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This is a bit of a moment for me so let me take a few deep breaths to compose myself.




Are you still here? Right I'd better get on with it, no more procrastinating, straight down to what I want to say. No beating around the bush. Straight to the point, with no deviation repetition or repetition.


I thought I would tell you a little bit about me for a change. And as I am inordinately shy, this feels like a big step to me.

In fact that is the whole point. I do feel that sometimes my innate shyness has held me back.

An example was that I have recently been interviewed for a job (or three but that's another story). In most of them I knew some or all of the interviewers. Not an easy positions for me. In an interview with people I don't know, I can confidently tell the panel my skills and knowledge, what would be the right thing to do in situations I was familiar with and make informed assumptions about areas in which I only had a passing interest.

However, my feedback from the recent interview was interesting and not entirely unexpected. Apparently, the panel felt that I wasn't confident in the responses I gave. they knew I knew what I was talking about but I wasn't convincing when asked and some of my answers were dragged, kicking and screaming from me. I suppose I thought that they would be able to see through my answers and tell me I was a fraud, a liar, a cheat and shouldn't be allowed out in polite society.

The worst part was that I knew it was true. And worse still has been for as long as I can remember. I have never been the life and soul of the party. I prefer one to one conversations rather than being part of a mass debate. I am very conscious that I act the way that people expect me to act. But then they expect me to act like that because I always have. There's an eternal loop that I would like to find the end of.

I think it goes back to my childhood. I had a best friend and a few other friends. Me and my best friend met on my first day at primary school. He was the loud effervescent one and I was the mate, if you know what I mean. The problem was, I saw that him being loud and effervescent sometimes made him unpopular with the rest of the class. I still don't know why. I think it was just because he wanted to be a leader but there were already other leaders in the class. Whatever it was, I believed that being sociable got you into trouble, so I kept myself to myself.

It's not that I didn't talk to the rest of my cohort. I just didn't join the cliques that emerged. In fact I was voted class captain two years running, such was my diplomacy and wanting to keep everybody happy. Everybody except myself perhaps.

No, that's not fair. I didn't like my secondary school days much but I got through them without too much fuss. I didn't feel unpopular, but I was never the first to be invited to a party or day out. I did get asked to some, but not all. That was OK though. I would probablly just stood by a wall watching what went on.

There was a time when I made a concerted effort to be less shy. I was always keen on radio and joined our local hospital radio station when I was 19. Nobody there knew me and had no preconceived ideas of who I was. This was my opportunity and I acted a little more confident. I wasn't pushy, but more confident. I also felt that the people in this organisation had similar interests to me so that fed my self esteem.

I enjoyed the few years that I was there and I still hold the people I met there as my closest friends some 20 years later. Funnily enough, even now, I tend to meet up with them one at a time rather than all together. Maybe that's something we should change.

Is there an elephant in the room? What about girls I hear you say. Well there were one or two close friendships with the opposite sex. I was rubbish at asking them out. Was it fear of rejection? Probably. I was also very bad at picking up on subtle (and not so subtle) hints from potential mates. Don't ask me about the time that one of my close female friends asked me about staying at her house once. Or the card she sent me from Germany, Or the record she dedicated to me. As Lloyd would say "The clues were there".

Luckily, I was in a very dark nightclub (well it must have been) one Christmas time and a beauitful girl came and asked me for a Christmas kiss. I checked she wasn't talking to one of the friends I had gone into the club with, but she was actually talking to me. We were married four and a half years later.

Even now, shyness bothers me. I enjoy looking at lots of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. I also go on some forums on which I have an interest like radio and governor forums. Even though there is a semi anonimity provided by the virtual world, I still feel like like I am butting in on a conversation if I make a reply to someone. I almost feel like saying "Excuse me", althought this will waste 9 Twitter characters.

So first of all, thank you for reading this. And if you haven't then that's OK as I didn't think you would any way.

Secondly, if you think I am being aloof, ever. feel free to tell me to stop being so bloody selfish.

And finally, if you have commented on my previous posts, thank you. I would hae replied but it's not that I am shy....







I just can't work out how to post comments on my own blog.