Is anyone else too shy to be friendly

I have been thinking about this lately. I consider myself to be a pretty friendly person, but I dont think many people see that from me because I am too afraid too show it. I tend not to engage with other people for fear of not understanding what it is that they are saying, or being rejected because I am not the kind of person that they want to be speaking too....

I see how some people have a natural ability to make people warm up to them easily. Its something I have always struggled with..

So instead of being friendly, caring and a person to offer advice. I simply stand back instead...
I feel frustrated because this isnt who I really am. I dont like being percieved as someone who doesnt care, or who isnt approachable. I care too much about what other people think of me too be the kind of person that I want to be.

I also get the feeling that my face looks too serious and puts people off. I have read studies that suggest that the way a person face looks can drastically affect how someone perceives you.

Can anyone else relate? Can anyone at least understand..?

Apologies for this blatantly self indulgent thread.

ShyKiwi said:

I also get the feeling that my face looks too serious and puts people off. I have read studies that suggest that the way a person face looks can drastically affect how someone perceives you.

Click to expand...

I hope I don't derail your thread, but I find this interesting because I've had conversations with several people here regarding body language and how it may push people away.

Do you think it's more than body language, that it's something inherent in your looks themselves?

Body language definitely. That is something that one can control...but, and I do know people are going to disagree with me here, I do think that the face does have something to do with how people may perceive you.... a naturally furrow brow for example would make one look grumpy...and people dont like that. I think the human mind analyzes a persons face to pain staking detail and picks up on every subtlety determining a persons character (at least on a sub conscious level)



Thats what I think anyway..

supposedly only about 7% of interpersonal communication is verbal

the rest - 93% of how we relate to one another - is NON-verbal: gesture, body language, facial expression, voice inflection, etc.

truly, it's not WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it

if you get the same negative response over and over again - with the only common denominator being you - you have two ways to look at it:

1. you're perfect and everyone else in the world is flawed

or

2. you're flawed

the problem with choice number one is that there's no way for you to correct the situation - all you can do is get angry, complain and cast blame

but with choice number two, there's hope

because you can always work to improve yourself

ShyKiwi said:

I think the human mind analyzes a persons face to pain staking detail and picks up on every subtlety determining a persons character (at least on a sub conscious level)



Thats what I think anyway..

Click to expand...

Yeah, you and the vast majority of the scientific community. Did you know that little babies, before they can speak, are actually even better at picking up emotions based on facial expression than adults are?

NathanielWingatePeaslee said:

Yeah, you and the vast majority of the scientific community. Did you know that little babies, before they can speak, are actually even better at picking up emotions based on facial expression than adults are?

Click to expand...

i was thinking about that, too

and it can have a huge impact on a child's development whether an infant is exposed to friendly faces vs. unfriendly faces

ever wonder why the game peek-a-boo is such a crowd-pleaser in the nursery?

coyote said:

2. you're flawed

the problem with choice number one is that there's no way for you to correct the situation - all you can do is get angry, complain and cast blame

but with choice number two, there's hope

because you can always work to improve yourself

Click to expand...

I agree...to an extent. The disagreement that I have with your philosophy though is that sometimes I think anger and blame is justified. Sometimes people do you wrong. Sometimes it *IS* the other persons fault...sometimes complaining is necessary to voice your discontent. Being frustrated or angry is part of the human experience and I am not going to stifle it if I feel that way.

However, within the context of shyness and social anxiety its better to let go and work on yourself, because you cant change how other people are... only yourself. there is no point harboring resentful feelings because in the long run it will only breed bitterness. But I digress from the point of the thread.
I was really hoping to identify with people whose shyness prevents them from engaging with other people

ShyKiwi said:

I have been thinking about this lately. I consider myself to be a pretty friendly person, but I dont think many people see that from me because I am too afraid too show it. I tend not to engage with other people for fear of not understanding what it is that they are saying, or being rejected because I am not the kind of person that they want to be speaking too....

I see how some people have a natural ability to make people warm up to them easily. Its something I have always struggled with..

So instead of being friendly, caring and a person to offer advice. I simply stand back instead...
I feel frustrated because this isnt who I really am. I dont like being percieved as someone who doesnt care, or who isnt approachable. I care too much about what other people think of me too be the kind of person that I want to be.

I also get the feeling that my face looks too serious and puts people off. I have read studies that suggest that the way a person face looks can drastically affect how someone perceives you.

Can anyone else relate? Can anyone at least understand..?

Apologies for this blatantly self indulgent thread.

Click to expand...

alot of this behaviour is because of conditioning and environment growing up at home and in school. that and personal confidence.

alot of really social people grew up in a group of siblings in really relaxed environments. had fights, shared moments. but ultimately they constantly interacted which is great training! because it's forced upon everyone in the group to take part in interaction. now sometimes as kids you'd resist and still become shy out of that but it shows you how environment can play a part.

take anyone from that group and put them in a different family on their own or with one sibling in a really intense or gloomy house environment and that person is more likely to be solitary.

so this shows us how much immediate environment, surroundings, atmosphere of location or town you live in, people you live with and their influence all plays a big role in shaping our current personalities.

i think its important to try and find the environment that suits you, yes it's not easy but if it gets you into a different pattern then all the better if it helps with confodence.

so what i am saying is that people can change personality depending on feeling of "state" that derives from the mini world that you live in and often the approval seeking nature of the people around us can have an effect. mentors can have negative or positive influences. but remember that you can help yourself every day and you know you'd like to.

coyote said:

supposedly only about 7% of interpersonal communication is verbal

the rest - 93% of how we relate to one another - is NON-verbal: gesture, body language, facial expression, voice inflection, etc.

truly, it's not WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it

if you get the same negative response over and over again - with the only common denominator being you - you have two ways to look at it:

1. you're perfect and everyone else in the world is flawed

or

2. you're flawed

the problem with choice number one is that there's no way for you to correct the situation - all you can do is get angry, complain and cast blame

but with choice number two, there's hope

because you can always work to improve yourself

Click to expand...

i can't see how 93% can be non-verbal, i mean we all read about that at school and uni but that seems way off the mark. surely words/sentences are more at the core of communication. emotion and expressions do of course boost the delivery and the engagement of interaction, of course. but yeh..i mean if i become a mute and just use body language and expressions then people won't have much of a clue if they need info from me. maybe if all the non-verbal gestures are added up as a percentage, probably then, *shrugs* could be that.

ShyKiwi said:

sometimes I think anger and blame is justified.

Click to expand...

The key question is: will voicing your discontent bring about constructive change?

Sometimes it can.

Sometimes asking for a pay rise will net you one.

Sometimes asking your lover to sleep on his side will reduce his snoring.

Sometimes asking for injustice to be redressed will result in the civil rights movement.

But sometimes, there is no chance that complaining will lead to change.

Sometimes you may not even have the opportunity to complain.

Carrying around your anger will only poison you.

Richey said:

i can't see how 93% can be non-verbal

Click to expand...

You'd be surprised. I've had detailed "conversations" with people I didn't share a language with. And "conversations" in bars where I could only hear one word in five.

Body language fills in the blanks.

Richey said:

i can't see how 93% can be non-verbal, i mean we all read about that at school and uni but that seems way off the mark....

Click to expand...

yeah i always wondered about this, too

i was taught this during coursework for training to be a 911 Telecommunicator / Police & Fire dispatcher

i worked in that field for many years

all we had to use was our voice and our word choice to communicate over the phone or radio with people who were in the worst possible situations - frightened, tramautized, intoxicated, injured, sick, angry - and try to help them

it's much easier to communicate with someone when you have your whole range of bodily functions at your disposal

People associate physical traits with personality traits.
So, of course they can think of you as one way depending on how you look.
My dad can tell alot about a person just from the way that they walk - a tried and true method... but it doesn't tell you what a person has been through in their life to shape why they are the way they are today.

mmm. Good responses, a lot of food for thought here.... but my real objective behind this thread was whether people felt like their personality, their ability to show what kind of person they really are is hindered by shyness and caring too much about what people think of you.

Thanks to everyone that has taken the time to respond though.

I rarely have the confidence to initiate friendhsips. If my anxiety is bad I can tend to avoid wanting to talk to people.

Sorry, I did derail it, didn't I?

When I'm anxious I turn into this weird polystyrene version of myself, utterly lacking in substance or personality.

It's as if I'm watching things from a distance and the buttons of my remote are stuck.

ShyKiwi said:

my real objective behind this thread was whether people felt like their personality, their ability to show what kind of person they really are is hindered by shyness and caring too much about what people think of you.

Click to expand...

Yeah, totally. I am not my SA. I am not my OCD. I am not my depression. But the thing is, all that really takes up so much from me that it is hard to tell who I am at this point. I am not making sense, it is getting kinda late. I do ask myself these questions often though. It is like, if I am not capable of being a certain way, then maybe I am not that way period. Not even on the inside.

Yeah, I am. But when you stop thinking about yourself for a moment and think about that person, you will try make the effort to be friendly. Its just like throwing a ball, and you are holding a bat. Instead of thinking I cant do this, you just hit it. You might miss, but it just means thinking of the team. Thinking of others first. Then it wont be about me, me all the time.

WeirdyMcGee said:

My dad can tell alot about a person just from the way that they walk - a tried and true method... but it doesn't tell you what a person has been through in their life to shape why they are the way they are today.

Click to expand...

Thats true, but it does say what they chose to do with their life by being what they are now. But, thats not all true.. because people may just be tired from working hard. So they feel sloppy for example.

But, people may have went through a bad past and they may still need help to change. So its not really nice to judge.
I dont really judge people entirely on apperance though, its like a mask. the personality is really what shows it at the end.
I mean it may show whether or not they take care of their apperance, healthy or just vain.. it can mean either one.

I get what you mean, because I do something similar. I have one super close friend and I let her do the talking, because I'm too shy to speak up for fear of being disliked. I care deeply about how others perceive me, so it weighs constantly on my mind and makes me wonder if people actually like me, or worry that if I talk to them they might not like me because I don't appear open and bubbly. I lack the confidence to do anything about it so I just keep letting my friend talk over me which gives off an aura of me being quiet and boring. I can be friendly, but I'm not the type to just spark up a conversation with anyone, I've never been able to. Those who know me very well (which are very few people, but I have some close friends who do) know that I can be funny, friendly and eccentric, but I can also be sensible and serious and my friends often come to me for advice and such. But none of this shows when I meet people. I just come across as being cold and have been told so by lots of people. Heck, when I first met some of my closer friends, they said I came across as devoid of emotion and serious and it made them dislike me at first.

My shyness is like a wall and it needs someone special to want to break it down when it comes to me, because I can try and break it down from my side, but I usually fail. I guess the only good thing that comes from it is that, when someone does get past it, I know they're a good friend and in for the long haul, because it's not easy for me to take my barriers down and I wish at times that I could tell people why I am the way that I am, what happened and how I ended up being a weird shadow of myself that's hidden beneath layers of coldness and being serious, but I just think it'd make people think I'm so pathetic that they might talk to me out of sympathy, and I don't want that.

I find with new people, they will never spark up a conversation with me; it's always with my friend, even if the two of us are talking quietly, they ALWAYS approach her first and I sort of fade into the background. I'll try and give some input into the conversation, but then my mind starts telling me things like 'Just shut up, let them talk, you're too boring.' or 'I can't talk to them because I'll stutter and they'll laugh. They probably don't like me anyway.' and then I become painfully aware that I do stutter a little and jumble words when talking, so I get nervous and completely clam up.

Sometimes I find that when people tell others 'Oh, she's shy', 'She's nervous', 'She's just quiet' it can actually make me worse. Like my friend, she tries to tell people out of being nice and to help them understand my silence, but people immediately see it differently and then ignore me completely. It also reinforces that I AM shy and I AM nervous, which I then start repeating in my mind and hey presto, I clam up once more.

I do feel that my SA does hinder me in making friends and talking to people. It's on my mind all the time and I'm constantly telling myself it's my fault and that it's safer to stay quiet because I'll just embarrass myself. Without meaning to sound egotistical, I know that I could offer a person a lot if they were my friend. I can be friendly and funny, I can be a fun person to hang out with, but it never shows because I stick myself behind this wall and never speak up because I'm too shy or nervous and I keep telling myself that the wall and barriers iv'e put up are safe, and I should keep them, even though I'm telling myself no all the while.

Annnd this probably makes no sense. D:


I do wonder about the facial thing though, because I apparently give of a 'dislike vibe' according to one person I know. When she met me, she just immediately disliked me and said it was something about my face. I've had others say the same. I do tend to look very serious, but people just say I have a quality to my face which makes me dislikeable.