Apres Party

[swestrup]

Just got back from a historic murder mystery birthday party hosted by miseri, mouseme and sorceror.

Due to some major confusion on my part, we arrived at 8:15 pm, when it started at 6:00 pm, hence we missed out on a lot of the fun. Still, I met bunches of new people, some of whom I actually got over my shyness enough to talk to.

All in all, I'm glad I went and I'm pleased to say that that is the second event in 2 days I've gone to where I've hardly known anyone, and yet managed to prevent myself from being a total wallflower.

By such little steps is shyness overcome. Its been a LOT of such steps to get me this far, and I'm sure there's many more to go.

Comments

[lasher.livejournal.com]

Congrats on your step towrds socialization!! It sounds like a neat party.

I can relate to your shyness. People who know me: coworkers, family, friends, strangers - they all think that I am REALLY outgoing and not shy at all. However, the reality is that I am REALLY shy in social situations around large groups of people that I dont know. A party full of my friends... I'm ok with. A party where I only know 1 or 2 people... I get so shy that I feel sick. Meeting a group of people in a bar or restaraunt or whatever... I HATE that because of the initial anxiety of walking into whatever place, alone, and having to find them... or being the first one there and having to wait alone.

On the flip side, work situations with strangers dont bother me in the least. I guess maybe that is because that reason that I am in a larger group of people that I dont know is because they are there to learn something from me. I am more nervous at work teaching people that I do know... than those I dont know. I always think "what if i make a mistake" or feel weird if someone I know in the group is "smarter" than I am. It doesn't matter that I might be the expert in XYZ category, those thoughts still creep in.

What is weird, is that for most of my life, no one knew about this... and in a way... I wasn't so bothered by it either. I was overly outgoing in a way... looking back, I guess to compensate for being so nervous. It wasn't until I started suffering from depression that I began to have a crippling shyness problem. I beat the depression, but the shyness around strangers thing is still a problem. Friends and family were shocking the first time that I said that I was nervous / shy about something. They thought that I was kidding!

So, I totally understand where you are coming from... and realize what a great accomplishment that a night like this can be for you. Congrats!