Lack of confidence and shyness

I think we’ve located the problem…Your shyness is the least of your problems when it comes to girls…I believe the medical term is vaginitis…or in layman’s terms being a giant pussy. lol

The bike helmet is not my fault eh? Its illegal for me to go without the damn thing, at least for another 4 days :content: As for smiling, who doesn’t smile? Almost everyone smiles back if they dare to make eye contact.

It is illegal not to wear a helmet at your age but do you wanna spend your entire life following the rules? Besides if you have the possibility of getting arrested everytime you ride your bike it’ll make the ride all the more interesting for you. At least you won’t be bored riiight?

Shyness…
I suffer from sevre shyness, well sure around people I know I can be myself because I fell comfortable, but when im around someone I don’t know I become completly mute, I never say a thing.
For instance, in rollcall this really nice girl sits next to me, I never say “Hi” to her, I only say hi when she says hi, I think I never try to talk to people because I think I may interrupt them or bother them, that what I think atleast.

That was me with the beautiful girl that sat infront of me. After 5 months though. . . you should be able to talk to her. . . I was. If I had another 5 months with her I coulda got up the nerve to ask her out. . . . Maybe :confused:

I have never been shy in my entire life, I once played a instrument infront of like, 1000 people, never felt shy… and with girls, im not shy with them either… so you ask yourself “whats this mofo doing here” well, to tell ya the truth, when I started 8th grade, I kinda got this thing they call… uhm… speak anciety something like that, and when I try to talk in front of people (talking in group, etc.) I get the “uncontrollabe shaking and trembling voice” and I think that’s damn embarrasing, and I just can’t get over it… I mean, I can talk infront of my friends, but not infront of, say, a group in school… and this thing pisses me off cuz I know I can do it, but I cant :grrr: anyways I am off to sleep, goodnight all and happy dreaming.

Thats an interesting point. I think shyness and anxiety are different too because I’m not really what I would consider shy but I’m nervous all the time in public.
Also I don’t see what people have against extroverts. And I don’t think that they are jerks just because they aren’t shy. I dont really understand that reasoning.

the idea is, extroverts display an entirely different attitude towards life and society, and THAT’s why most introverts feel scorn for them… Don’t think it doesnt go the other way, too !! Extroverts tend to think introverts “are such a bore” , or that they’re snobbish and elitist etc etc etc…
It’s just this enormous set of differences that makes the two dislike each other. It’s the same with analytical and synthetical minds.I think somewhere in the Keirsey temperament sorter site, or one of the other Typology sorter sites, it is stated that non-analytical minds believe that “abstracts make everything look so complicated” whereas analytical minds think that synthetical minds just can’t follow simple logic…
it’s just a difference in the thought process. The two sets speak a different language and thus believe it’s the OTHER one’s fault that they cannot understand each other.
Completely wrong and stupid, but it’s just the way it is… that’s all.

Another introvert here :wink:

Yes osfranky, “completely wrong and stupid” that’s true for sure.

I remember when I was at school I used to dislike extrovert people very much. However now I see it was me the stupid rather than them. It’s really really idiot to dislike people because just they’re different than us. Luckily not all the extroverts are equally ignorant to “the other side” like I was, actually one of my best friends is an extrovert - though he’s able to watch inside from time to time :wink: . Under the surface, all those differences are just like ripples in water. Human stupidity is the art of making problems out of ripples :tongue: .

I am rather introvert, although I am not as shy as some describe themselves.I had more problems speaking to person a few years ago, though.My main “problem” (is it one?) isn´t so much that I am too shy, but that I am simply not skilled (nor interested) in smalltalk.
You know, it´s like “uhm… nice weather… yeah… yesterday it wasn´t as nice… yes…”
I think it is true that the majority of people in here are rather introvert.I once read in a fantasy- forum, and I read a drug-forum.Fantasy was also full of introverts, drugforum is divided into psychedelic-drugusers and “party”-drugusers.There´s definately some link between being intro/extrovert and interests.

Still, on the “all extroverts are stupid” topic, I gotta say that one of my best friends I´d describe as extrovert.Perhaps such friendships are a bit harder to keep up, but it is a good thing since you can learn from each other.

Traumgänger

that it !!! it’s not so much that i’m too shy to talk to someone, it’s that i’ll have nothing to say. and nobody cares about the weather anyway. and if you see a girl and are like “hey, what’s up” “nothing” “you know… i had the coolest LD last night” she’ll probably just think you’re weird, but… i am weird… maybe i should try that hmm… :confused:

I must point out here that there are several types of extroverts and introverts. It depends on how they perceive things (abstractly or synthetically) and how they pass judgmenent (values or logic) . Of course this is only one way of categorizing them. I m sure there are zillions of other ways to categorize. Not always a useful thing, may I add.
However, this type of categorisation has the advantage that it helps you actually understand why people do the things they do, the way they do it, and why different people do it with different ways.
One of my best friends (known him for 10 years) is also an extrovert. It is not [b] this [\b] trait that makes him highly incompatible with me, though. It’s that he is a pure Feeler, and he can’t think logically at all. This means, among other things, that he has no strength whatsoever to state his opinion. When I get angry at him, I tend to think that this is because he has no opinion … The fact is that extroverted feelers (not people who feel - that would be stupid- just people who make decisions based on values) most frequent shape their opinions after having heard the opinions of all the people around them (like a mean) . On the other hand introverted thinkers tend to have a very strong argumentation, which is hard to beat. (which is not very good, either, because at the end of the day, and like extroverted feelers, they get opinionated and thus miss the whole point of diversity)

So, it’s not the extroversion which makes the relationship with them all bad. I know an extroverted person who is REALLY compatible with me (like the same music, same books, think exactly the same way,act the same way) , with the difference that he actually LIKES going to parties and feels very confident about his skills. Whereas, I score (NOT) in both things.
If anyone is interested in all this typology thing, say so and I ll search for some good bookmarks to post…

Heck I say, love all people!! Everyone is different and everyone is the same… LOVE THE PEOPLE!!! PEACE ALLLLL!

FLOWER POWER FOR EVER :flower:
:love: & peace

Sorry, but I HAD to post this.Someone else would have anyway, I just wanted to be the first :gni:

Traumgänger

shyness sucks. . . It is very extreme for me. I NEVER initiate a conversation with a girl. If I girl talks to me, I generally respond with a single word. The thought of talking with a cute girl scares the crap out of me. I have been very slowly getting better, but it’s still really bad. part of me doesn’t even want to date just because of my fear of talking to girls. It doesn’t help that there are very defined groups of different “popularity” around here. Naturally, the quiet ones tend to stick together and form the “loser” groups.

I think a lot of people often mistake my shyness for a lack of intelligence. In my freshman year of highschool, this girl I liked sat next to me in spanish. Because of this, I could not concentrate very well. The teacher would call on me and I would respond with “uhhhh. . … ummmm”, but I could not think straight. Later when one of my friends asked why she didn’t like me, she basically said I wasn’t very smart. It really sucks because my raging horomones are so contradicted by my shyness. I want a relationship more than just about anything, and I fear it more than anything.

yawn

Not trying to be insultive here but I mean, c’mon. Face the facts: Life is too short to waste on shying away from possibilities of happiness. When a girl looks at you, don’t worry about logic and instinct (which in this case suprisingly is to panic like someone’s gonna beat you…) and just go up to her and get her number and walk away.

How to get rid of shyness (despite your age): Start off at stores. Just go in somewhere and buy something… there people are paid to be friendly to you (basically).

Then, if you start understanding my drift of wasting oppertunities, just go up to people and say “Hi, I’m name, today I’m meeting new people, thanks for participating” and just walk away. Just for laughs I’ve done this myself and gotten some pretty positive feedback (like me starting to walk away and her pulling my arm to talk more).

The world is yours… don’t waste it.

Oh and as always, I highly recommend www.doubleyourdating.com for advice and great programs to boost self-esteem - worked for me :happy:

And as always you can PM me your e-mail address and christmas will come earlier this year (with a special eBook about boosting self-confidence that helped me a shitload, only 400kb in size).

I understand what you’re saying about wasting oppurtunities. This one guy at school who is known for talking alot and acting strange in general explained his behavior by saying “we only live once. You should do what you feel like, and not worry about what other people think because it doens’t matter”. I agree 100% with him. The problem is when it comes time to act upon this belief, it just doesn’t happen. I think that, for outgoing people, it’s easy to think that shy people are only shy because they choose to be (sort of like overdramatizing one’s problem I guess). They think that it’s as simple as making yourself do it, and you can do it without much fear. This is because that is how it works for them. For us shy people, it’s not that easy.

For instance, in my chemistry class last year my lab partner was a VERY good looking girl. One day I told myself “I’m gonna say hi to her when she sits down, no matter what”. So she comes in, sits down, and I fail to say anything. I imagine that had I somehow managed to force the word out of my mouth, it would have been an embarrasing little squealing sound. I had even been thinking “what could possibly go wrong? at worst, she will say “uh. . . hi” unenthusiastically, then it’s over.” It didnt’ matter though, nothing could make me do it. man thats not good when I can’t say a one syllable word to a girl. . . It doesn’t help that in my less popular group of friends there is not a single female. That makes gaining experience just about impossible.

Well anyway, I just got a job and start working tomorrow. I’m hoping this will help my problem. I’ll also check out that site, chosenone.

I’ll do my best to avoid insulting you too, but I don’t think you quite understand the problem.

It’s just not a possibility for some of us to break away and begin spontaneously approaching random people to converse with. Being shy is a very indomitable condition, and it takes more than a brief contemplation of life to overcome it permanently. True, life is short, and you’ll never get anywhere keeping to yourself and passing up every opportunity as it comes along - but it’s the same as telling a person with arachnophobia that the particular spider on their head isn’t dangerous at all. Are they going to listen?

I gave up trying to work out how to overcome the problem. I’m satisfied with simply hiding away in my dark lair, only emerging for work, and when I require something that I can’t download from the internet. You might say “Hey, you’re wasting your life in there”, but I don’t see it that way anymore. I’d say you were wasting your life pursuing girls to fulfill life’s primary objective (yes, reproduction is the meaning of life), when you could be spending time by yourself and bettering skills that actually matter.

Defying humanity is fun.

Personally I think using a condom to defy humanity would be more fun.

You’re not defying humanity by using a condom, because you’re still succumbing to your primal instincts.

You’re defying humanity when you’re using a gun.