This question has always put me in a dilemma because I’ve somewhere seen both the glimpses. I don’t really think I’m a party animal who would make friends with random strangers, but I definitely enjoy clubbing now and then with my tiny circle of friends.
I wouldn’t mind saying I wasn’t really comfortable in my own skin growing up. There were several insecurities that would just arise out of nowhere turning me into a quiet and an extremely conscious little girl who would hesitate to talk to people thinking they would see all those things I was insecure about and not talk with me later then.
Amidst all this, the big transition, the migration from Mozambique to Mumbai helped me quite a bit. Huge portions of all those things I would get insecure about didn’t really make sense anymore. I came across people who would match my ideology and pattern of thinking, all those things that petrified me all those things gradually just didn’t matter. It was simply my poor head that would create scenarios and scare the shit out of me way before the actual incident would even take place.
A super cliché statement, but it was simply the confidence I lacked which made me conscious with every little thing I would do or just thinking of all the flaws in me time and again which sort of stopped me from talking to anyone. That was where I realized what was the little thing missing, CONFIDENCE (only If I could use the shimmery emoji lol).
Not as easy as it sounds but we tried to build up that confidence very very gradually with a hope that I would come out like the other girls I looked up to and wished to be like. So for starters, I tried being a little more vocal and tried communicating with people around me. Wasn’t really that good at initiating and continuing conversations but I tried.
Just a little trick I learned from a friend. Don’t carry a pen with you at your first day of school, college or at work. Instead, ask for it from the person sitting next to you. You can then start with a little conversation. A little tip: keep the conversation open ended so there’s something you have to continue for the next day.
I have still been using this trick and it actually works lol. Honestly, talking to people wasn’t really as difficult as my mind had depicted it to me. People were surprisingly kinder than I expected them to be.
My first instance where I understood the introverted anxiety kick in? Yes I have a back story for this too. My first day of school in India. It was at the bus ride from my place to the school. I had this one thing fixed in my mind. It was that I would no longer be the shy, timid little girl I had been all this while. Life had given me an opportunity to start fresh. Surely didn’t want to miss that one. With a lot of strength and courage, I decided to sit next to a girl even when there were empty seats around. Smart move. Just when I was wondering what to ask her and how to begin with the conversation to make me look cool enough, she asked my name.
Didn’t really have to make that much of an effort there ha. I told her my name and there we began with our conversation . Later that day I realized how much of a talkative I was. It was just the mere efforts to begin a conversation that I was terrified of.
I must have annoyed the shit out of that girl by asking her the silliest of questions haha but I had a really good time. That was where the perception of me being a total introvert started to sort of fade. This little talkative trait was sort of a reality check that I shouldn’t have had kept things to myself all this while like I did. I should have made more friends, talk to them, listen to their stuff, share mine.
Little did I know, I am surprisingly good at making friends and some networking as well. Thanks to that little bus girl I annoyed.
I’ve still not reached to a conclusion whether I’m an introvert or an extrovert but maybe an ambivert would be the word?
A little gyaan to end with. You are perfect just the ay you are. If you’re turning away from who you are and try to get like some other person to gain that external validation from people who don’t even matter, you are falling out the alignment of who you actually are. Stay in your own energetic space. If it is meant to the right people would come ❤
Next blog will be out soon.
Desai Thoughts MEdia.
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