Growing up shy

Growing up shy I remember certain things that I found very difficult back then but it seems funny now as I’ve accepted my shyness and started living with it. Not everyone can connect to these scenarios but I’m sure shy people definitely can.

Being shy, the thing that scares me constantly was the word “Presentation” in other words “Speaking in front of people”. It doesn’t have to be 100 people gathering, just a 1:1 with a stranger is as haunting as a stage with 100s of people in audience.

I remember my school days when students were asked to read out a paragraph aloud, I would count how many students are ahead of me and rehearse my paragraph couple of times before its my turn so that I don’t struggle! Partly this was a reason that I chose to sit in the last rows, but some evil teachers(just kidding :)) chose to start from the last rows.

I’ve prayed whenever teacher picked random people to answer questions that it shouldn’t be me next. I still rehearse self introduction in my mind, when everyone starts introducing themselves in a meeting.

Another difficult place to be in for a shy person is a hair saloon. Most hair stylists in India would never stop talking. It would be 15–30 minutes of hell during a haircut if he expects you also to engage the conversation. Even if the hair stylist isn’t a chatter box, I’ve been too shy to tell the hairdresser that he cuts more than I expected. I finally found a hairstylist who was shy like me so that we both don’t have to talk to each other during the haircut. Also, with my current hair style I don’t have much explaining to do either. I just need to say “ zero everywhere :) !”

Getting reprimanded was much easier than getting compliments. Because when I was reprimanded at school, all I needed to do was to keep my head down. But I freeze when I get a compliment. It’s not that I don’t like compliment, it’s the reaction that I should give after receiving the compliment that scared(s) me :).

Thanks for reading so far! I can write about a lot more scenarios that I grew up with and how I managed to live with my shyness. But let me write those based on the interest for this article :).

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.