It happens to all of us. Some well-meaning friend or family member blithely suggests, “Well, why don’t you just tell people you’re shy? Then you’ll feel more comfortable around them.”
So you consider it. You run a couple of scenarios through your mind:
If I tell them, will they say, “Oh, you poor dear, you’re shy? I understand what an awful feeling that must be. Well, I certainly want to become your friend and help you get over it.”
Don’t think so.
If I share my secret with a potential romantic partner, will he or she say, “Oh, that’s wonderful. I find shy people sooo sexy. Let’s go out on a date and you can tell me all about it.”
Not likely.
So, for the moment, you decide not to tell.
Wise choice! If you did, I know from experience exactly what you would hear. People would just laugh it off and say something like, “Oh, not you! You’ve got to be kidding. You’re not shy. I mean you’re so nice, so friendly.” Yada yada yada. It happens all the time.
Let me interject an important note here. If, by chance, you are working with a therapist who encourages you to reveal your shyness, follow that counsel. Whatever your counselor advises overrides any suggestion in Good-Bye to Shy. Each Shy is different, and treatments vary.
I am teaching my way through graduate school. And on the surface, I guess I don’t seem shy, but my timidness is so painful that in order to not have to speak to someone I will avoid them. In a group, I will just sit and listen (never putting in my opinion) to a conversation. Sometimes I tell people I’m shy, and they just laugh it off. They don’t believe me. They don’t know how much I’m suffering inside.
—Angela P., Hope, Arkansas
In high school, my mother was anxious about my sagging self-esteem and lack of friends. One Sunday evening after dinner, Mama recommended that I tell the other girls that I was shy.
What, tell them? That was like telling a boxer to lean right into the punch. (The funny thing is that it works in boxing.) But telling people I was shy would have me down for the count.
“Promise me you will, Leilie?”
“Mama, I can’t.” She looked disappointed.
“I promise, Mama.”
That night I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, mopping tears out of my ears, and planning how and when to divulge my “disgraceful secret.”
The time came much too soon. While walking to gym class the next day, I said to myself, now or never. As I entered the locker room on D-Day (Divulge Day), Miss Popularity herself was already there. While donning our shorts and tees, Penelope started playing her favorite sport, small talk. That was my weakest game.
“Well, Leilie, did you enjoy the weekend?”
My mind went into immediate self-conscious overdrive. Should I tell her the truth, that I just hung around the house all by myself? Or should I fake an upbeat, “Oh, I had a fabulous time”? No, that’s not a good strategy, because she might counter by asking me what I did.
By now, the unspoken time limit for a response, any response, was up. I returned her serve with an unskilled, “Uh, yeah.”
Sure enough, she gave me the grand slam, “What did you do?” Now I faced sure defeat. It was a choice of fibbing or ’fessing up. Remembering my promise to Mama, I chose the latter.
I looked down at my sneakers and blurted out, “I’m shy.” Penelope seemed surprised and volleyed back the expected: “What? Not you. You’re not shy. You’re kidding! I mean, you have no trouble talking to me…. Uh, well, see you later,” she said, scurrying off to class.
I wondered if I’d done the right thing.
I got my answer twenty-four hours later, almost to the minute. When I arrived at gym class the next day, the girls were opening their lockers and chatting like magpies. “Hi, Leilie,” one shouted across the locker room. “I hear you’re shy. Is that true?”
Her comment was a cannonball in my stomach. As I was reeling from that one, another girl blasted me, “What have you got to be shy about?”
Babbling about being nauseous, I dashed out of the locker room, up the stairs, and into an empty classroom where I could hide my tears. I missed lunch that day but didn’t care. I couldn’t have eaten anyway.
In retrospect, I realize the locker-room gang didn’t intend to be cruel. In fact, they were probably trying to make me feel at ease. But, like most people, they were unskilled at dealing with shyness. And, as hard as it is to believe, people who don’t know you well don’t care about your shyness anyway!