Hello, I'm Alyria, what's your name?

I was hugely shy as a child and well into adulthood. This resulted in a severe lack of general social skills, where it was difficult for me to start or hold conversations with "normal" people (i.e. converstaions that weren't highly technical).

While personality may be a factor in being shy or reserved, I've often thought that if I had someone to help guide and encourage me at a younger age, perhaps I wouldn't have taken so long to develop basic social skills. Alyria has been a bit slow to open up to strangers every since birth. We live an intentionally secluded lifestyle, partly due to a healthy dose of pandemic related caution and partly due to our own desires to curate her experiences and our mental healthy appropriately. The end result is that she hasn't had much chance to exercise her social skills until recently.

Seeing her persistent apprehension, I thought it would be helpful for her to have a formula she could fall back on when meeting someone new. So for a couple months now, I've been suggesting to her that she say "Hello, I'm Alyria, what's your name?" when meeting new people.

Just this past Thanksgiving, we went to visit my cousin's. When I first suggested she meet everyone, she said no and wanted to sit at the table. She got settled and ate a bit. Then, to my surprise, she asked to meet everyone. I again suggested she use the introduction. And she did. For every single person. We went around the room, meeting 15+ family members. I think part of it may also have been the curiosity of getting to hear everyone's name.

Later, I asked her if she was scared when she asked people their names, and she said yes. And I made it a point to let her know she was brave to do something even though she was afraid.

Next steps are learning to ask questions, then closing. She did find the situation awkaard after each meeting. However, very quickly she figured out on her own that she could say "Happy Thanksgiving!" and move on. But I think she could use some alternatives for the other 364 days in the year.