overcome shyness

LegacyUser

im a 24yr old male and suffer from shyness, ive had this all through my life when i was younger if someone talked to me even a teacher i would turn bright red, i cant even drum up enough courage to talk to girls when im out and if i do i usually come out with something stupid. its getting to the stage where it is really annoying me and preventing me from meeting girls, to date ive only had 1 relationship that was set up by mates, mates arent around now so its up to me now, sorry if this has been covered before but i couldnt find the search option

LegacyUser

Par for the course in this situation, you have to get your confidence up.

No. 1 way to do this, is by taking up a sport - finding something your passionate about.

Once that's done (and the simple act of actually FINDING what you will do, can be the most challenging), this shyness thing will be a non-issue for you.

LegacyUser

I used to be just like you, especially when I was in college, a lecturer would ask my opinion on something and I would go totally red and I could actually hear the blood rushing into my head, rythmically with the beat of my heart.

This would also happen in shops when I had to pack bags in front of q's of people (how the F do you spell queueuue?) even in work, I never ate in the staff canteen as I couldn't handle talking to more than one person at a time, and we were like 10 people at a table. And I was also dire with women.

I'm not recommending you do this, but I'm just telling you what worked for me.

I went traveling for a year, just quit my job and used my savings to have my own fun abroad for a year. The first night I arrived in the tourist hostel I was the exact same, very shy, trying to chat with the people sharing the dorm with me was pretty embarassing, they could see I was nervous and agitated. I actually pretended I had a flu for the first few days so I didn't have to leave my room too much and interact, I just read a book or two.

Anyways, when you're traveling alone you eventually are forced to talk to people, and they will talk to you as they also might be a bit lonely, pool tables are great for breakign the ice and getting to know people, as you can hide your shyness as you're concentrating on the game and so is your opponent, but you can still chat to eachother, but it's not as tense.

You exchange info & stories with other travelers, somebody will always ask you about the country "so are there any good bla bla to see" ... I dunno lets go up town together, check it out.

The best thing is, sometimes you have a whole town staring at you because you're a different colour! Also, you get into dodgy & dangerous situations, and do awesome things like bungee jumps, and the longer you spend away, the more confident you become. When you come out of that year of travel & adventure on the other side you end up feeling pretty good about yourself. The average joe who's world knowledge doesn't go past his front gate, and Ireland is full of those ignorant cnuts, ain't got **** on you. You got to skydive into a fcuking jungle... bungee jump into a crocodile infested river... or whatever.

It just made me feel better about myself walking around town.

Towards the end of my trip, I would wander into a hostel and sometimes end up talking to a very shy person, I saw a bit of me in them, so I tried to be friendly, asked them if they wanted to play cards, pool, go check out the town. Eventually I would have them partying by the end of the night with the other travelers. I hope I sped up their getting rid of shyness stage by a week at least. Which is not much, it took me a few months.

I'm back now and I can honestly say I'm feckin grand. I'm much more chatty in shops and more relaxed in public. I'm not saying I could do a huge speech in front of 100 people or go hunting the finest of women without feeling nervous, but I do feel 100 times better. I actually bumped into a lot of my old work colleagues and chatted away grand with them on the street, a year ago I would have darted down an alleyway before they saw me.



Make of my story what you will.