Not Shy

I was recently contemplating my "shyness".  I put it in quotes because I'm not entirely sure what being shy entails and I'm not quite sure it accurately describes my social nature.  I feel like everyone has a different definition of exactly what it means.  I don't think the word technically applies to me but considering the number of times I've been asked "why are you so quiet?" in my lifetime, I'm sure there are many people who see me as 'shy'.  I suppose I could look up a definition and settle the matter but that won't stop people from thinking I'm shy in real life.  It's not like every time someone points out how shy I am I pull a dictionary out of my pocket to correct their terminology and offer them a more appropriate word to describe myself.  That would involve engaging in conversation and I don't do that because I'm.... a quiet person. 

I actually did figure out the heart of the issue.  The key lies in drama class.  I've always enjoyed acting.  Even when I was terrified to stand on stage and perform, I still volunteered for plays.  It's like some invisible force was pushing me into these uncomfortable situations.  Then at some point between middle school and high school, I started to enjoy the adrenaline rush of being on stage.  I loved being in drama club.  It was one of the biggest anomalies of my life, to be so quiet and practically invisible at my small high school but jump at the chance to perform in front of an audience.  But there was one part of drama club I did not enjoy.  I absolutely hated Freeze. 

For those who didn't go to my high school and take drama, Freeze is a game where everyone stands in a circle with 2 actors in the middle.  They improvise a scene until someone yells 'freeze'.  Then both people freeze and the new person chooses an actor to tag out and they take their place and start a new scene.  The only time I ever played it is when the drama teacher would yell freeze and then insert me into the scene.  Then I had to come with a scenario on the spot.  Sound familiar?  This is what real life conversations are like except way less scripted than real life.  You could be anyone, anywhere, any time and it was terrifying.  As many of you know, I am terrible at making decisions.  The less meaningful the decision, the harder it is to make and 30 seconds of make-believe in drama class is one of the most meaningless decisions I can think of.  I'd rather be walking around the school naked, on the way to take a test I didn't study for than come up with 30 seconds of make-believe with someone I barely talk to in real life. 

So that is the heart of my issue: improvisation.  That's why I love writing so much.  There no one here judging what I'm writing as I type it and I can proof read before anyone sees it.  But real conversations require a lot of improv.  Yeah, society provides us with a small script sometimes but it's taken me years to learn that so you can just imagine how awkward my teenage years were.  I don't mind being seen or heard when I have a script.  I'm not afraid of people noticing me or paying attention to me.  I'm afraid of people expecting me to say something when I have nothing to say. 

This is also why I suck at class discussions.  By the time I formulate something worth saying, the conversation has usually moved in a different direction.  I need time to think and ponder what I want to say and usually people want an answer right away. 

And that's why I'm not shy.  I don't know what to call it.  Bad a improv.  There should be a word for that. 

I Did Follow Through!

I know I said I would blog every Tuesday but last week didn't count for.... reasons.  And then today I thought "Maybe I'll start next week" but I realized Bishop doesn't have school next week which is when I said I would take my breaks from blogging so I thought "I better do it now before I slack off too much and this whole thing crashes and burns before it even gets off the ground".  So here I am, showing up to my self-imposed obligations.  I would be so proud of me!  I AM so proud of me.  I'm right here, I can just ask myself questions whenever I want.  And I do all time because my brain is an unstoppable question machine.  Is it any wonder that I made Bishop, who can literally not stop asking questions?  I like to blame John for his boisterous personality (I mean it's partially his fault) but his questioning nature is all me.  Bishop is what you would hear if I ever bothered to tell anyone what I was thinking about.  Except the questions would be more age appropriate.  But when I was 5, I was asking all the same questions in my head and just making up my own answers I guess.  I also have a very active imagination.  One time, my classmate told me that one of the bus drivers got fired and I legit thought she was dead.  Like "You're bad at your job, we're gonna fire you out of this cannon.  Goodbye" and I was terrified about getting fired until I saw her a few weeks later and thought to myself "she didn't get fired, she's right there." 

Am I getting off topic?  Was there a topic to begin with?  It has been 13 days since I blogged so I guess my mind is just full of rambly thoughts that I haven't had a chance to share with anyone.  Or maybe I just feel amped up right now cause I've had a busy day.  I did one whole thing.  If you use the introvert conversion, that's like a million things.  Also that one thing I did involved me talking for an hour so you can convert that to 10 million things.  I did 100 million things today.  And I'm still blogging.  And now I'm done.  See you in 2 weeks. 

PS - I just proof read this before posting and it was LOADED with mistakes.  Not spelling mistakes, because spell check catches that stuff right away but like "you missed a whole word" type mistakes and I originally wrote conversation instead of conversion.  Totally different meaning. 

Introvert

I want to talk about labels.  I read something yesterday that got me thinking a little bit.  I looked through a picture gallery that was all about being an introvert.  Of course I could very much relate to most of the content.  Then I scrolled through some of the comments because sometimes I hate myself.  Seriously, comment threads on popular public websites are the worst.  But I found the unicorn of internet comments.  It was a thoughtful, well reasoned observation that I didn't agree with but also didn't make me mad.  So I thought it would be a good thing to blog about because I didn't want to comment and risk getting into an argument with some moron. 

The comment was about how calling someone an introvert isn't helpful because they will then act like an introvert and never learn to be social.  It makes sense in a way because if you really don't want to do something and then find out you have an excuse not to do it, you would be happy.  But I don't agree at all because in high school, I had never heard the term introvert and that didn't stop me from being quiet and awkward. 

I have found that label has helped me be better at socializing.  Because I know that it's my nature and not a way I'm choosing to be, it helps me accept myself which makes me more comfortable around people.  When I was younger and trying to talk myself into being better, I would make some small progress.  Then, inevitably, someone would say to me "why are you so quiet?" and I would think "Well, now I'm back to square one, I haven't improved at all" and then feel bad about myself.  By the way, NEVER ask a quiet person why they're quiet.  It's not like they're gonna suddenly come out of their shell just because you brought it up.  Although if someone asked me that today, I would just shrug and say "That's just who I am" because that's the truth.  I have accepted my skills and abilities and being social is not one of them.  Then I can laugh about how awkward I am because it's genuinely funny. 

So having a label has helped me have a better attitude about myself.  For example, if I went to a party and say I talked to 2 people and then sat awkwardly on the couch the rest of the time.  Before, I might have left feeling like a failure because I spent so much time awkwardly not engaging with anybody.  But now I walk away thinking "Wow, I talked to 2 whole people!  That was hard for me and I'm really proud of myself!"  I don't have to compare myself to other people, I can be proud of my personal achievement.