I’ve always struggled a bit with being charismatic, but normally if the conversation was about something I know a lot about, like games or stuff I’m interested in, I could at least be somewhat charismatic or fun to talk to.
But lately it’s gotten way worse and I genuinely feel like I’ve become worse at talking in every possible way.
Like I’ll be in the middle of a conversation and I genuinely don’t know what to add, what to ask, what story to tell, nothing. I can’t think of jokes, random comments, funny observations, anything. And the weird part is that I’m not even overthinking most of the time, my brain just goes blank.
And if I DO start overthinking, then I just end up saying nothing at all.
I even struggle reacting to things now. Sometimes someone tells me something important or gives me a gift and I just say “thanks” and that’s it. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, I just genuinely don’t know how to show emotion properly in the moment.
Even when speaking I notice I repeat super basic connectors constantly like “and stuff,” “you know,” “and yeah,” etc because I can’t naturally think of better ways to express things anymore.
I even went to a psychologist about it and he basically told me it’s probably stress related and there’s not much he can really do outside of recommending I try to relax and lower stress.
I don’t know. It’s just frustrating because I genuinely feel less socially capable than I used to be, any advice please?