Meeting your friend's friends.

[emg6]

Hey, I am new here, I just joined today but I have been looking at this website for a while. I came across it because I was just feeling really fed up with being shy and I needed an outlet where I knew there were other people like me.

The problem that I seem to be facing lately is that I've been with my boyfriend for almost 3 years and he obviously knows that I am shy and he has been really understanding with trying to help me and taking things slow. It's just that I am really afraid that if I don't figure out a way to get over my shyness somehow he'll just get sick of me getting upset over being like this. I've been trying to not get emotional when I think about it but it is so difficult to feel completely overwhelmed sometimes with the way that I feel.. Anyway, whenever I go to visit him where he lives we usually end up seeing his friends and even though I met them when we first starting dating I am still so shy around them. I mean I don't see them very often but I thought that maybe after the first few times we all hung out it would get better but I just feel more self conscious and anxious about not being able to open up and I know that my boyfriend wants me to be able to relax and I do too. I don't want to give them the impression that I am not having a good time because I really like them, they're all so funny and nice and I want to show my boyfriend that I am strong and that I can take on these challenges and that I really do love him. I just have no idea how to fix this. How can I be more open with them? I just wish that sometimes I could get a chance to start over my life as someone completely different without having all of this anxiety about something so simple as having a conversation. Or sometimes I just wish that our society didn't make people who are shy feel like they have some kind of disease. I'm sorry if that was kind of long but if any of you have some advice that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[emg6]

I will definitely try that. Thanks so much for your advice, I really appreciate it.

[bluetruth]

I don't know if I'm missing something or what, but apparently there's a missing response... anyway...

I don't know how you feel about opening up to others or how many people there actually are in the groups you hangout with, but maybe you should try getting your boyfriend to gather slightly smaller crowds? I know with anything more than 4 I become very uncomfortable and tend to cling to the person I'm closest to in a group. If that's no one, then I'm in R3D since I don't know how to communicate with them and generally just say the first things that come to my mind.

Being more open with them is more of a comfort level thing. If you really feel a need to open up to them, then just learn something new every day and share that with them, even if it seems like the most random thing in the world. Become an expert on that subject and just share the knowledge. If you're looking to share emotional stories about your childhood, I'd recommend dodging the storytelling completely.

It's always possible that you just don't have any common interest with his friends as well. It would really help if you made a list of what the general conversations consist of and we could steer a little bit better in the correct direction.

For me, I keep a journal where I make a list of conversation topics that my friends talk about throughout the day. Later on, I recycle their conversation topics with someone else.