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The best advice I ever got (from Bernardo Carducci's book "Shyness: A Bold New Approach") is to focus on the other person. That relieves the constant self-preoccupation that we shy people are so prone to. I try to focus on getting to know the other person and that helps get my mind off what they are thinking of me. Usually our judgments of what other people are thinking are a projection of our own self-judgments anyway, rather than what they are actually thinking.
Carducci says when you don't know what to say to a new person (e.g. at a party), there are three things you can do: ask a question, give a compliment, or ask if you can help (e.g. "Can I get you something?"). This advice has helped me through many initially tongue-tied moments.
The awkwardness never goes away completely, at least not for me, but as long as I have tools to get through it and I keep practicing them, it helps me to feel I can handle it. Practice does help a lot.
Nobody gets liked by everybody, and it's not a reflection on us to go home alone sometimes. We can be naturals at what comes naturally to us. A quiet person may not be a natural extrovert, but we can come to appreciate our own uniqueness and be sociable in our own way.
Good luck,
Annette
----- Original Message -----From: pekiwharaSent: Monday, May 05, 2003 9:36 PMSubject: [SocialFitnessForum] Re: anyone else?Hi, I joined this group a while ago, but this is my first post.
I can really identify with you. I'm 23/m and I have a very similar
situation. Many times I've gone home by myself when I'm at a pub.
Being shy sucks! I've had low self-esteem so I was basically going
into conversations thinking I was boring and people wouldn't like me.
I felt like a real loser, and got pretty lonely.
I recently got a book out of the library titled "Feel the Fear and do
it anyway". It was an interesting book. Basically it said that
underneath all our fears is the fear the we won't be able to handle
anything, so in my case I feared that I couldn't handle getting
rejected. It certainly gave me something to think about.
I'm sure that being sociable is something we can develop. I guess
some people are naturals, like those who are naturally funny or great
thinkers. I'm working on getting back into the world, and I take
small, positive steps every day. Like leaving my watch at home and
asking people for the time. Of course I need to be realistic; not
everyone is going to like me.
Does anyone have any other ideas?
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