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[quote=Anonymous]Looking back, I had social anxiety as a high schooler (not diagnosed until later). Most people would never have guessed, as I knew how to keep up a veneer of being somewhat outgoing, somewhat social at school, super involved, had a group I ate with at lunch etc.. What I struggled with was converting those more superficial connections into friendships. That is often more anxiety-inducing for someone with social anxiety. Most people are going to casually chat with you at sports practice, for example, so the risk of rejection is lower, but asking if they want to get together and play video games on Saturday opens you up to a whole new level of rejection and often triggers social anxiety big time. And with anxiety, you often lose the ability to 1) evaluate the likelihood of them saying yes, 2) understand that even if they say no, it's not necessarily a judgment on you or as big a deal as it will feel.

If any of this sounds familiar, I'd encourage you to check out some of the (many) books on Amazon about helping teens navigate social anxiety, or even anxiety more generally. Some good CBT tips can be super helpful. And he could read through them on his own and see if they resonate, rather than having to talk to you or anyone else about it (which is often super hard for someone with social anxiety - they're already anxious, and then you say hey, let's have a conversation about the thing that bothers you most; and lot of people are a hard no on that.)

This may skew a little young for him, but a therapist friend really likes this book for teens because of it's talk about safety behaviors - basically avoiding situations that trigger anxiety altogether, so you may not even realize you're anxious because you've developed habits to avoid the feelings and situations that trigger it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1785927825/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1[/quote]

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