness

With the strategies above, you now have a way of improving yourself and becoming a more confident person. However, we can only give general advice and strategies, not specific advice for specific situations. That's why we'll provide some examples of what overcoming awkwardness is like.

While this advice may not help you with every case, this advice will help you apply some of the wisdom within to other situations, not just the ones presented. So, check out some of these examples of someone overcoming their awkwardness.

Example #1: You learn how to keep casual conversations going.

Keeping casual conversations going can be difficult sometimes. You either don't have anything to contribute to a meaningful conversation or run out of things to talk about, which creates awkward silence. Overcoming this takes some time and preparation.

Either by preparing some topics in advance or being skilled enough at talking to let the conversation flow naturally, even if what you're talking about isn't really that meaningful. When you overcome your awkwardness with keeping conversations going, you can make any conversation interesting and enjoyable until it reaches a more satisfying, less embarrassing conclusion.

Example #2: You learn to reach out to the people you like.

It can be a huge struggle to talk to the guy you like or the person you want to be friends with. If you reach out to them, or maybe they reach out to you, you can't help but stammer and blush. But if you take the time to practice and summon up the bravery needed to combat this awkwardness, you'll find it so much easier to reach out to the people you like.

Wouldn't it be an amazing story of personal triumph if you manage to ask the guy you like out on a date all by yourself?

Example #3: You can help people with their problems.

If a friend or acquaintance is having a hard time, you'd naturally want to help them. But if they have a problem you don't know how to solve, it can be awkward when you try to offer advice that doesn't fit. Overcoming awkwardness, in this case, is gaining enough experience and courage to know how to help the person best.

If you've got experience in enough other things at this point, you may find a better solution without any help. So, if you can help someone else without being stymied, you've overcome the awkwardness of not knowing a better solution.

Frequently Asked Questions

Have any more questions about social interaction? I'm here and ready to answer them for you!

Is it possible to lose your social skills?

Like any skill, social skills are something you have to constantly practice to keep sharp. If some time passes without you communicating with others, it can create an awkward moment as you try to figure out how to talk again. So, keep talking and practicing, and you'll have much less embarrassment to deal with.

What causes low social skills?

Inexperience. Social skills are something people don't innately have. It must be learned and practiced throughout your life. Naturally, someone who doesn't go out and socialize will have low experience and, thus, low social skills.

Is awkward silence a bad sign?

Awkward silence is something you want to avoid as much as you can. We all want to avoid that awkward conversation when we say nothing for several moments. So, if there's silence between you two, it may be wise to try and break it. However, remember that saying the wrong thing during awkward silence may just make it longer.

How do you initiate a hug without being awkward?

Don't ask for a hug out of the blue. You have to set the mood just right, where it's either playful or affectionate, before you (politely) offer a hug. On the other hand, if a person is down, only offer them a hug when they're in a mood where they want it.

More Tips on How To Get The Guy

Need more advice on how to get your dream guy? Check out some of our related articles to help you accomplish that!

  1. If you want to get the guy of your dreams, you can't just settle for trying to impress him. You need to make him fall for you, too! Here's how to make him want you.
  2. Before you hit send, think about whether or not you should! Should I text him? Read on to find out.
  3. Having a hard time asking him out? Here's how to ask a guy out from our experts.

In Conclusion

If you want to know how to talk to a guy, your friends, or anyone else, knowing how to be less awkward can make social interaction much more enjoyable for you. We all hate having to deal with an awkward moment during our conversations - especially if we're the reason for that awkwardness. So, with this helpful guide, those awkward moments will be a thing of the past! Have a good one, everyone!