I have always been painfully shy and it makes it very difficult to communicate inter-personally with people and to connect with people on a deep and meaningful level and to just meet new people and make friends. I have always been aware of these things on one level or another, but now I live in a new area where I don’t know a lot of people and as I find myself feeling more mature I see a few of my old friends sticking to the same old immature patterns in their lives and I feel a strong need to branch out and make some new friends for the first time in a long while.

I have been dating this great woman for several weeks, we had some very surprising things in common and liked each other a lot. She is the best new friend I have met in a long time. Than just last weekend she broke up with me because I guess I am too shy, not talkative enough or not great at the art of good conversation and not outgoing enough for her. I like her more than any woman I have met in longer than I can remember and I am sometimes overly emotional to begin with, so I have felt kind of devastated since we last saw each other.

I am resolved to pick up and get on with it, but I felt like I had made the first really good new friend in a long time and now I feel like I have fallen back to square one and have to start over. I can write just fine, I think I am very good at expressing my thoughts and feelings articulately with written words. But for some reason, in live, face to face conversations, I just find my tongue frozen, or have trouble with relaxing enough to speak freely and easily with people unless I’ve already known them well for a long time. I feel like I had something really good with this woman and I really blew it because this shyness problem is something I just can’t understand how to get over.

I know it is naturally related to my having a low self confidence sometimes but than I only seem to feel that way mostly around people I just met or haven’t known for very long. Can anyone with experience with this same kind of shyness problem please share any helpful advice or thoughts you might have? How can I learn to just naturally be more self confident and relaxed around new people I meet so that I can become more skilled at forming meaningful connections with people and making new friends more easily…? 4 months ago

Watching “The Secret” was quite inspiring. I’m gonna write down what I love about myself, names of people I’m thankful to, set more precise goals and take some time to visualize myself having achieved them. This will help me being proud of my assets and convictions, and knowing where I’m heading at, and thus being more confident in my everyday life. 15 months ago