On Being Shy

This weekend was the Old-Time Music Gathering, brought into this world by Bubbaville. (“Heck yeah!”) Four days of dancing, jamming, listening, bobbing my head to the music, and humming along has left me exhausted (the good times continued long past my teacher’s bed time) but eager to finger my frets, pick my strings, and tap my feet more often than I have been of late. Yes, I had a very good time and am looking eager to see what the future will bring, musicwise.

But even inside all that fun, it was not 100 per cent hunky-dory in my head. While I have experienced it in different ways and to differing extents throughout my life, I have always been somewhat awkward, socially. Until this weekend, when I was surrounded by people I wanted to get to know, I had forgotten how frustrating that can be and how much it can make me question myself.

My brain sometimes feels like it is works slower than others’, like when I’m talking to someone but don’t think of the right thing to say until after I’m let the conversation come to an awkward conclusion, which I usually effect with a regretful retreat. More often, I just don’t seem to know the mechanics of how to start and sustain a conversation. Like I’m twiddling around with chisels in a wood shop but don’t know what to do with them once I’ve picked them up. Those conversations also often end with a somewhat awkward departure.

What causes me anxiety is not actually interacting with people, which is something I seek out, not avoid. I very much want close friends, with whom silence is not uncomfortable, in whom I can confide and who reciprocate, who hang out, who share excitement. And once I have a friendship with someone (and it doesn’t have to be a particularly intimate one), than I generally stop feeling awkward. No, what bothers me is after I find an excuse to end a conversation I always have this sense of doom: “They must think I’m aloof, or that they personally make me feel awkward, or that I’m boring, or whatever. At any rate, they probably don’t think of me as someone to befriend.” Watching others accomplish it with apparent ease is not reassuring.

Music, in this case, is as much a comfort zone as a joyful noise. Jamming is playing together without the stress of a conversation. It was kind of the same in college, me orchestrating reasons to be around people not centered around conversation: I organized some singing circles (music, again), or meetings about this or that. Agendas, too, are soothing; beyond small talk, it is OK if it is all business.

…

Now that I’ve written this, it kind of looks like navel gazing, or what Becca would call a “pity party.” While you’re all invited, it is hard to imagine it is the kind of party that many people will want to come to. On the other hand, it is my party, and I can cry if… Sorry. That wasn’t very original, but I enjoyed it anyway.

If “there are very many thoughts which have value for him who thinks them, but only a few of them possess the power of engaging the interest of a reader after they have been written down,” I fear this post falls into the first category. No doubt, it is good that I know these things about me. But the old dictum says “know thyself,” not “foist knowledge of thyself upon others.”

If this self-analysis is all I can think of to talk about in life, many a conversation will end early; no one wants to hear you doubt yourself until after you’ve become friends. (There I go again…) But self is also a safe area to talk about: well known, endless, and everybody has one.

I am currently at work on a Tom-Robbins-inspired post on whimsy. I like whimsy; I find it a fertile mode for enjoying life; this post, however, is not flavored with that spice. In it, I take myself much too seriously for that. A friend has encouraged me to define my terms more clearly, so the whimsy post is being delayed while I strive for accuracy – a rather unwhimsical pursuit. Like this post.

I guess we can’t be who we like all the time, and we have to take ourselves too seriously about at least one thing. A note to anyone with whom I have an awkward conversation: I think more of you than I let on in my nervous rambling. I know it doesn’t all ride on one conversation. If I sensed you judged that quickly, you would not have been interesting in the first place—I mean, one of the ways in which you are interesting is your open mind. I look forward to trying to talk to you again.