firecat

hey--i don't remember my 29th birthday either! do you suppose it's some sort of plot and aliens come down and steal people's memories of their 29th birthdays and sell them on the alien black market?

silliness aside, you said: I guess a lot of the people at the meeting were unhappy with a dearth of romance in their lives and thought their shyness was partly to blame for that, so wanted to change the shyness.

i've been able to change the way that i behave without ever succeeding in changing my shyness. i was telling serenejournal that when i went to the gathering of chicago 'bat's labor day weekend, the fact that i had bought a bunch of beer for the gathering was part of what got me out the door and driving. but i know that about myself--i know that i have a tendency to talk myself out of meeting groups of strangers because it makes me feel so shy--so i invest something--buying a 12-pack of beer of a brand that ayana doesn't drink (and i don't either since i don't drink beer) to induce me to go when i don't feel very confident about going.

and when i got there, the first person i talked a lot to was one of the husbands--safer person because i won't run into him online--i know that it is easier for me to talk to strangers that i need not feel that i will ever encounter again than people who i am meeting for the first time but may "see" (in quotes because the encounter may be online) again and again.

in terms of not approaching people quickly when it comes to romance--i think that is a separate behaviour from the shyness for me--shyness is an element, but even after i get over feeling shy around them, i don't exactly ramp up quickly--i think what you said in an entry i can't see from this screen about wanting to get to know someone really well is far more of the reason than shyness. for me, it's much easier to get into something than out of it most of the time--so better to be cautious getting in.