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Post by CaryGrant on Feb 8, 2004 16:04:41 GMT -5
Good for you, Placido. I find that while I feel like my progress goes in fits and starts, and often two steps forward, one step back, (and sometimes the opposite!), when I step back and look over the long term, my rate of progress has been accelerating. Success feeds on success, so while at times I get impatient with the small steps, in reality they are coming closer together. What would have taken a month of agonising a year ago is now no big deal, and the next step takes only a week of agonising!
You know, I found that with the women thing, it helps me to decide whether or not I'm going to pursue anything. If not, I make a mental decision that the woman is just a friend, and I cut off any thoughts of dating her. I went out a few times with H1, for example, and wasn't sure if these were dates or preludes to dates. However, I thought that the signals she gave me clearly indicated that she wasn't interested in me in "that way," so I made the decision that we would be just friends and I would not even think of her as a potential date. This removes the uncertainty for me, and a lot of the awkwardness and nervousness when I'm with her - I'm a lot less concerned with impressing her (which should be the case, even if I did want to date her!).
What made me think of all this was you hanging aroung all the under-twenties, so they were not really what you were interested in. (I thought H1 was much younger than she was, so I was initially not really thinking of her that way, either.)
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Post by Placido on Feb 12, 2004 21:42:46 GMT -5
Guess I'll make this my diary thread!
Anyway, now the panto's over I needed new stuff to do, to keep up the momentum, so I took my fingers to a piano bar which has open mike nights and regular jams.
Well, my spots have been OK, I think, but there's a lot of talent at this bar, and reaction was polite but muted. I never realised just how powerful those old negative thoughts have been - I think I overheard a couple of sentences that may have contained the word 'crap', and may have been in reference to me, but could have been in reference to anything - and I instantly assumed I was being slagged off! It's only since I've become aware of how automatic these negative assocations are that I've started to notice them, and started to realise how crazy it is to always assume the worst.
At least now I know that the super-negative thoughts are insane, even if I can't stop myself thinking them - before I wouldn't have even questioned them.
So I'm in two moods at once right now - part of me is very down because anything less than extremely effusive praise seems like a failure - to the old 'me' at any rate, and I haven't killed that old me off yet. But part of me is trying to dwell on the things I got right today, which is a hell of a lot.
Thinking back, I did get a fair few compliments - so why am I ignoring them all in favour of a half-heard sentence that probably isn't even about me?
Anyway, socially, much good progress - I've had a few chats with strangers in a bar situation, whilst virtually sober (just two or three beers all evening), and kept things flowing. I'll try and think about that.
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Post by Placido on Feb 12, 2004 22:08:25 GMT -5
Excuse my rambling, but even typing this out helps, and, hell, you don't have to read it if you don't want...
Anyway, another thing is the way my whole self esteem is bound up with what I can do - if I'm not outstanding, then I'm nothing. Most people, by the very definition of the word, aren't outstanding, yet they don't feel themselves worthless.
I don't know where this came from - I didn't have pushy parents, in fact I was loved for what I was from an early age. Maybe it's because from infant school onwards, I was academically ahead of my peers, and came to believe this was the norm - anything less than being better than the rest was not a normal state. That any situation in which I couldn't shine had to be avoided. Eg, I can't comment on the weather, because do to so isn't Wildean.
Dunno. I'm sort of thinking aloud here.
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Post by CaryGrant on Feb 14, 2004 12:19:35 GMT -5
Totally with you, Placido, on having to do things expertly/perfectly/brilliantly or it's just not good enough. I think this is common with shy people, and one thing that makes it so hard to break out of shyness: we have a very low tolerance for looking foolish/failure, so we never try new behaviors.
It sounds like you are well on the way to being "successfully shy." We have our ups and downs, though, don't we? Lots to learn, but compared to where we were.... ;D
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Post by Placido on Feb 14, 2004 20:55:05 GMT -5
Cheers Cary.
Well, anyway, I was brooding a little on why I felt so awful about something so insignificant (ie, the overheard comment), and decided that, since the last thing I wanted to do was go back to the bar, that was exactly what I would do, the very next night. To show those negative thoughts just who's in control!
It wasn't an open mike night, but I bumped into some of the people I met before and a couple of new people (no attractive single women, alas!). And it was a good night, and I can feel friendships developing, but at the same time I feel somewhat invaded - I haven't actually made a new friend in ten years (I've been lucky in that my old friends have stuck around my home town), and I'm starting to realise that I may have forgotten how. I knew I was uncomfortable with intimacy, but I hadn't realise my definition of 'intimacy' had expanded to include potential platonic male friendships. I think I need to get past this before I start thinking about women!
Anyway, tonight I met up with some old friends, but was socially tired, what with three days on the trot with almost no time to myself - but even in autopilot mode I'm reasonably social these days, even if I still spend a lot of time silent, so there's progress. Before I could easily have not said a word all evening.
And anyway, I shouldn't complain about too much socialdom, given the reason I started this thread in the first place!
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Post by Placido on Feb 20, 2004 20:07:46 GMT -5
Righty-ho, time to update what has become my diary thread.
I had a good day at work today - some people at work organised a trip to the pub for lunch, and I was one of the first people they asked. I'm not the silent weirdo in the corner anymore. Objectively speaking, I think you could describe me as quiet and rather nervous - but, a year ago, you could have said I was a 29-year old man acting like an insecure child, and that certainly isn't true now.
My other enemy, apart from shyness, is laziness - I'm all too apt to slip into old ways of behaviour with parents and close friends. Insecurity isn't an issue in this case - it's more that old dynamics are harder to change.
In fact, these long-established social occasions with friends and family are proving the most difficult, both in terms of knowing what I want out of them, and in actually changing things. On the one hand, I should be able to just relax and be myself - but, mostly, relaxing and being myself equates to saying next to nothing. I want to contribute more - I want to form a greater part of the group dynamic with my friends, and I want my parents to know I don't take them completely for granted.
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Post by CaryGrant on Feb 21, 2004 11:32:26 GMT -5
Your comments about laziness are quite fascinating, because I go through the same thing and haven't really figured out why. I suspect that it's partly old habits taking time to change, and partly that we need recuperation time occasionally, as changing who you are takes a lot out of you.
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Post by Placido on Feb 27, 2004 22:27:47 GMT -5
Today was a toughie, a real test - essentially I screwed up at work, I dragged out a task for a week, because of a basic error that my boss spotted straight away when I showed him the problem today.
OK, so I feel like a screw-up right now, and for the rest of the afternoon I didn't feel like the social equal of anyone else.
And then I went out and basically acted the old shy self - it's like all the progress I've been talking about had never been made. Awkward posture, gaps in conversation, speaking quietly - complete rollback.
I was trying to think how I could turn the switch on that would make me behave like I had been just a couple of weeks ago, but it's not about turning on a switch - it's about how you perceive yourself, and I wasn't perceiving myself too well.
This is scary - are all my recent gains in confidence due to doing well at work? Is my whole self-image bound up in not making any mistakes?
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Ghost
Full Member
Posts: 220
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Post by Ghost on Feb 28, 2004 17:36:14 GMT -5
I can feel you, with screwing up at work At one of my jobs they even almost laughed when I did something that was silly. It may be silly, but laughing at a new hired colleague is not the way to behave. Further more, the boss had a superiority complex, I think. With my other jobs I made no serious..except a few, but I forgot them. When I do something wrong, I just try to be relaxed and comment/think "Can happen". If anyone tries to make a fuss out of it, I just keep my head cool and act relaxed "Oh, that. Next time better. It happends". That makes me look like the mature one and the other like the one who is overreacting ;D It also calms people down and after a while, the brighter brains will automatic not make a fuss of that quick anymore and keep their head cool at well. In my experience. Don't worry, when you know your work and the people better, things will go more smooth and you will get a confident boost again.
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Post by Placido on Mar 5, 2004 21:22:11 GMT -5
Turns out my screw-up wasn't a screw-up at all - it was the code I was given to work with. So I got all het up and depressed for nothing, not for the first time in recent weeks.
Anyway, it's six months since I made the Big Decision to end the shyness. What's happened? Well, I've stuck at it, for one thing. I still care about overcoming it as much as I did back then. I'm not complacent in a little shrunken shell anymore.
I've realised things that I can't unrealise - I know now that relationships aren't, or shouldn't be, some distant impossible dream, but part of normal human behaviour. I know my opinion matters. I know people actually like me. More negatively, I know my silence has been hurting people, especially my parents.
In practical terms? Well, I've made one new definite friend, and a lot of acquaintances, some of whom will no doubt become friends in time.
Relationship-wise there's not much to talk about, but it's taken a while to find an environment where I can actually meet any women at all, never mind develop the skills to talk to them, so I'm not beating myself up about it (I think it can be tough for even non-shy working people to get the opportunities sometimes, otherwise why all the dating sites?). But I've found a friendly piano bar to hang around in where I feel at home - now I can develop this side of things.
At work, I actually know my colleagues - when I meet them around the coffee machine, I can think of some little snippet of their lives to ask them about.
And the most beautiful irony? I started this thread because the empty hours of a weekend seemed like a sentence - now I wish I had a bit more time to myself...
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