Lost for words

People sometimes say that my shyness, my tendency to be tongue-tied with other people, is due to my being too self-conscious.

I don't know about that. What exactly is "too much" self-consciousness anyway? If anything, I think I'm probably not self-conscious enough. I'm more than capable of blurting out something stupid or insensitive without realising, or of saying the complete opposite of what I'm really thinking or feeling.

To my mind, the more self-conscious people are, the better. The more aware we are of how we're behaving, how we're affecting other people, what sort of impression we're making, the more likely we are to treat people decently rather than nastily.

Even if we're talking total self-absorption, that's not so awful either. Okay, so the person might be jabbering away about themself, but at least they're not planning a shooting spree or a mass beheading. The worst they can do is bore you to tears.

I think my shyness is due more to the assumption that other people won't accept me for what I am. If I just gabble away freely, sooner or later someone will object to something I've said and there will be an unpleasant exchange. People take offence at the strangest things, and I can't predict what they will be. So I find myself listening rather than talking so as to avoid sudden umbrage.

My shyness is probably also a reaction to wasting so many hours of my life listening to people confidently holding forth on things they know absolutely nothing about, or things that have already been dissected ad nauseam by all and sundry. I hesitate to add yet another ill-informed or superfluous opinion to the surrounding hubbub.

And at the end of the day, I'd just rather be a shrinking violet than a pompous windbag.

Gift of the gab

The Irish are famous for their gift of the gab, but it's not a trait I share. I can be embarr-assingly inarticulate in company, struck dumb while everyone else is rabbiting away non-stop.

I'm just too self-conscious, too aware of what I'm saying and of how it might be received. Might I offend someone? Might I say something inappropriate? Might I blurt out something utterly stupid?

Other people can blather away effortlessly about anything under the sun, the words pouring out like water from a tap, totally confident they'll say the right thing. Nothing seems to put them off.

How I envy that remarkable ability when I'm standing awkwardly next to some total stranger (or even someone I know well) wondering what to say next and filling the silence with nervous ear-tugging or head-scratching.

Of course I'm aware that being tongue-tied can be just as off-putting as saying the wrong thing, but that doesn't seem to help. I only have to realise I'm tongue-tied to become even more so.

I can't see off that little policeman in the back of my brain watching my every word like a hawk, waiting to nick me for some petty social offence. Why won't he just go away?

They say as you get older you get less shy, because you simply don't care any more what other people think. Well, I keep waiting for this magical quality to kick in, but there's no sign of it yet.

Perhaps I should just make a virtue of my failings and become a Trappist.