When you move to a new place, end a relationship, change jobs, graduate from school, quit drinking, quit drugs, you lose those reference groups you belonged to before this change. It's an active process to acquire friends; it requires a blend of affiliative skills and competitive skills. For example, when you select a new place to go- whether it's for a cup of coffee, or exercise, or a social club, you need to know the facial muscles and body language that give you the look of a friendly person. You're not going to war, you're exploring where to meet people. That's when you need to look affiliative- or friendly- and the body language that goes with being perceived as friendly. But you won't give the look of friendliness, if you don't have accompanying competitive skills. You have to know that you can say "no" if you need to, you need to be prepared for questions you'd rather not share information, and how to do it in a gracious way, you need to know how to do a leaving ceremony so you don't get trapped. You need to know how to initiate- and with that comes the ability to take a "no" and not equate it with rejection. It's a blend of affiliative skills, and the competitive skills which involve asserting or defense skills, and aggressing skills- which are the skills involved in initiating, or moving into new territories, or offense skills. Even the ability to identify what kind of a social situation you're in- whether it be affiliative, defense, offense (and it can change while you're in the middle of it)- will give you a feeling of control- and that knowledge will reduce your anxiety.
(Feel free to ask me any questions)
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