

Social Skydiving: Give Me a Final Challenge. If I Lose, You Get $500. - darkxanthos
http://socialskydivingwithjustin.posterous.com/social-skydiving-win-up-to-500-to-challenge-m

======
fallintothis
Hi,

I wanted to give you my ideas for the Social Skydiving challenge without the
hassle of signing up for the comment systems. So, I hope you see this here.

I have a lot of ideas, most of which are probably junk. But, your blog struck
a chord in me, so I've written them out. I've not proofread much, so hopefully
most of it makes sense.

PROLOGUE:

I think the most stressfully embarrassing social situation I've ever faced was
one time at a Renaissance Faire. If you're not privy, a Ren Faire basically
consists of hordes of hippies pretending they're from the 15th century with
questionable accuracy. For patrons, it's a campy carnival of perverts with
pathetic cockney accents. For workers, drunken weekend parties ensue betwixt
the adults (armed with the usual hippie supplies, if you know what I mean
(drugs!!)) while the children are left to wallow weekend after shower-less
weekend. Your imagination probably does a pretty good job of filling in the
holes.

As such a child of some Ren Faire workers, I spent my weekends of each Faire
Season dressing like a serf, playing with wooden weapons, watching the stage
shows again & again, and occasionally pausing to help run my family's booth (a
historically inaccurate but fun game).

At some point in the season, we attended a seminar about hawking our booths to
the passerby, taught by a long-time Fair veteran. He was of a kind; I don't
expect just saying "suave Ren Faire guy" suffices, so I'll try to expound. He
was one of those charming guys, not old enough for it to be creepy and not
young enough for it to be cliché. A magician, which in Ren Faire terms
translated as "cool", for whatever reason. Clean-looking, talented, and
effortlessly proceeded with the charmingly light-aired social interaction of
the Faire. It's kind of weird to explain. It's as though Ren Faire gave guys
carte blanche to be womanizers.

But he made his lessons in attracting people towards you seem effortless. Of
particular note was his observation that people came to the Ren Faire to be
immersed in the campy sort of atmosphere. That a powerful selling device was
merely sexual appeal: the women certainly knew it, since they wore bodices
that prominently created cleavage no one knew they had, and the guys knew it
because so many got away with being perverts. Chicks worked the ale stand,
goading drunken men into tips, and guys invited 14-year-old girls in small
white summertime shirts to the water-dunking game. So, an underlying tool of
the seminar was that you could "woo the women". That was the exact phrase; it
stuck in my head.

He demonstrated how coolly he could proceed to flatter a woman, gently
offering his hand, with a bow, to the accepting lady. She passes her hand into
his that he may raise it to his lips and deliver a simple kiss. He locks his
eyes on hers, giving a gentle squeeze to the hand, tempting a reciprocal
squeeze. "Oh, you have a nice grip, m'lady. Surely you could [throw a dart |
ring the bell | something vaguely related to the booth he was advertising]."

Just like that, he had his customer, and they both had fun being a part of the
situation. It struck a chord in me somehow: _that's easy!_ And so, the first
of the embarrassments start as I confidently assert -- aloud to my family --
how I can apply the lesson in helping get customers. When I get my clothes wet
and look frumpy, I start lamenting how I won't be able to "woo the women".
etc.

Predictably, I sat on my laurels, watching female after female pass our game
while I did nothing. My dad asks if I'm ever going to do it. I assure him that
I will -- that I just hadn't worked up the gall yet. He tells me to just go
out there. Still, I wait.

Sick of waiting. Swallow my fear. First group of appropriately-aged women pass
by, and I pounce. In a slur of awkward grabbing-at-the-words, I realize how I
should have thought of something to fucking _say_. From what I remember, it
went something like:

"Aye, but for the...you are surely the l-loveliest lady to, uh, grace
our...beloved Faire."

As if it was not enough that I had just jumped out in front of these moving
people, causing them to halt abruptly, I was now fumbling over some half-assed
attempt at flattery.

Not just flattery. I was kneeling before her, my head bowed and my hand
outreached in the traditional gesture. ...And she wouldn't reciprocate. Not
out of disgust or anything (I'm fairly sure), but out of sheer confusion. The
utter bozo that I am, I take it upon myself to _grab_ her hand from her side
-- with a little too much resistance for it to be comfortable -- and plant an
awkward kiss upon it. I remember how hot my face and chest ran from the pangs
of humiliation that shot throughout the empty cavity that was my body (for you
see, it was empty after my stomach _plummeted_ straight out of existence).

Still, I battle through it. Confidently look forward, lock eyes, and squeeze
whatever I was holding -- only to find her limp, lifeless hand not responding.

To describe the momentary silence as an "awkward pause" fails to do it
justice. I was looking up at her, and to this day, whenever I picture it I can
only remember seeing her looking like Lydia from the movie _Beetlejuice_. And
I have no idea why I remember her looking like that. I'm almost 100% certain
she must have looked drastically different from that black-garbed character.
But that's the image that lodges in my mind for some reason. The sheer
awkwardness is only punctuated by (what I assume to be) the girl's mother:

"What do you say, dear?"

"Um...thank you?", she forces.

And the 3-person group (or at least I remember it being that large) continues
walking away. As her hand slips out of mine, all I'm left with is an aghast
fumbling for more words. Everything about the "wooing" had failed; hard.

"Uh, um, w-would you like to play our game?!", my stupefied voice calls all-
too-loudly to their backs in a perplexingly transparent fashion.

The mother turns her head back. "Oh? No, not today, sorry."

The arm I had just done the deed with falls lifeless by my side. I'm left with
nothing but my hideous resentment, humiliation, and shame. I quickly about-
face back to my dad, collapsing in his lap, where I cry. A lot. It must have
taken me hours to calm down (I don't actually know how long). To be fair, I
must've been about 10 or 11 years old at the time...

Wow, that was painful to write about. And not even because the vast amount of
failure made a fuck's bit of difference in my life (though I've never since
tried a stunt like that!); if ever there was a time to get away with it, being
a little kid certainly helped.

So, this isn't an idea for your challenge; it's a guideline: if you can face
something as embarrassing to you now as this was to my 11-year-old self, yet
walk away learning something, I'd call it a success. If taken in objective
terms, you've probably faced situations in this 30-day adventure that sum to
more total embarrassment than my 1 fleeting pre-adolescent encounter. Taken in
all its context, however, it was probably the most embarrassing thing I've
ever done.

IDEAS:

Note that these are mostly social experiments I've always wanted to try but
never got myself to do (excuses!). They're a bit far-fetched, because they're
designed with an eye towards just seeing what results you get, rather than
engaging in conversation or bettering yourself socially.

Games:

A theme you address is the restoration of child-like wonder. One thing I think
we all lose as we grow up is our sense of simple, spontaneous pleasures.
Things you can engage total strangers in. The problem here being that if you
fail to get the event rolling, it all works out boringly -- you've hardly
failed at all if you fail to do this, but if you succeed, you have an awesome
time. So, I don't think these are very good challenges. But, I've entertained
these thoughts.

In her routine _The Beginning_ , Ellen DeGeneres suggests that you "just go up
to a total stranger tomorrow on the street, just go up to him and just touch
and go 'YOU'RE IT!' and just run away. Have a giant game of tag going on on
the street all the time."

Similar ideas that are more prone to Big Failure involve dialog, because at
least you have to say something aloud. Maybe you could get a bunch of
strangers to join you in singing some classic song. Something everyone's
comfortable singing -- something they'd know at least some of the words to.
I've done this with songs from _The Lion King_ , for instance. Maybe a
dramatic scene from a well-known movie people would know the dialog to. These
might be easier with some seed set of people instead of just you, though; at
least n > 1 could finish out the song or scene in a way that's less likely to
get you kicked off the bus.

Persuasion:

Other people have had ideas along these lines, and I think it makes for a
great class of challenges: convincing strangers to do something with you. It
not only helps build a common ground a bit more solid than smalltalk, but if
you fail you get to have people think you're some sort of weirdo!

Elevator patrons make for an interesting random sample of people. They're
usually looking to get away to somewhere, so most of them won't give you the
time of day. I've long pondered experiments you could carry out in elevators,
though:

\- I once rode an elevator in a college dorm where 3 or 4 residents were
sitting on the floor playing cards. This is probably easier to get away with
in a dorm, because you aren't strictly going to interrupt business with a
weird/cramped elevator trip -- versus, say, your workplace. These kids were
doing it just to be weird, but you could use it to invite strangers to play
cards with you. See how big a group you could get going. Engage in
conversations over some cards. If they decline, they just have a story about
some weirdo in an elevator playing solitaire. Now, if you're in an elevator
that serves to traffic people with business purposes -- somewhere to go on a
schedule -- you probably won't get many people to come along with you, due to
the sudden nature of engaging in a card game. You could tweak this to a
different, more conducive environment: in the halls outside of a classroom? In
the classroom before the lecture starts?

\- An experiment I thought of with goals similar to Social Skydiving was to
hang out in an elevator. People are surprised when there's someone in the
elevator already, just riding. It is kind of weird, after all. It's sparked
conversations for me before. My idea was then: if I saw any attractive women,
bluntly ask them if they'd be interested in dating me (phrased with various
layers of "hypothetically, of course!", if need be). The aim was not to
actually get any dates, but to convince myself that it was easy to ask and
that it'd get more comfortable with time. (Of course, I've always made
excuses, so I've never actually done this.) If anyone gets too weirded out,
you can use the excuse that you're performing a random survey. Then, even
after social side-effects (self-improvement, yadda), you would have some
interesting data. See what range of reactions you get! While it probably
wouldn't make you seem any less of a geek, it might deflect animosity.

Okay, enough about my weird fascination with elevators...

\- Growing more overtly sexual, you could pull off a stunt like in _A Complete
History of My Sexual Failures_ (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037033/>), a
documentary wherein the maker barges outside and proceeds to parade around the
streets, begging various women to have sex with him. He was threatened, some
ran away from him, hilarity ensued, but not only did it take awhile for the
cops to interject, (SPOILER ALERT!) he got _one_ positive response. I don't
know how much the camera following him helped the entire situation. With "oh,
I'm doing a documentary and I'm drunk and took way too much Viagra", it's easy
to write someone off as a harmless lunatic.

\- More harmless (still creepy), you could give a pretense to go out and do
something with someone. "I have some tickets to [Disneyland Seattle | Six
Flags | minigolf | whatever it is you guys have], but no one to go with. You
in?" Such abruptness would probably make people distrustful. I know I wouldn't
agree to go somewhere with a random stranger; he'd probably just try to kill
me in the parking lot. So, you can lead into it. Strike up a conversation, and
if it's going particularly well, try to edge in something to convince them to
go with you. Probably shouldn't press the issue if they decline, of course. If
the outing is sufficiently innocent, you shouldn't come off like you're trying
to get into their pants.

\- Ask people what you should do for your challenge. Strike up a conversation
and work towards divulging that you've been doing the Social Skydiving
experiment (Smile! You're on Candid Camera!). If they're interested, discuss
the results, the finer points of social awkwardness, and ultimately ask _them_
what you should do as your Mega Capstone. Ask them how they could be involved
in carrying out a plan. Maybe that could blend well with the other ideas -- "I
was thinking of going to [do something] with someone I just met".

This, of course, presumes an ideal conversation. If you've learned anything
from this, you'd be at least a little bit equipped to steer the conversation
into the area you want it. And it probably helps having this clear-cut goal of
the conversation. In disclosing information about yourself, it's much less
phatic than standard smalltalk and has potentially more lasting effects.

\- In some cases of certain social anxiety, doctors will have patients
publicly declare something. e.g., Have someone who's embarrassed to admit they
have a stutter announce it to a bus full of people. This isn't a specific
challenge, but something worth considering: something very public where you
disclose some personal info. Not unlike your blog, but doing it face-to-face
instead of written-down can be intimidating, hence proving your increased
bravery. Something as short as "I'm Justin, and I stutter" isn't going to be
worth it as a challenge, but I wouldn't know what else you could announce to a
large group of people. Maybe you could see if they'd listen to you talk about
your Social Skydiving experiment?

\- In an effort to heighten the level of discourse with strangers, instead of
discussing the weather you could debate them. Of course, debate about certain
issues becomes just as phatic: "I LOVE BLAH!" "BUT I DON'T!".

At my school, every so often there'd be these guys with giant banners listing
Satan's Children, including groups such as "Mouthy Women". This would often
encourage little islands of conversation. I mean, sure it's part of his
business plan (seek out high-traffic areas, piss people off, then magically
they're talking about religion instead of just ignoring him), but the
conversations are _so_ much fun. My friend and I went down to yell at these
dudes once. I got to creep out the Campus Crusade for Christ kids by asserting
that I wasn't _actually_ there to argue that Mouthy-Women-man should spread
the Word of God in a nicer way. Stuff like that. Play the Devil's Advocate.
Automatic conversation & debate starter. And more interesting than the
weather!

It's harder to debate someone spontaneously, though, without resorting to the
same tactics (which wouldn't necessarily be a bad challenge...).

\- If you're like me, you have some old friends that you don't talk to
anymore. Sure, you guys used to know each other & talk during high school or
whenever, but it's been 5 or 10 years, and it all just kind of...died off
instead of being any deliberate sever. If you're even more like me, you have
social anxiety about even _starting_ conversations with those old friends (who
you can easily track down). "What if the conversation doesn't go right? That
was a long time ago that we did such & such. We won't have anything to talk
about, because we don't have any context for each others' lives." etc. If you
could reconnect, it'd be interesting, but thinking about them is like
remembering a ghost.

But, instead of paralyzing yourself with these fears, try it out. See what
they're up to. Reminisce. If you can carry a conversation, you succeed. Try it
with something like the phone or face-to-face, if possible, so that you can't
hide behind switching your IM client to "Away". It has chances of being more
meaningful than talking to strangers, even though you might discover that they
_are_ strangers after so long.

You could be even crazier and contact the people you had a bad time with, like
the maker of _A Complete History of My Sexual Failures_ contacting all of his
ex-girlfriends.

If you don't have any old friends / acquaintances you'd want to talk to like
this, then the idea's a bit of a lost cause. But I think it'd be cool if you
did.

I've enjoyed following your blog. Best of luck!

~~~
darkxanthos
My god. Thanks so much for taking the time to write all of that. I'm going to
do most of these whether or not I blog it. Just some brilliant ideas.

Having said that, I really wish that since you took the time to write all of
that down that you would have taken the time to register to comment.

A lot of people would see that and it would help a lot of people like us out.

Anyway, thanks soo much again. Hearing your ideas and your story is going to
be one of the experiences I take away from this experiment.

~~~
fallintothis
_would have taken the time to register to comment_

Didn't think of it that way. If you think the post would help people, I could
cross-post. Or you could post a link and/or copy & paste the text, if you'd
like.

~~~
darkxanthos
It'd be totally awesome if you could cross post. You can copy/paste the whole
text, just the link, w/e. And then that way you have a chance to get paid. I'm
just saying.

If I'm handing out free money why not hold out your hand? :)

------
ErrantX
I've got a good one - but it takes real balls, and requires a bar (also
chances are high of it going wrong - so probably best to build up to it for a
few more weeks, I'll post it so you have it in mind anyway)

You should do this anyway - it is a huge confidence booster (if it works of
course).

Pick a cute girl - she has to be on her own, preferrably standing (if you are
"above" her when you do this it's a bit overbearing). As soon as you spot her
(leaving it 10 mins will just look creepy :)) walk up to her and say "hi, hows
it going" (her: "hi, err fine"), "what are you doing later?" (her, probably:
"not much"), "Do you want to come home with me?".

Say it seriously (but not creepy serious) and lightly (dont laugh or smirk) as
if you were asking about the weather. And then just wait (if she says "what?"
just smile, it's crucial not to add anything else). Chances are she will say
no (getting a slap is very unlikely). Whatever she says just carry on the
conversation as if nothing ever happened ("cool, im justin. who are you?"
_offer hand to shake_ , "sweet - when did you get here?" etc etc.). She might
just walk off. If that happens just ignore her - chances are she will come
back.

To "win" the challenge you have to buy her a drink (if you got up the balls to
ask her this wont be even an issue).(warning buying the drink will more than
likely put her off a bit).

(and, yes, I've done this - it's great if your feeling like a confidence
boost! It works as a boost because there is no way they can say yes - so even
a no is a result. Just asking the question is worth a million :))

------
darkxanthos
Here's one from David Ackerman: Not sure if there is a place readily available
in your area, but here's my idea: Come up with a comedy act and perform at
open-mic night of a club/bar. A couple questions for me and other potential
commenters:What day are you planning on doing this? You might get better ideas
if you are willing to do the challenge on a weekend (as you would have more
free time), then if you insist on a workday.

------
darkxanthos
And one from @snuff_man on Twitter:

@darkxanthos convince a stranger to go skydiving with you (the plane kind) or
perhaps convince a stranger to start their own social skydive

------
darkxanthos
I'm very serious about this. I want my final day to go out with a bang. I'm
really hoping for some good suggestions.

------
kunqiana
you got my vote buddy!

