Well, has never worked for me. In fact, just the opposite. I can pretty much do any social thing at least once, and things might slightly improve for a while, if I do it a few times. But the more I do it, the more anxious I get, and it becomes slightly harder and harder each time, even if everything goes perfectly.
For example, I used to be scared to walk into the doctors office, but then after few visits it became normal, I could do it like nothing. But now, after many years of lots of visits, I am already shaking, like two days beforehand. And I have not even been mistreated or anything, the anxiousness just kind of builds up eventually. I have not found a solution to it, and doing therapy did not work... it just caused the same thing happen with it, too.