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This forum is so painful to read. So many lonely people who want so badly to connect but don't know how or don't have a good way to learn better social skills! I meet these people at work, also. I just want to put them all in a room together and teach them how to make friends and cultivate relationships. I'm well educated with average looks, I've been married, had therapy, and I still find it hard to meet new people and transform them into friends (let alone a romantic relationship)
So why not start a twelve step program? Advertise it on Meetup. What would you call it, and what would the steps be?
This forum is so painful to read. So many lonely people who want so badly to connect but don't know how or don't have a good way to learn better social skills! I meet these people at work, also. I just want to put them all in a room together and teach them how to make friends and cultivate relationships. I'm well educated with average looks, I've been married, had therapy, and I still find it hard to meet new people and transform them into friends (let alone a romantic relationship)
So why not start a twelve step program? Advertise it on Meetup. What would you call it, and what would the steps be?
Step 1. Get off the computer.
Steps 2-12. Walk outside. Left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left. Repeat Steps 2-12 as necessary.
12 step programs vary very little in their actual steps. Step 1 is modified to change "alcohol" to whatever disease/addiction the person has. Step 12 is modified to change "alcoholic" to whatever term is appropriate. The rest of the steps' wording remains in tact. What you're proposing would read something like:
1. We admitted we were powerless over social interaction—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to the socially awkward, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Go practice those 12 steps and share with others how it has changed your life. That's how 12 step groups/programs get started.
I don't believe in coddling. If someone has a genuine social anxiety disorder, that person needs to be in therapy for it, not mingling with others who have the same problem. That would just be the blind leading the blind. Besides, if everyone there has social anxiety, who is going to do the talking? Are they just going to sit there in silence because they're all afraid to interact with one another?
This forum is so painful to read. So many lonely people who want so badly to connect but don't know how or don't have a good way to learn better social skills! I meet these people at work, also. I just want to put them all in a room together and teach them how to make friends and cultivate relationships. I'm well educated with average looks, I've been married, had therapy, and I still find it hard to meet new people and transform them into friends (let alone a romantic relationship)
So why not start a twelve step program? Advertise it on Meetup. What would you call it, and what would the steps be?
My main objection is that the reasons for why so many people are "lonely" and/or "dateless" are as varied as the numbers of people. Something like Al-Anon works because its focus is on codependency. What if someone is dateless because they are inadvertently rude? Or the smell funny? Or they have depression or anxiety or high-functioning autism and are not even aware that they do?
This, like nearly all threads (and most posters it seems) in the Relationships forum, makes the assumptions that all datings, relationships, and people in general only come in one flavor. It assumes that if someone cannot get a date then that person is "broken". Sorry, there is no one "fix" or "cure".
And what exactly would the dateless and lonely be powerless over and how is being dateless and lonely unmanageable? How can a higher power restore the dateless to sanity other than in teaching them that it is okay to be dateless?
There are already tons and tons of groups like this out there, minus the 12-step aspect.
In which 12 step program is that true? In at least AA, NA, CA, Al-Anon, and Gamblers Anonymous (the ones I am familiar with), their 12 steps all use the word "God" in steps 3, 5, 6, and 11. You're more than welcome to use the term "higher power" if you're uncomfortable with the word God, but the steps aren't written that way.
My main objection is that the reasons for why so many people are "lonely" and/or "dateless" are as varied as the numbers of people. Something like Al-Anon works because its focus is on codependency. What if someone is dateless because they are inadvertently rude? Or the smell funny? Or they have depression or anxiety or high-functioning autism and are not even aware that they do?
This, like nearly all threads (and most posters it seems) in the Relationships forum, makes the assumptions that all datings, relationships, and people in general only come in one flavor. It assumes that if someone cannot get a date then that person is "broken". Sorry, there is no one "fix" or "cure".
And what exactly would the dateless and lonely be powerless over and how is being dateless and lonely unmanageable? How can a higher power restore the dateless to sanity other than in teaching them that it is okay to be dateless?
There are already tons and tons of groups like this out there, minus the 12-step aspect.
Not to mention that 12-step programs focus on accepting blame. Admitting wrongs? Making amends? If someone has social anxiety, who are they offending? Who are they hurting? People with true social anxiety live in isolation. Their gravest offenses are turning down invitations and not knowing the right thing to say when a friend calls and needs comforting. That's about it.
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you made my day dear thank you!
