Tackling shyness

I’m 35 and I’m shy. There it is, I’ve said it. I try hard not to let people see it; I consider it my weakness, my embarrassing little secret that is probably rather obvious. When I meet new people I always set out to be brave and confident, but somehow every time my self-assurance dries up and I always end up falling by the wayside, finding myself on the outside again and become the quiet little wall flower in the corner who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, barely noticeable, slowly becoming invisible. Boring.

For me, one of the main downside of shyness is that it traps me in my own little world. Venturing out alone is daunting to say the least. If I’m with my husband I hide behind him, ditto with friends, I hate that fact, I don’t want to be a burden on anyone, I don’t want to be the person you get stuck with at a party or event. I want to be independent, strong; I could achieve anything with those attributes. But I’m afraid of the world, nervous of anything new, meeting new people is uncomfortable at best, excruciating at worst. I may come across as aloof and standoffish, or alternately overly chatty and desperate depending on the day.

Yes I’m socially backwards. And this limits my life considerably.

I don’t actually want to be a loner, I daydream (too) often, and all my daydreams are full of people. But I’m far too old for imaginary friends! It’s just that I find real people exhausting, draining, complicated. Social situations wear me out; I can’t think what to say, sometimes I stumble over my words, in my attempts to say the absolute right thing, I sometimes come out with the absolute wrong thing. I even outright lie in order to have something to contribute. I find “just being myself” near impossible. I’m painfully self conscious but I can’t seem to switch off that inner voice that scrutinises everything I say and do, then makes me re-live my mistakes over and over.

Faced with this I run away and hide in daydreams, in fact most of my life I’ve practically lived two simultaneous lives – one with a linear narrative, and the other where history is regularly re-written to incorporate some new passion or other, where bad days are softened, broken hearts are patched up. It’s my buffer from reality.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with daydreaming, it’s a wonderful tool for brightening up a bus journey to work, it’s fertile breeding ground for creative projects, day dreaming can be a wonderful thing, I’m a huge fan! But not when you hide in your daydreams rather than deal with the real world. Not when it allows you to cope with the status quo when you should be tackling it. In other words not when it gets in the way of leading a fulfilling real life. I have remained shy at the grand old age of 35 because it was easier to hide in a fantasy rather than try to make something of myself in the real world. Daydreams are all well and good, but you can’t put them on your CV, or update your Facebook status with them, they count for nothing in the real world. You risk looking back at what you did in the last few years and finding a gaping hole in your life.

In fact I’m finding the more I do it, the less alive I feel, the less my brain seems to function, the less I seem to feel. I’m becoming vague. It has begun to scare me that I will never have anything like the things I dream about – because it’s here in the real world you make these things happen. It’s not enough that it happens in my head, it needs to be real.

This is one of the many issues having a child has made me face. I don’t want his world limited by my shyness. It’s bad enough mine is. When it’s just me and him I feel guilty if we have a day in the house – I should be taking him places, doing things with him, there’s a whole world out there! But it’s hard to get myself together and go outside, we usually just venture to nearby places that are within my tiny little comfort zone. It took such a long time to pluck up the guts to take him to play group, as it does each week to go back. And when I’m there I still feel like the outsider, all the other mums seem to know one another, know each others kids. I smile and chat to whoever I meet, but I always seem to end up outside of conversations, wandering around with my little boy on our own. It makes me breathless with worry for him. I don’t want him to exist on the fringes of the world like I do.

This has to change. For me and for him. I want the freedom confidence and independence gives you. I want to lead a fulfilling REAL life; I want the same for him. I want to be a good role model.

I’m already taking steps; I’m pushing at the boundaries of my comfort zone continuously. Learning to drive is the scariest (I was less scared when my waters broke!); starting this blog is helping me find my voice and wake up to myself; I’m working hard on my conversational skills – learning the art of asking questions about people and remembering the answers thereby giving you something to talk about the next time (seems so bloody obvious! I can’t believe I used to think the best way to get to know someone was to tell them absolutely everything about myself in excruciating detail in the hope they’d find something to connect with…I just came across as self obsessed not self effacing). Also because I want to be seen in the real world I’ve been thinking about how I’m putting myself across – making more of an effort with my clothes, dressing to be seen and make the right impression rather than my usual non descript self that politely requests people don’t look too closely at me or they might discover my creased clothes are covered in cat hairs – sloppy and lazy, me? (I read a fascinating little piece here that really made me think). Hell I’ve even changed my hairstyle this week for the first time in years.

I’m ringing in the changes. I just need to keep the momentum going. I don’t want my shyness standing in the way of the life I want.

Which is? How do I define a perfect life? The kind I hope to look back on with a contented smile? Well, it’s full of friends and laughter, interesting people doing interesting things; it’s full of children and animals, my wonderful husband, creative projects and a fair amount of red wine. There’s a real fire somewhere in their too and a modest sized home with a lovely garden…. And I’m charming and warm and quirky and yeh, yeh you know how it goes!

I am NOT sitting in the corner of my own life so quietly no one even remembered I was there.