I am horrendously, painfully shy. Always have been and always will. People who know me find this very hard to believe because I can very loud and even “in your face” at times. But that’s only to the people I know really well and even then it’s only an occasional thing as I can still get an attack of the “shy’s” even with people I know really well. With people I don’t know too well (ie. most of my workmates) I find it really hard to initiate conversations and in many cases, even say hello in the mornings. As a result I get accused of being a rude, stuck-up bitch all the time, which hurts because I know I’m not stuck-up or a bitch at all, it’s just really, really hard to talk to people I don’t know very well. Luckily I’ve been able to explain this to the workmates who’ve questioned me about it so no one takes being snubbed by me to heart, but there are all those times where I meet new people that I know I come across as really rude when in reality I’m terrified at the prospect at having to talk to a stranger!

I try not to let this rule my life, as many shy people tend to do. Life is too short to tremble in fear whenever someone I don’t know starts talking to me. I also have to talk to strangers on the phone all the time, it’s part of my job, so I can’t let it consume me. I do find it hard to chit-chat to my clients though as most of my co-workers do, but it apparently makes me seem very efficient so I use this to my advantage. I also hate knowing I give a bad first impression to people when I meet them for the first time which isn’t at all a true reflection of the person I really am.

So what do I do to get over this crippling shyness? To be honest, I try to suck it up for the most part. I know it’s a problem and I accept it and try to get over it to the best of my ability. I’m constantly talking to myself, reminding myself that this person doesn’t know how shy I am and therefore I don’t want them getting the wrong impression, so I do all I can to blast past the fear of talking to a stranger and be as polite as possible. I also remind myself that I don’t have anything to fear from talking to strangers – most of them are good people and it’s not like they’re going to shoot me for saying the wrong thing. The only problem with this though is that I’m usually so busy trying to pep myself up that I end up not being able to think of anything to say and so I look kind of dumb. But hey, looking a bit dumb is better than coming across as a bitch, right?

There’s nothing anyone can do if they’re excessively shy, except to just try to overcome it as much as possible and fool people into thinking you’re the aloof, mysterious type (I work this to my advantage all the time, though many people still tend to think I’m just being a stuck-up cow which kind of sucks). If someone’s first impression of you is that you’re stuck-up, hope that you’ll meet again and can prove otherwise. I have won over a lot of people by seeming rude after the first meeting but then turning out to be really quite nice after an actual conversation. And if you give the wrong impression to someone you never meet again, no sense stressing about it, instead just hope they were one of the smart few who took it as being aloof and mysterious!