it's NOT hard for me to be in the same space (a book rack in the book store, the stretching area of a gym, etc) and make eye contact, say hi, and start a conversation
Same. I get people on here saying just practise talking to people and you will be able to approach and anyone anywhere. Well, no, that's not it at all. I already CAN hold conversations, good ones. But those are dependent on CONTEXT. Just approaching someone cold, like someone just walking down the street is to me a very very different proposition.
but it is VERY hard for me to walk up and down the mall and smile at people walking towards me. I can make eye contact okay, but once I have established eye contact, even if we both hold it for several seconds, I feel PARALYZED and CANNOT get myself to smile. eventually the other person breaks eye contact, almost always without smiling at me
Is that what week 1 is, just eye-contacting and smiling?
Hmm... yeah, that could be tough.
I mean, it SHOULDN'T be tough, 'cos after all, what possible bearing could it have on your life if some bald, four-eyed computer dweeb in an outfit that looks all wrong on him doesn't return your gesture? Pretty much none. And yet we still seem to crave reciprocal attention even from people we feel are beneath us. (Sorry to all bald, four-eyed computer dweebs -- I needed SOMEONE to make my point with and you guys are it.)
However, the thing is, it's not really that the above mentioned dweeb doesn't like you, or that he is "rejecting" you, it's that in his mind, there is NO REASON some stranger should look so kindly upon him as to grace him with an unsolicited smile. He KNOWS his place in society, and that is a place where people don't direct unsolicited smiles his way. To him, some stranger making eye contact and smiling while walking on the street is something awry, and it puts him on the defensive. Why risk smiling back and having the whole thing turn out to be some joke at my expense is the reasoning he takes.
Maybe you would be better served smiling at more confident, self-assured looking. I mean, what you are doing (or attempting to do) with your eye-contacting and smiling is a very confident thing to do, something only confident people can do. So if you direct your smiles towards confident looking people, in a we-both-know-whats-up-we're-confident-people kind of way, you'll probably find you get more smiles back. At least in the initial stages, this would probably work better for you. After you get over it, maybe then you could smile, talk or drop your pants to anyone without it affecting you.
