Adios, Shyness

“You don’t have to be shy,” a friend told me several years ago.  Yeah, sure, I thought.  Just tap my heels together three times, right? 

Okay, I knew she was just trying to help.  All my life, I had never been able to talk to someone without anxiety.  Truly, it felt like I was trying to talk underwater with an invisible force holding my mouth shut.

Losing my shyness was always nice to fantasize about.  Over the years, I had always comforted myself with the vague hope that one morning I’d wake up and be cured.  But after twenty plus years, that magical morning still hadn’t come. 

I couldn’t lie to myself any more.  That was when I thought—no, I knew—that I had less chance of becoming a brazen, unabashed chatterbox than Buffy had of eradicating all vampires off the face of the Earth.  Or less chance than the Catholic Church has of getting a female minority Pope.

I was at the dead-end.  Was I was doomed to the dull, gray, lifeless existence of wallflower-ness. Those uncomfortable evenings standing in the corner by myself, trying to pretend like I was having a good time.  Desperately longing for someone—anyone—to come and talk to me.  Unfortunately, if someone did stop to talk, I could barely talk or even listen, as fear would paralyze me (”social anxiety”). People would sense my discomfort and pull away.  I felt sick at how the rest of my life would be filled with more of this torture.

I had to do something.  Period.  I read about how shy people don’t just “snap” out of it, but must practice relentlessly to change their thoughts and behavior (”behavior modification”).

This “practice” sounded somewhat like how actors like Johnny Depp immerse themselves in a new role—how they completely become that person—appearance, movements, speech, mannerisms, etc.  It’s a tried and true strategy that’s been around for over 4,000 years.  I could do this, I thought.  I could become the person I wanted to be. 

So I needed a role model to copy from.  There were so many to choose from, so I finally decided to pick qualities from a few of them.  From the Harry Potter series, I chose three.