"You just gotta get yourself out there"

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I see some posts in here analyzing in great detail how social situations work, and constructing complex "algorithms" by which to operate.

This is a dead end. Yes, it can work, but it is a DEAD END for our personal development.

Because NTs do not run ANY sort of analysis. Many of us cannot grasp this very concept, but we do notice the smoothness with which NTs get around social situation ICEBERGS while we ram straight into them, frustratingly, while seeing them coming from a mile away.

This smoothness is not generated by analysis. Analysis, no matter how well-developed, ALWAYS leads to rigid, angular patterns - it works today, doesn't work so well tomorrow, and in another situation which provides input parameters not accounted for, it falls apart entirely and exposes your "weirdness" to the surrounding NTs.

The SOLUTION is to start rewiring our brains into a mode where we are capable of spontaneity. The only type of therapy that I know to work for this, is physical activities that require you to constantly adjust what you do based on external input, without an ability to analyze it.

=> Martial arts. Dancing. <= Every movement there, in order to be effective, has to be done IN THE MOMENT. You have no time to analyze factors, break them down, and often results defy your best analysis. You have to FEEL and BE THERE in order to make your movement correspond to WHAT IS, instead to a "formula" in your head.

Your brain's reinforced FAILURE to use analysis in order to get "optimal results" will open it to the OTHER WAY. Reconnecting with the core of who you are. Instead of letting the SOCIAL MASK make your moves, your core, that you've been protecting from the outside world since a young age, will make all the right ones, if you let it.

This is the only type of therapy that works. Talking isn't the same. Movement is what really affects the brain. Spontaneous, ever-changing movement.

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At first you will see glimpses. I'm sure many of you experience this one day a year. One day a year when you feel like an NT. Suddenly you feel smooth and empowered. And then you wake up the next day and it all goes away, and you try to catch it, reproduce it, but it is GONE.

These days are caused by your allowing yourself to be flexible to the world and people in it. The very wish to capture this feeling again fires up your rigid pattern machine and kills it instantaneously.

Practice of spontaneous movements will increase the frequency of these glimpses. Over the years, these moments in your life will happen more and more often, until you will learn to generate them at will. By not trying to generate them. By just letting some things be, and knowing you'll be okay even if you can't predict the result. Let the result surprise you for a change.

Great post there, Monsterland. You've articulated something I've been feeling in response to a lot of these discussions, but have so far not been able to convert into writing.

Be like water.

That's all I got to say.

Wow dude. That's a pretty intriguing alternate route. However, it is supremely arguable, and seemingly arbitrary, as-of-yet.
How do you come to your conclusion regarding the link between physical movement and social responsiveness? And exactly do you mean by 'rewiring our brains'?

Also, careful about overstating - It is simply inaccurate to characterize my means as prone to failure. While I am fairly pattern-based, my patterns have grown very nuanced, and dynamic. I am extremely socially successful, certainly more-so than a number of my NT friends.
(....when I want to be social, however. Ultimately, I am most comfortable alone.)

That said, my means may very well only be applicable to me, because patterns and analysis is simply what I do. I can't turn it off.

Also, a detail that doesn't seem to work, as far as I see -
Martial arts is not exactly spontaneous movement. They are patterns, such that situation 'A' warrants movement 'X', practiced regularly to become second nature, and re-combined more dynamically via things like sparring. It is not spontaneous movement. Quickly judged, or practiced and prepared, but not spontaneous. The most skilled martial artists' patterns are simply so nuanced that we cannot keep up with their honed, high-resolution judgment process. It is still technically 'angular,' as you put it, simply not effectively so. Like a high-polygon-count 'sphere' generated by a computer.

However, if you think I'm wrong, do correct me.

"Analysis" is necessary to resolve situations where you're doing something that's clearly wrong, consistently, and nobody will tell you (or you haven't believed the people who have told you so far). Certainly not outside the realm of possibility. Like, say, if you rock in your seat all the time and everybody notices, and some people are even quiet annoyed, but nobody tells you.

I'm in the same boat as a lot of you. "Just get out there" and "Be yourself" are two of my most hated phrases. Being myself hasn't worked for 31 years, no reason to expect that to change anytime soon. Hell, by following the next piece of advice, "Just Get Out There" I am not being myself. As to the "Get Out There" advice, I have to ask the same question, get out where? For me, my work schedule doesn't help as I work second shift during the week so I don't have any free evenings. I can't even use that as an excuse, because even if I wasn't, I still probably wouldn't go anywhere condusive to meeting women. I'd take up my martial arts course again (all guys) and start playing in evening card/board game tournaments (all guys, usually much younger guys). I'm done with school so that's not an option, work is not an option as on my shift, I only work with one other guy, meeting through friends is not an option so I'm kinda SOL.

monsterland, everyone reacts to everything algorithmically. Socializing is no exception. I don’t even know if ‘social algorithms’ are more fluid than other algorithms that people use for different tasks. I see people with advanced social skills approach different social situations using the same methods. They have just learned how to refine their algorithms to the point were they became nearly all-purpose. And sometimes they even fail.

Like I’ve stated in my original post, we still need to be given specific instructions so we can use those specifics in the real world and in real-time, refining them through trial-and-error, until they become a part of us. After a while they will disappear from our conscious attention and become fluid like water. But first, this whole socializing business needs to be ‘taskified’.

Plus, there exist martial arts dojos and dancing classes. They exist to refine your martial arts and dancing algorithms. In other words, they’re freaking procedural.

Heh, taskified. I like that word. Very... practical.

It's all about the matter of stopping to be afraid of confrontation and to believe in yourselves. Don't make excuses for any weird behavior. Just go and be yourself and give attention to people who don't judge you for being you.

Bravo, Monsterland! But why does spontaneity, "being here now," have to be such a hard state to get into?

Incidentally, there are other ways to get there besides movement. Meditation works for some. Being in certain natural locations does it for me. I've had stand up comedy classes recommended to me for the same purpose.

I've posted this link on WP before in a different context, but my favorite metaphor for this concept is the Philosopher's Soccer Game (a Monty Python sketch): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79vdlEcWxvM You can sit around and think about how to approach the ball, and how hard to kick it, and how fast, and towards which person, but at some point, you just have to get up and kick the ball. And it's a lot easier to kick the ball when you've already been walking and running than when you've just been sitting around thinking.

It looks like a refined algorithm to those of us who can't conceive what thinking without an algorithm would be like. But I'm pretty sure NTs just kick the ball. And then wonder why we make such a fuss about it.

I hate being told to "just get out there". It's completely useless. And no, I do not reclusively stay in my house either... I AM out there, unless "there" is some mysterious place that I don't have access to, in another dimension existing simultaneously with the one I am wandering around in (which it often feels like).

I have been to college. I go to work. I go shopping, to stores, to the park, for a walk, online, offline. I go out with friends on some occasions (I just have a few friends... finding friends is almost as hard as finding a mate). Pretty much the only thing I don't do is go to bars/clubs, and I'm not really interested in meeting people who find dates in that scene. After all this, and having met people in the past, including my ex, and hearing how other people met their spouses... I don't think there is a magic location or that it's about "being out there" unless you really do spend all your time in your house.

You have to be willing to go with something if it feels right (spontaneously talking/hanging out with somebody). I think the number one thing is to be able to approach people, or strike up a conversation. This is extremely difficult for me, though I work at it. The more people you interact with (actually talk to, not just co-exist in the same space), the more options you have. It's somewhat easier online, but not THAT much. When was the last time you read a blog and emailed the person because it sounded interesting? When was the last time you saw somebody who looked interesting and said hi and talked about something going on nearby? People have met their future spouses this way and a million other ways. I'm not saying it's easy, it's horribly difficult, but the more you do it the more practice you have. I am still working on it. I see other people do it to me too... maybe it's easy for them, maybe they're just practicing. I think the best thing to do would be start practicing, start interacting with people you don't know more often, even if you don't consider them a "possibility". Male or female. If they just become a friend, then there's another opportunity to meet their friends and acquaintances. I've had people invite me over to their house for dinner later, the first time they met me (same sex - friend) and I took the chance and accepted. Sometimes we became great friends. If you don't like them, or just say hi and move on, try another person. The hardest thing for me is the huge amount of energy that goes into this and the extreme awkwardness of it, but it does get better. Most of the people I've become friends with or involved with in my life were the result of such spontaneous, seemingly chance occurrences. Due to my shyness I wasn't necessarily the instigator in all these cases, but sometimes just responding when another person seems friendly is the key too.

I seem to be at a great place at the gym , i do think to myself she's nice... Sometimes i smile and all i get is a flat faced no expression back. I wouldn't class myself as ugly and i look fit enough , oh well!.