PointAndClique [they/them]

(Sorry I kinda alternate between second and first person, between recounting experience of what I do and giving advice, may make for a weird read so apologies in advance)

For me house party or bar it's usually:

• arrive roughly half an hour to an hour late. (If it's a close friend's party however I'll arrive early or on time to help set up and kick the party off right, decent friend maybe 15 mins late)
• try to find the host and say hi, if they're occupied talking to someone else, then no worries, give them a wave and hopefully circle back at a better time (if the host knows you've arrived, and they're a good host, they may help introduce you to people later e.g. they say to whoever they're currently talking to "Oh my mate luklmy is here, he also has a beagle, I'll introduce you!". This gives them a chance to catch up with you, introduce you to someone new, and then excuse themselves to work the room
• a good opener is "Hey I'm YYYY, how do you know [host's name]?" it gives you a bit of an insight into the person (are they a school mate? Diving buddy? Valorant squad member?) and your first springboard into a conversation. If they don't have a good thread to pull at, then it'll turn to you to share how you know the host. It can be good to roll into anecdotes from here e.g. "[Host name] was such a brat at school, did she tell you the time that..." or "[Host name] is a beast at Valorant but she wouldn't let on, last night it was 3v1...". That'll give you the threads to continue
• it can also be good, when appropriate, to ask "Hey do you know anyone else at this party?" and give them a chance to point out more people, or call them over into the conversation, now rather than a one on one convo, you'll have a bit of a group convo going on. You may be involved (great! You're meeting more people) or you may get kind of closed out as they talk about in group stuff. If the latter then no worries, you can make a clean exit by saying "Hey it was nice talking to you all, I'm gunna go say hi to those people over there" you could even double back to see if the host is free
• if a conversation is going well and we're vibing, I may say something like "Hey can I get you a drink? Do you know where the esky/fridge is?" or "I'll go grab us some chips. Which way is the kitchen?" or whatever then make my way over. With any luck there may be someone at the esky who I can strike up a convo with, and if they also seem cool then say "Hey come over and meet [person you were just talking to]". The person you were just talking too as well may have started talking to someone new in the time you were going to get a drink, so you've got another person to meet straight when you come back! Too easy!
• if a conversation is getting stale or going poorly you can break it off in a few ways. Similar to the above you can say "Hey it's been really nice talking to you, I'm gunna go say hi to person over there/get myself a refill/check up on the barbecue/dip my toes in the pool/find the bathroom" then go do that thing (you don't want to be the person who ends a conversation, then walks around the corner to stare at their phone, then the person you were talking to comes around and sees you.
• If you smoke, you can take a smoke break. Honestly, this is terrible advice, but I was a social smoker because it gave me a ready excuse to break from a noisy party. You've also got a ready made group of people to meet. Even if you don't smoke, you can go hang out with them with the line "Hey I'm just gunna go get some fresh air" then make your way outside.

There's a bit of ebb and flow at the start of the party as the vibes settle in. As you probably noticed there's a lot of making polite excuses to move around the party or draw more people into your convo if you prefer that. Once convos get big enough and people have put away a few drinks you may get people suggesting drinking games or Smash Bros or a dip in the pool or whatever it may be. It's fun to get involved.

For me, if I'm drinking, I may hit a point of being buzzed enough that it feels like second nature, I become a lot less self conscious, and enough stuff is happening around me to react to that things don't require effort to get going.

If however I've had a few drinks and things don't take off, and everything still feels stilted despite my best efforts, I'll probably just call it a night. I'll find the host if I can and make an excuse (Have to feed the cat/last train home/visiting my parents tomorrow) if it's a good friend I may say as much "Hey man just not feeling it this evening, gunna make an early mark, thanks for throwing the party". On the way out, if there was anyone I particularly enjoyed talking to, I'll make sure to say goodbye and if I haven't already I'll ask for their contact.

As dasharezone says, if you're not feeling it you can just hit the bricks.

Hope this makes sense, it's kind of a base format that is essential to most kinds of standing party, alcohol or none, daytime or night.

True and interesting to note. OOP says 'dawn of humanity' though, not recorded history, so taking 200k as 'human history' is also valid.

Definitely a useful distinction.

Yeah pretty much what @InputZero@lemmy.ml said (thanks, I was snoozing so couldn't reply).

I wanted to learn because I'm introverted and have social anxiety too.

I kinda forced myself to be sociable during uni: I volunteered, I went to clubs and societies parties, I went to faculty networking events. After uni I hosted a couple of meetups and continued with some voluntary roles in the organisations I'd joined during uni. In my early stage career I had to attend some work events too. Over that time there were friends' birthdays, impromptu parties etc. I live in a large city so there's always something going on.

Throughout this I wanted to find a low friction approach that helped me meet people that didn't leave me totally wrung out at the end of the evening (just less wrung out). I find intense one on one convos to be interesting but more draining. If I went to a party and hit a half hour intense convo out of the gate, then I wouldn't last long. I found if I didn't move around then there would be a high chance I'd get engaged in a long convo, or find myself on my own getting increasingly self conscious. So I had to find out something that worked for me.

But yes, for me it was practice. It's also important not to get too formulaic. You don't want to turn the party into a networking event where you try to meet as many people as possible and grill them with a stock list of questions. (You also don't want to do that at a networking event, either...).

It's also kind of a like that Groucho Marx quote but taken positively vis "I'm happy to be a member of any party that will have me". If you're there, then you're the kind of person who belongs there. There's all sorts of people at a party including people like you who are making an effort™ but you won't know who they are until you meet them.

Hanging out with the host's pet is fine :) for a party ultimately it's just a chance for the host to bring their favourite people together to enjoy themselves, if you're the kind of person the host is friends with, then you've got a good chance of having something in common with the host's other friends you haven't met yet.

I'll say again, it's kinda horses for courses at a party. My way of navigating a party is a rule of thumb I've devised for myself over time, and some other people follow a similar vein for their own reasons. If you do find an activity you enjoy lots, or get into a really interesting discussion with only one person that evening that you both enjoy, then that's cool too! Nobody's really there to enforce everyone has to enjoy it in the same way. If you had fun, then you came out ahead.

I think you have all the elements you need to switch your attitude towards games, so first off, well done on having the awareness to identify the issue and to begin asking how to go about remedying it.

Let's talk about competitive games first and the attitude towards winning and losing

Recognise that you're not going to win every game. You may even lose some games that looked like a sure bet, and you may win some games that looked like a certain loss. This is the inherent fun in many competitive games - the outcome is uncertain. If you stop trying and self sabotage, the outcome will always be certain, i.e. it will always be a loss.

If you recognise this, then every game is worth playing through to the end, and if your opponent is also decent, as most players are, they will recognise your efforts for trying your hardest.

You can also put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine that you're playing a really close game and after battling hard, things have swung in your favour. You want to keep fighting through to the end to secure the victory. Imagine now that the opponent at this moment throws in the towel, and torpedoes the game. This hollows out your victory. Don't be that player. Try to empathise with your opponent as someone who equally deserves a chance to enjoy the game and compete for a worthy victory.

Finally, learning how to turn a loss into a win is a skill in and of itself. Executing a comeback is sometimes more satisfying than a complete stomp, and more entertaining for all players of the game. You won't practice that if you check out as soon as the tide is against you, and you're depriving yourself of some more fun games.

Now let's look at an attitude to improving your overall skill

Some people take the attitude of looking at their long term skill as a player, and this may include their rank, win/loss ratio or season stats. Since they take a macro view, one loss may not detract from their long term improvement and helps put their temporary upset at losing into perspective. Even if you lose games on average, you can set yourself a target to strive for. The losses will still suck, but if you self sabotage then you also scuttle your long term goals.

Part of this may be an approach of wanting to improve focussed skills within the game that don't rely on win or loss, per se, but will help build your overall proficiency. This may be perfecting your early game setup and speed, or your ability to execute on a particular strategy, or to lay traps for your opponent. Since I don't know what games you play I can't suggest what that would look like, I've just used general terms. You need iterations to work out what's effective, and a loss is useful information that a strategy, when followed through, may not be effective. If you don't learn from that then you may repeat the same mistakes, leading to more losses in the future.

You may also take this as an opportunity to recognise shared mechanics across games, so that playing a game is a chance to improve at others, too. Does this game have a similar economy to other games you've played, or hand management, or push your luck elements.

Now let's look at an attitude of enjoying the game for its own sake

If you and your opponent are giving it your all, then sometimes the whole aspect of win/loss can dissolve away, and be replaced with sheer enjoyment of trying your hardest regardless of the outcome. Trying to wrack your brain when you're behind and wring out every possible mechanic or avenue for victory can be just as exhilarating as trying to hold onto a seemingly unassailable win. Trying to find that flow state where you don't care about the outcome is worthwhile, I hope you can seek it out.

Finally, don't mourn your defeat, instead, celebrate your opponent's victory

You tried every trick in the book, and they still won. Wow, that's impressive! After the initial sting of loss, congratulate your opponent and turn their victory into your own. Compliment their strategy! Ask them how they managed to pull off that trick on the third turn. Ask if they have any tips, or how they spotted the gaps in your plans. If they're a gracious winner, they will be happy to talk shop when the round is over. If you share in their win, you make up in some way for your loss, rather than doubling down on those negative feelings.

This goes especially for boardgames or games where you know the other players and opponents. If they're your friends or family, then you should be happy that they're happy and they'll in kind work to assuage your upset in defeat rather than letting you sulk.

I realised this because I play a lot of boardgames with a good friend, and as soon as the scores are tallied, the first thing we always do is congratulate one another for a good game and immediately turn to talking about how one another played and what we're going to try next game. It turns even a competitive game into a team effort where we're working together to eke as much enjoyment out of the game as possible, and push one another to try harder next round.

So yeah, share the joy don't dwell on the woe, and you'll turn every win into something to be celebrated together.

I won't talk to playing cooperative games, as other posters have addressed that. Putting yourself as a me/them into an 'us' game can divert your pastime to something more productive, but it may not break down your 'sore loser' problem enough that it wouldn't be an issue when you return to competitive games.

If you want a good video, I like Otzdarva's explanation of how not to get 'tilted' in online games.

Definitely! Wingmates aren't just for hookups.