Im a great public speaker, but painfully shy in every other situation. What to do?
I’m a very confident public speaker and teacher. I can hold my own in groups of three or more. But while I’m not as shy as anonymous, I am also self-conscious about dealing with new people one on one. As FauxScot has said, there may be an element of performance to public speaking which makes this easier than one on one interaction. You have a role and you have a topic (which is almost certainly not yourself). We’re not talking Johnny Carson levels of dissociation here, by the way. It’s not “fake” to be confident in one situation and not another. I think it’s sheer self-consciousness. You can get into the flow experience in public speaking the way you can’t in casual socializing because it’s not about you, and it’s not about learning about that specific person or that other specific person, and possible offending or boring them in the process. Is it possible that you are aware of the kinds of things other people do when socializing, but are reluctant to act like that because a) you may
I’m just like you, dcrocha. I speak at huge conferences, I’m good at it, and I love doing it. I teach; I direct plays; I even act sometimes. But put me in an elevator with a stranger and I’m at a loss — and painfully self-conscious. I agree that it’s not inherently bad to be shy, but as with dcrocha, it is bad in my case, because I don’t want to be that way. I have a plan for improvement. I can’t say that it will work, because I haven’t started it yet. And I’m sure some here will say it’s silly. But it fits well with my personality (a bit aspergers-ish), which likes to operate within a framework (which is why I like public speaking — I’m not being fake, but I am working within a social framework that has specific rules and within which I’m fulfilling a particular function). My plan: I’m going to spart playing a game for which I award myself points for certain types of social interactions. I haven’t worked out the rules (to the obsessive level that I can live with) yet, but here’s a r
