- practice in situations with low stakes (for example there are social situations where everybody meet for a short time and never again - these are perfect cause even if you panic and make a scene - it's no big deal - for me it was fantasy conventions - added bonus is that there's stuff to do and a lot of people there are awkward too)
- practice the part you can deal with first (for example I had problems with home parties because at the beginning there will be only a few people and talking with them would put a lot of attention on me which I found hard back then - so I would go to bathroom for a moment and go back when others started talking about something and the attention was shifted - this made it much easier to just experience talking with random people without having to deal with the hard part at the beginning)
- after you're fine in one context - challenge yourself in other contexts (I still have some situations I never practiced or that last happened when I was still the weird teenager in high school - and I can be very awkward in these situations which usually takes me by surprise - but they happen very rarely now)
- expose yourself on purpose - ultimately the goal is to be able to behave naturally without pretending to be someone else. When you're feeling good enough with someone - telling some of the "awkward stories" is a good way to get there - you show them your real self and "disarm" them preventively (vast majority of people won't attack you about stuff you share with them as a funny story even if it's really weird).
- practice in situations with low stakes (for example there are social situations where everybody meet for a short time and never again - these are perfect cause even if you panic and make a scene - it's no big deal - for me it was fantasy conventions - added bonus is that there's stuff to do and a lot of people there are awkward too)
- practice the part you can deal with first (for example I had problems with home parties because at the beginning there will be only a few people and talking with them would put a lot of attention on me which I found hard back then - so I would go to bathroom for a moment and go back when others started talking about something and the attention was shifted - this made it much easier to just experience talking with random people without having to deal with the hard part at the beginning)
- after you're fine in one context - challenge yourself in other contexts (I still have some situations I never practiced or that last happened when I was still the weird teenager in high school - and I can be very awkward in these situations which usually takes me by surprise - but they happen very rarely now)
- expose yourself on purpose - ultimately the goal is to be able to behave naturally without pretending to be someone else. When you're feeling good enough with someone - telling some of the "awkward stories" is a good way to get there - you show them your real self and "disarm" them preventively (vast majority of people won't attack you about stuff you share with them as a funny story even if it's really weird).