Practicing?

Over the past couple of months I've been practicing new skills, particularly starting conversations with complete strangers. For a guy who used to be a pretty shy kid the skills seemed pretty foreign at first. I finally admitted to a friend recently that I probably couldn't call it practice anymore because I've gotten beyond the point of thinking about what I'm doing and now I just start talking with people. It's actually quite interesting to start a conversation and see a stranger go from being a bit aloof, to laughing and smiling in just a minute or two - sometimes two minutes is the entire length of the conversation!

At some point in this journey I had pondered how I would meet people in the future. It's become obvious to me that it's much easier than I had expected to meet and talk with people . Also it's become obvious that my dating skills are pretty rusty. I was discussing this with a coworker, saying that I felt like an awkward teenager sometimes. She pointed out that the last time I dated I was "an awkward twenty-two year old" and those are probably the same skills I'm starting with. Oh well, in the past couple of months I've been on a few dates with people I've known for years and I've just been on a couple of dates with a person I'd never met until recently. The ability to see what I'm doing, recognize the mistakes I'm making, and having a sense of humor about my missteps seems to be the best skill I've developed so far.