Tuesday, October 27, 2009

La Shy Girl & some other stuff :)

I haven't been updating quite as much lately because I'm gearing up for my personal blogging challenge next month. 30 days of updates and things I'm grateful for! Woooo! LOL But! Some things must be said.

First up, I was super excited when blogger/builder Josue Habana asked me to do his 5 Questions and Shameless Plug interview. Go read it, I'll wait.







Done? Ok.

Anyway, that was pretty cool, so thanks for asking me to do that, Josue! He makes some pretty cool [and FREE] skyboxes, so check out his stuff on XStreet. Some of you may have seen his work before because I've used a couple of his skyboxes for party rooms. :)

Tomorrow is the Thorne-Darwin Halloween Party!! I'm DJing it and Tymm & Jerremy have set up a pretty awesome area for the party, so don't miss it!

So earlier on plurk today, someone wondered how a shy guy could be in SL and not feel lonely, because even when he DID go out with his small group of friends, they were usually in IMs. It really made me think because although most people don't realize it, I'm actually really terribly shy. I'm not AS bad as I once was, but ... yeah, it's still there.

Shy people are always going to have to work a little harder in SL than other people because we will get overlooked by the louder, more social crowd. It's not that different from the physical world, really. But in a world where so many people come in, drop all their inhibitions at the door, and get wild - those of us who are shy can very easily be pushed into a corner and forgotten.

We also have to work at keeping the friendships once we get them, because we almost never IM anyone first. We never want to be a bother. Even though we're told time & time again that we're NOT, it takes a while before we can move past that.

Like I said, I am very shy. Some people mistake this for being aloof, or snobby, or think that I simply don't like/care about them. Nope. That's not it at all.

I get a little jealous sometimes when I see people who are always hanging out with others, who are loud and funny, who go to all the parties and are friends with pretty much everyone they meet. I've been told [in the physical world] that I'm anti-social. No, I would love to be more social, but I have a hard time just hanging out with people because I always feel like I have to be entertaining them. Ask me how many parties I've been to in the past year that I haven't DJed at or stayed longer than 10 minutes. The answer is VERY slim. When you're shy, you don't always feel welcome at parties.

There are times when I push past it, when I IM someone first or ask someone to go do something. But even then, I spend the first half of our time together uncomfortable and wondering if they're waiting for me to be entertaining. It usually leads to me just not saying anything at all, which...well, that's probably weird. lol

Oh, this isn't some big "Omg, please IM me and help me" post. I'm simply saying that if you know someone who doesn't IM you often or doesn't talk much, don't think that they don't like you. They may just be really shy.

If you're the shy one... All I can say is that if you're lucky enough to have one friend who understands your problem, don't ever ever let them go. :)

Ok, I need food. And sleep. I think I got 2 and a half hours last night altogether. But watch...you'll see me online tonight at 2am anyway.

I have issues.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

you *just* described me! I'm ok when I'm in settings that I'm comfortable with. Take me out of that setting and I'm quiet and always the first to leave. Not because I want to, but because I don't know what to say to anyone then think "ooh they will think I'm an idiot if I say that" so well..leave.

And I am bummed I'm missing yet another Tym party :( It's too late for me and I was pushing myself and psyching myself to go!

Hope everyone has a good time and you rock the house down!

Misty

Anonymous said...

This is so totally me too. And because of it I have no friends in SL, I have afew on my list that I chat with occasionally. But no one to hang out with. So I don't spend as much time on SL anymore. It is really hard, because I am like you, I feel like a bother and I not worth anyone's time. I'm the one at the back of the room observing everything :) I am also not a very good conversationalist and never know what to say because I think that whatever I say will sound dumb.

Thanks for this post, it helps to know I'm not the only one that struggles with these issues! :)

Nissa Nightfire said...

Great article :) It's kinda funny -- when I came to SL, I thought surely all my shyness would magically disappear -- after all, I can 'hide' behind computer screen, be anything I want to be, look beautiful, fit in ... but finally realized I am still me inside. Now, I cut myself a lot more slack, and accept that I sometime need to find coping mechanisms, or psych myself up ... not so different that RL after all :)