Search Results: build up confidence

This is mainly for anyone under 18.

I'm a socially awkward individual and it's hard for me to make friends. Around the middle of freshman year, I wanted to make new friends and break out of my shell a bit. I was very shy and I did have a couple of people in mind to befriend. One of the people in particular was a guy. On his Instagram account, he had a sarahah account set up, it's basically a thing where you can set up a profile and have people send you messages anonymously. I had a bright idea of sending him a message saying "Hey, wanna play a game? Email me at ---@gmail. com". I made a whole new anonymous email just to do this. I didn't think much of it when I sent it, I didn't think he would message me. Later, to my surprise, he actually messaged me. To not be weird, I explained to him that I was socially awkward, I just thought he was a pretty cool guy, and I just wanted to be friends. I ensured him that he knew me and that we had classes together with proof. At first I thought he would find it weird and creepy, but he was actually intrigued and interested. The game I mentioned was simple. We both would talk and get to know eachother, and in the process, I'd drop hints about who I was. Eventually he found out who I was, of course it was extremely awkward at first, but we are now actually pretty close friends. It was highly successful, so I tried it with different people. After you get over the "Omg they're gonna think I'm some stalker or weirdo", it gets easier. With all the people I've done it to, we've all become very close and with the success, I built up enough confidence to not greet people anonymously. I asked each individually and they didn't find it weird at all. Of course not everyone emails eachother these days, so I had to change my method a bit.