In Starbucks the other day, I was sitting with my laptop just trying to get some work done, and enjoying my morning coffee. I soon noticed there was a cute girl sitting alone across from me, on the other side of Starbucks with her laptop. Being fairly busy, I didn’t think much of it at first, and continued working.
It didn’t take long before curiosity got the better of my peripheral vision, which led to periodic glancing around the room to look at her. It was then I realized she seemed to be doing the same to me, and a few minutes of avoiding glances go by. Meanwhile, I was trying really hard to build up the courage to go talk to her. Why was this so hard?
Negative thoughts start to fill my head: was she really looking at me?, will walking over and sitting next to her offend her?, will I’ll be distracting her?, what to say?, does she even want to talk?, will I’ll be able to hold an interesting conversation?, or is she really just waiting for her boyfriend to show up?…
Torn with conflicting emotions, I sat; thinking; wishing.
(By now I had definitely ruined the three second rule.)
Sadly, and shamefully, I never did go talk to her, and she left a few minutes later. Sigh, yet another missed opportunity to talk to someone. This particular situation was very special though.
For the first time, I realized that watching her walk away without ever talking to her was much worse than all the thoughts I had about what could have gone wrong. For example, if I had just simply walked over and said “hi”, this post would be entirely different – for better or for worse, it doesn’t matter – it’s too bad though that I’ll never know.
Even if I’m wrong, and over-analyzing everything above, I still felt like crap sitting there, desperately wanting to introduce myself to someone, only to watch her walk out the door and be gone forever.
Usually I take comfort in my introverted personality type, but it’s moments like this that remind me of how many potential friends I might be missing out on by simply remaining shy around people.
So, I’m writing this for motivation to practice overcoming shyness. You only get good at something with practice. Maybe I have spent too much time practicing school (studying) or working, and not enough time practicing trying to meet new people.
New goal: To step outside my comfort zone more often.