Extroverts, please speak up!

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:22:33 -0800

This one is for the extroverts. As someone who has struggled with social anxiety/shyness to varying degrees my entire life, I'm very curious to know what your inner dialogue is like? What goes on in your mind in various everyday social situations? Are there 'positive' things (if anything at all) that you're saying to yourself or is it just the opposite in that there isn't much of a dialogue prior to the action and instead of thinking (or overthinking) about the hows and whys and whatifs, you just act.

For example, you spot an attractive stranger across the room, decide you'd like to talk to them. Do you then just walk across the room and do it just because you wish to talk to them, without any planning, or caring about the outcome? Is that how it is, when you boil it down? You just do and think/evaluate later? What if the outcome isn't what you'd desired? What are you mental processes in that case, post action. Do you even have an inner critic or were you just born with the ability to 'be in the moment' ?

I realize that it is 'natural' to experience some degree of anxiety in the scenarios similar to the one mentioned above and yet there seem to be some for whom feeling anxious (at least socially) seems like a totally alien concept. It is from those people (though comments from others are also welcome) that I'd like to hear. I just want to know what kind of self evaluation (if any at all) is going on in your mind when you're in social situations.

Thanks!

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Extroverts, please speak up!