What do you think? Please do not just link to a website (ie wikipedia), I have searched them all. I’m so ridiculously shy and was wondering what anyones opinions on shyness are and if there is a remedy? Confidence boosting?
thanks.
Bah, I get rediculously shy around women I consider attractive, especially if they consider me attractive as well, and since I am usually unwilling to do anything with unattractive women, my shyness is quite the problem. It makes me look extremely arrogant at times as well. Cursed be my shyness, it is my decadence 100 times o’er!
Maybe it goes deeper than just shyness. Maybe it’s social anxiety. Maybe some traumatic event influenced brain development and now your brain chemistry is all bent on keeping you to a life of depression and loneliness.
The only help, say the psychologists, is to get yourself meds and pyschotreatment somehow.
I don’t know.
If I knew an answer I would not be in my current position.
I’m shy too: especially in the company of gorgeous males that like me/I like them 
(like Baller, but him with women.)
I think it’s a safety mechanism, so that we do not get played by serial manogamists - if people like you enough (for friendship, or more) they will spend the time to get through your shyness: through to ‘YOU’ - it definitely makes one seem more arrogant/vain: than our non-shy counter-parts, but that’s just how it is.
You need to be around people who are willing to get through your shyness barrier/who understand why the barrier is there in the first place. Probably an innate, pre-historic quality that was developed for finding a good mate? I know my shyness protects me from males who are just trying to get me into bed/to add me to their list of conquests.
Maybe we are better than that, and therefore seek more genuine people: that our shyness helps us to seek-out? I don’t have the answers, but these thoughts spring to mind: when I contemplate being shy.
You gotta socialise with the right kinda people for who you are: to fulfill your potential…
^^Haha, we really are arrogant aren’t we?
It’s good to be arrogant: don’t ya think?
I love arrogance in guys: it shows that they aren’t easy - they always give a cheeky smile when they think no-one is looking: which makes me smile.
Although, as OK Computer mentioned before: arrogance can equate to a lonely existence 
Perhaps we should throw an arrogant people party - which would probably be one hell of a party, I think.
Arrogance rules!!! 
Wikipedia writes:
“In humans, shyness is a feeling of insecurity or awkwardness that certain people experience while being among others, talking with others, asking favors of others, etc. […] Shyness is most likely to occur during unfamiliar situations. […] [P]eople may feel shy around certain people and not others. For instance, one may be outgoing with friends, but experience love-shyness toward someone of their preferred sex.”
The latter is, of course, because they are familiar with people of their own sex but not with those of the opposite.
I think shyness may be due to measuring oneself by the (supposed) standards of other people. Whereas one usually measures oneself by one’s own standards, or the standards of one’s own group, one is suddenly confronted with a different set of standards by which one is measured. I think it is this knowledge that causes anxiety. Thus the “cure” for shyness is to steadfastly keep measuring oneself by one’s own standards. This can be hard, however, in situations in which one is the only one present of one’s own group: one may then easily be overwhelmed by the - real or imagined - value judgments of a different group, or a person belonging to a different group. But this dependence on one’s own group is already a symptom of weakness. One should always form one’s own judgments - then one belongs to the “group” of strong people, of those who rely on their own judgments. This is a matter of self-confidence, however: if one is not self-confident, one does not feel that one has the right to form one’s own judgments;one thinks the authority of groups is much greater, because multiple people - who are all self-confident, of course, because they belong to a group… - conform to those judgments.
I know two ways.
The obsessive way: Shamanism. Which amounts to being possessed by forces that simpy ignore and break apart your complexes, trauma’s, and the likes. A lot of sweat and hysterical laughter, I warn you.
The healthy way: ‘Always do what you are afraid of doing’ - Emerson
Are these two mutually exclusive? I think not. But you have answered my unspoken question, “What made me lose my shyness?” - Shamanism, however, is a kind of devilry: it puts your “soul” at stake, i.e., it challenges your belief in the existence of a soul (which in my case may have been the cause of my bad trips).
Sauwelios: I think much modern shyness has to do with having too much standards in situation where a kind of standardlessness is required to socially function.
People who are proud and graceful among powerful, cultivated people can be very shy among simple people having a good time.
That is why I mention shamanism - it breaks standards. Not only one’s own, but also those of who see the shaman. It breaks different standards and replaces them with one new one.
Shy people are usually very sensitive. This is a burden unless it is used as an advantage - to be sensitve to the right things - to motion, dance, laughter, eros, and not to be disturbed by ‘disturbances in the force’ one thinks one creates.
What do you mean? I don’t understand this at all.
What Shamanism does as I experience it is uncover and direct vast sources of raw energy into, well, life. Do you mean that the river grows so wild that it destroys the banks? It is true that it chances one’s personality. But a soul? How?
These are interesting thoughts, even though I cannot relate to all of them: for instance, that kind of standardlessness you mention. But then, isn’t standardlessness kind of standard? That is, isn’t mediocrity kind of the rule?
As for shy people being sensitive: research has pointed out that, in general, blue-eyed people are shyer than brown-eyed people. This suggests to me that natural shyness is a sign of superiority. I have added the word “natural” because a naturally shy person who overcomes his shyness does not by that fact become inferior, of course.
Well, what do you mean by “soul”?
As I see it, and I have told you before, shamanism - tripping - arouses those vast sources of energy by imperiling the spirit - it is kind of a rebellion, a resistance, of the spirit against its poisoning, like a fire flaring up in the wind…
The soul for me is the Apollinian individuality, which is being washed away by the Dionysian forces in the trip; the only solution to this is to let go of the soul and identify with the Self: if you can’t beat them, join 'm! But, as Jung says:
“Naturally there can be no question of a total extinction of the ego, for then the focus of consciousness [which (consciousness) I called the “spirit”] would be destroyed, and the result would be complete unconsciousness. The relative abolition of the ego affects only those supreme and ultimate decisions which confront us in situations where there are insoluble conflicts of duty.”
[Christ, a Symbol of the Self, in Aion.]
What I mean by “soul”, then, is the idea of an absolute ego.
Haha, while I agree with you Sau, that blue-eyed blondes are superior (I know by personal experience) what kind of evidence do you have for this?
Not just blondes, mind you.
I don’t need evidence for what is evident.
01.06.07.1837
I’d like to start briefly by thanking Sauwelios for one-upping the opposition to link-posting. If you can’t link it, or in this case, are requested not to link it, post the information from the link you would cite. =D> And now back to the topic…
I have some understanding of how shyness is developed as I once was shy in my youth. It is caused, as I believe, by an absence of interaction and early development of social customs. Usually, this is the fault of the parents as it is their responsibility to show their offspring the hard truth of the world and the people in it… and how to deal with them.
You may have been shy around attractive women due to the possibility that you were 1) rarely exposed to them and 2) never taught how to interact with them. Shyness, in effect, is the result of a man or woman coping with the inability to know what action to take in a given situation. The solution, which should occur naturally as we get older, is to interact more and learn for ourselves (the hard way that is) how to deal with certain situations. The more we expose ourselves to a condition, the more comfortable we are with it, and ergo, the less shy we become (i.e. less stress and more confidence).
You’re green with jealousy. I have abundantly given my own thoughts on shyness. In fact, that quote from Wikipedia was only the introduction to my initial reply, you wannabe Nietzschean.
This solution is only true if one assumes that the normal way of behaving in a certain situation (the way the majority accepts as the right kind of behavior) is the way one should act.
One becomes less shy as they adapt to the standards of the condition (as others see it), or when they have decide themselves on the proper way to act (without any doubt that they are acting appropriately).
Sauwelios noted that natural shyness is a sign of superiority. For certain people, in certain circumstances, I would agree. One with superior intelligence (or a superior sense of morality) may be unwilling to accept normal behaviors in a given situation, rising above a conformist morality (while, nonetheless, not wanting to give members of the group the wrong idea about something).
Instead of accepting the way one should act from the group standards, an individual may be very busy actively trying to find a solution, and not coming to any concrete decisions.
If one is one feels pressured to act in a situation, but does not feel confident of the correct way to act, they experience shyness/social anxiety/cognitive dissonance in relation to their place within a current social setting.
I can confirm this. I have overcome this problem by just accepting that I will give people the wrong idea about something. This has lead to many unpredictable and akward situations. As I learned first to ignore and then to enjoy this, the shyness turned around into a sense of power.
I now see clearly how fragile almost everyone is in social situations, and how little it takes to bring the entire situation out of balance. To me, this is a very balancing awareness. Fom this balance I learned hat being socially graceful and effective is the easiest thing in the world when you can do it by your own standards.
It’s a game, but you’ll have to break the rules and then make your own before you can play by them. In that sense, shy people are indeed superior.