Love me some social reps

I hear a lot of people talk about how back in the day, they were absolutely excellent at socializing, but over time they atrophied.

This tracks. But, by the same metaphor that one can atrophy one’s social skills, it’s also possible to progressively overload, or to improve one’s skills.

Generally, when one feels a social decline, there’s a lot of fear and anxiety surrounding continuing to socialize. This locks people into a vicious cycle where because one feels uncomfortable, their skills further decline, making them more uncomfortable.

Having different levels of social exercise in turn allows people to at least limit atrophying, and to keep one up-to-date.

To this end, think about the varying levels of comfort you have, and make a continuum of easy to hard things to do socially. Over time, the medium difficulty things become easy, and you readjust to make sure you’re consistently challenging yourself.