Betty Chambers Has Spoken

ESSENCE Ad Network

Shyness and Social Avoidance
Saturday, May 3, 2008

I tend to make plans for the weekend, starting with Friday. The list of events are interesting, sometimes free, and throughout the multi-state area I live in: Philly, Eastern Penn., NYC, and all of New Jersey.

I make the usual promises to myself: I'm going somewhere! I will have fun!

What do I end up doing? Stay locked indoors. Nearly every chance I have to relax, enjoy myself, and hang out - I don't. For years, I've been trying to break this awful, self-defeating habit.

Ain't that a shame? Oh, I'll go out. My long walks. Or drive to the store, pick up some items, and run right back home. As for my good evening plans: forget-about-it.

New Faces in Strange Places

Last year for Halloween I managed to go out. Sans a real costume. My invisible costume was bravery for going solo. The odd thing was that the host thanked me so often for coming to that event, I began to wonder what was wrong. People were saying they gave me credit for coming out.

I guess they saw my costume after all! Nevertheless, I had a great time.

Shyness

Back in the day, I used to party nearly every weekend running from Thursday to Saturday. I didn't know what to do with myself.
Experience has taught me that hanging out too much, too often, makes me bored, and irritable.

Yet, I'm also very intimidated by new faces in new places. I don't have a close-knit coterie of (women) friends. I meet with them on occasion, but we all live a good distance from each other and make plans, but it's infrequent.

Yet, I must do something! Anything! I need to have something interesting to do. I have to work at it.

Labels: friends, shyness, social avoidance, socializing

posted by GoldenAh

email this! | article source | 0 comments