Most of the time, I feel very small and insignificant – a feeling left over from when I was a small child and so shy that I would tiptoe across the linoleum floor in kindergarten, so my Mary Janes wouldn’t make any noise as I walked. I wanted to be invisible, even back then.
When I was five or six, I remember hiding behind my mother’s skirts in a store, and my mom literally pushing me out in front to face the clerk and saying, “Tell the lady what you want!” I don’t know why, but for as long as I can remember, I was afraid to talk to strangers or make my presence known in any way.
In school, even though I was plenty smart and knew the answers, I would never, ever raise my hand when the teacher asked for class participation. Some teachers eventually got wise to my tactics of fading into the background, however, and they would call on me to give the answer instead of waiting for me to volunteer. I was absolutely mortified to have them call attention to me, and would have greatly preferred to fade into the woodwork.
My father picked up on my extreme shyness, too, and in junior high he forced me to take Speech class as one of my electives. I resisted, to no avail – so instead, I refused to learn my lines for the scenes we performed in front of the class, and ad libbed my way (badly) through the parts I was assigned. I did the absolute minimum in that class – my performance was so bad that the teacher (who I actually liked) even kept me after class a time or two to encourage me to do better. He tried hard, but was ultimately unsuccessful in inspiring improvement of my acting skills. For my efforts (or lack thereof) in that class, I received the only “D” I ever got in my academic career. I guess I showed my father, huh? Not only was I shy – I was also very stubborn.
I insisted on living in the dorm when I went to college, even though the school was only 15 miles from my house (that’s a whole other story), and I took that opportunity to consciously reinvent myself. I told myself, “Nobody knows you here. They don’t know you’re shy. You’re going to go up to everyone you meet and say, ‘Hi, my name is Mikkie – what’s yours?’” And you know what? My strategy actually worked! For the first time in my entire life, I had a social life. There were quite a few girls and guys that I regularly conversed with, went to parties with, or just hung out with. I even dated some fraternity guys and went to a Greek formal dance! If you had told me those things back in high school, I would never have believed it.
Unfortunately, I was so entranced with my newfound “social butterfly” abilities that my studies suffered. It was just too difficult to attend an 8 a.m. Humanities class after staying out until after midnight the night before, listening to the Beatles’ White Album and drinking Annie Greensprings! Even though I had a full-ride, four-year scholarship to a private college, I had no real direction as far as a major, and I dropped out of college after two years, after being on academic probation a couple of semesters. (Twenty-plus years later, I went back and completed my bachelors degree at the same school. I guess I’m just a late bloomer in the maturity department!)
As I’ve gotten older, the extreme shyness has abated for the most part. Most of my current friends and acquaintances have a difficult time believing I was ever shy, although those closest to me realize that it still lurks in my personality, especially in large groups. Maybe I just cope with it better now – but I still avoid certain activities or situations (like crowded events or shopping malls) when I’m by myself, because they make me uncomfortable. If I go with someone else, it’s OK because they serve as my “security blanket.”
If I can’t avoid attending an event where I’m alone and don’t know many people there, I’ll likely find a place in an out-of-the-way area and just do some people-watching. I’ve never been the mix-and-mingle type and am hopeless at small talk, but I do enjoy engaging someone (one person, not a group) in conversation on an interesting topic in a quiet corner of the room.
The internet has been a revelation, and has utterly transformed my life in the past ten years that I’ve been online. First, I made a couple of great friends through some old-style bulletin board rooms. Then I spent several years pursuing relationships through online dating, with mixed results – some became friends, some broke my heart, and a time or two I was lucky not to be harmed in the process. I’m now involved with a nice man who I did NOT meet online, and have retired from that aspect of online behavior.
The latest incarnation of my internet life is blogging – surprising, huh? I started out reading people’s blogs, then I began “ghost-editing” a friend’s blog, and now it’s progressed to having my own blog(s). Blogging is a sickness, I think – but it’s an agreeable illness for the time being!
Tags: navel-gazing
