Is it really a surprise? We are made to seek love and it’s hard to obtain from your mobile.

I have a shameful secret: I was a shrinking violet no longer than 40 months ago. I couldn’t talk with strangers. It was a weird kind of dysfunction. I could give a training to the group of people. I could talk to the group of people in my church. I could approach any person, I had legitimate business with, like asking a clerk for help. But I couldn’t start a personal conversation with a stranger.

I knew that this weakness limited my social life. I decided to change. It took me several months to learn how to talk with strangers. In the process I learned some profound lessons.

Four life lessons I learned by talking to strangers

Lesson 1

I was literally paralyzed in the presence of attractive women. During the time of my overcoming shyness practice I noticed a lady who was travelling the same train; I saw her almost every morning. I figured out a few ways to start the conversation, but I never mustered the courage to do so. I perceived her not only as pretty, but also independent and assertive.

After a few months I discovered she worked in the same company. It created even more occasions for me to speak with her, but my shyness always prevailed. Every time I talked myself out of initiating the contact. Later on, the train’s timetable changed, my working schedule became a bit hectic and I didn’t see her for about a month.

One day I noticed that this gal was travelling in the same bus from work. We both had to walk the distance to a train station. I caught up with her and started conversation with the most lame line ever: “So, you work in the same company, don’t you?” We chatted the whole way to the train station about work, commute and the shoddy city’s district where the train station was localized. She was a perfectly normal woman, approachable and nice. For months all that hindered me from starting the conversations were my internal insecurities and the prejudices about her person.

Wow, attractive women are just as everybody else.

Finding 1: They are not who you think they are

Lesson 2

Most of my interactions with strangers took place in the trains. During another commute I asked the elderly lady next to me about the book she was reading. It was about families raising handicapped kids. I discovered that she is a social worker who takes care of such families. This was one of the deepest conversation I have ever had with a stranger. We talked about love, life, death, philosophy, struggles, honesty and God.

It was a profound experience that I will always cherish in my heart.

Finding 2: They have a deep internal life, just like you

Lesson 3

Coming back from work I noticed a girl who was reading one of my favourite books—Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. When we disembarked from the train I started the conversation with a simple: “Am I mistaken or you were you reading Ender’s Game?”

Did I mention I’m an avid reader? Well, that woman was a good match for me. I walked her for the next several hundred yards and then we stopped and talked about books for 10 minutes. We were chatting like we had known each other for years. We exchanged the titles of favourite books and names of authors. I felt like I had found a long lost friend of mine.

We had got to know each other just 20 minutes ago!

Finding 3: Anyone can be your soulmate

Lesson 4

My most profound encounter with a stranger was when I asked one lady what she was praying for. She sighed very heavily and admitted that she was praying for her grandsons. One was a cardiac patient and the other autistic. She told me also about their parents’ financial hardships. Their dad quit his career to take care of his sons full-time.

I was deeply moved by that story. I started to support them through a non-profit organization. They absolutely had no idea who was I and were puzzled by those unexpected donations. They remarked about them to the grandmother. She associated me with the city I lived in, but we had no contact with each other.

One day we met in a train when I was going back from work and she was returning from visiting her grandchildren. We chatted the whole journey. We discovered that we were both active in church communities. We exchanged phone numbers and kept in contact.

My friend was to become a consecrated widow and she invited me for the ceremony. There I met her daughter, son-in-law and grandsons for the first time. It was the very moving moment. Both her daughter and I shed some tears of gratitude and joy. We prayed for each other.

About a month ago doctors discovered  that my friend had metastasis. She had a pancreatic cancer seven years ago and she survived to the amazement of her doctors. They were sure this time it’s her end. I prayed for her with my church community. The next examination found no trace of metastasis.

Finding 4: The world is full of wonders and most of them have human form

Reaching out beats indifference

My interactions with strangers expanded my horizons. I experienced that each person is similar to me: an inaccessible and lone island from the outside, but internally thinking and feeling all the time. Those empirical encounters changed me. I no longer judge others looking for the signs of threat. I truly accepted that all people are my brothers and sisters.

Reaching out and interacting is better than indifference. Indifference is static. Contacts with others invigorates growth. I learned that each of us is the same, but unique. Each of us has tender feelings. Each of us is hungry for love and eager to share it.

All I needed was to reach out and ignite this spark of love between us. I encourage you to do the same.

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Acclaimed humour writer P G Wodehouse was known for his near-pathological fear of interaction with strangers. One day, as his wife was leaving to look for an apartment in New York, he called out to her: “Please find one on the ground floor!” “Why?” she asked. His reply: “I never know what to say to the lift boy.”

Everyone, including extroverts, suffer from social anxiety once in a while. Occasional self-consciousness has little, if any, effect on your life. But there are those for whom it is a bane. For such individuals, shyness is not situational but built into their very disposition. And it often costs them a lot in life—professionally and personally.

For instance, when it comes to academics, regardless of their aptitude and interest, shy men and women tend to choose subjects in accordance with their shy nature, carefully avoiding fields that need them to interact with too many people. Later, when they appear for job interviews, once again their shyness pushes them back as they find themselves less able to express themselves easily. As a result they do less well in job interviews and are promoted less often than their peers. Not only that, according to some social scientists, shy persons may actually decline a promotion, because the higher you go up the corporate ladder, the more people you will need to interact with. In business too, they lose out on sales and other business opportunities, again thanks to their reticence.

Shy individuals miss the boat in social settings too. Many can’t stand up for their rights and suffer silently. In a group, they are restrained in expressing their views and often forced to go with decisions they don’t agree with. On the personal front, they struggle with finding and making new friends and experience loneliness too. Their diffidence prevents them from letting down their guard and having fun. It is also difficult for them to express their feelings towards their loved ones, creating misunderstandings and heartbreaks. Some even lose out on potential marriage partners, all because they couldn’t muster up the courage to speak to them. In short, there are hundreds of other small and big ways in which shyness kills your joy and steals your potential for success, and shy people know them all too well.

In this issue, Michal Stawicki tells you how overcoming his shyness changed his life. He offers three easy steps that will make you more confident and socially comfortable. “Overcoming shyness doesn’t need polished first liners, wonderfully white teeth or a body language that emanates confidence. It takes minuscule habits practised every day with consistency,” he writes, while urging you to act on your hang-ups decisively.

If you suffer due to your shyness, take heart for in this issue you will discover that shedding it isn’t as ominous as it appears. All it requires on your part are three D’s—dedication, determination and discipline.

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Susie and Charlie have brains that are wired differently. The introvert prefers his internal theatre, and judicious doses of external stimulus, carefully chosen. Hence, he has fewer friends, prefers smaller crowds, and tends to gravitate to the periphery of a party.

The extrovert finds little stimulation internally, and craves much external variety and excitement. They are hence gregarious, prefer larger crowds, and tend to be in the centre of the action.

Both states are personal preferences, and have to do with levels of brain stimulation.

• The cortex of an introvert is naturally highly stimulated. So, excessive external stimulation may lead to overload.
• The extrovert, on the other hand, is naturally less cortically stimulated, and so seeks external stimulation to add to what is missing.

There is a certain balance in the behaviour and desires of both extroverts and introverts. They are both seeking the same thing—an acceptable, balanced level of cortical stimulation. Nothing is broken, nothing to fix. How Zen!

The problem comes when we judge a person’s preference to be ‘wrong’ or in need of fixing just because they act differently from us. That’s one of the reasons why people sometimes end up dating their opposites and end up clashing.

Charlie, the introvert, is sitting around one day, deeply immersed in a project. He has a thought, “Hmm. My friend Susie, the extrovert, says I spend too much time by myself, and there are moments when I wish I was more social.” If Charlie was wise, he’d find a therapist and have a look at how to open himself to more experiences. But Charlie isn’t wise. So, he calls up Susie and asks her out on a date. She agrees, because:

1. She thinks it might be good to slow down a bit, while…
2. She fixes Charlie.

The model both are using: something’s wrong with the other person and must be fixed. As a result, both will collide repeatedly, over their different preferences. Don’t get me wrong, Susie and Charlie can be friends. But it’s tricky. The only way it can work is if they monitor their cortical stimulation [which will be somewhere between not enough and overload] and find their own point of comfort. When the introvert is getting too much or the extrovert too little, it’s time to call it a night.

Introversion is misunderstood [except by other introverts]

• Introversion is often mistaken for shyness. But it’s not the same. Shyness is a label for the anxiety felt when thinking about interacting with others. Introverts are not anxious. They simply prefer their own company. Many introverts are excellent public speakers, and willingly engage with the public as teachers or artists. Give them something that interests them, and they’ll gladly explain it, elegantly.
• Introversion is not standoffishness. People who tend towards introversion are not bored with others, nor do they think they are ‘better’ than others. Biologically, the introvert’s cortex is easily stimulated. To avoid overload, introverts limit their connection to the external environment to remain in balance.
• Introverts are interested primarily in their inner experience. While many introverts choose the helping professions such as that of a counsellor, it’s not because they love listening to others go on and on. I’m rather high on the introversion scale. I tell my clients that I do what I do in order to learn about myself. I’m interested in what I’ll come up with in response to my client’s issues. Here’s the thing: the introvert is not reacting to a dread—introverts do not feel a sense of social discomfort. The introvert is acting according to personal [and cortical] preference.

Introversion is not a flaw [neither is extroversion]. It’s a preference. All you need to remember is that introverts are already well stimulated—so you relate the best with them by providing a minimum of drama. And the extrovert? They need more, more, more! Take ‘em dancing! When it comes to preferences, there’s no right, no wrong. Just different. And as the French say… vive la difference [long live the difference]

This was first published in the May 2012 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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