Training | 2009.07.13
Shyness is golden | Jon Blyth
Who best deserves our hatred: a brash, delusional extrovert or a measured introvert?
I\'ve always been brought up to believe that shy people are treasure chests. Precious puzzle boxes that will respond to prodding, cajoling and relentless makeover shows by becoming – reluctantly, at first – the no-nonsense, straight-talking chief executive of their own bustling fashion label.
There isn\'t a shy character in any children\'s book that doesn\'t pull themselves together and become a key player at a crucial point in the plot. Meanwhile, in the Police Academy films, the barely audible Hooks always managed to scream "Freeze, dirtbag!" at the perfect dramatic moment, helping define those movies as poignant examples of personal human triumph.
Of course, these expectations probably don\'t help real shy people, who don\'t like taking part in thrilling conclusions. They just want to live, quietly and fuss-free, and not have to deal with my offers of a confidence-boosting haircut. It doesn\'t help, either, that their ambassadors are, as ambassadors tend to be, confident and eloquent. Take 1980s Morrissey – hobbled by a hot-faced inability to communicate his emotions, if you were to believe his lyrics. But it never got so bad for him that he couldn\'t get on a stage and expertly communicate his emotions. All the fans could do to express themselves was to sing along as loudly as we – sorry, they – could, without opening their mouths.
I\'m instinctively well-disposed to life\'s more timid folk, so I was surprised when a friend came out with this quite open, unembarrassed statement: "I hate shy people."
Hate? Really? I\'m not someone who thinks hatred is a finite resource, or a word that needs to be kept in reserve for Hitler and exes. But shy people? Hate? I was even more appalled when people agreed. "There\'s no excuse for it, as an adult," was a phrase that made it from the brain of another friend to his mouth, without any of the usual humane filters seeing fit to halt his breath. Oh, adulthood cures everything: insecurity, self-doubt, crippling modesty and sheer, ineloquent social terror should be washed clean away with a flood of sex hormones. Coupled with the carousel of social failure that shyness brings, you\'ll be right in no time. Buck up!
I can almost understand it: it\'s frustrating to deal with people who don\'t laugh loudly enough at your jokes to make you feel funny. People who don\'t have the flirting skills to make you feel attractive and alive, and who don\'t have the effortless social grace to make you feel comfortable in their presence. But to translate their awkwardness into anger, just because it makes you feel slightly more insecure, unappealing, and basically like them, isn\'t that just weird? You\'re the confident one, remember?
I found the same sentiment, coming from a slightly different place in an online forum. "I hate it when people can\'t talk about themselves, then again I hate shy people," said one gentleman, before continuing apace. "There\'s no excuse for being so shy you can\'t at least say what you\'re good at." Drawing together the elements of his argument, he concluded: "Then again I am very self-assured. I think it may border on delusional, but I don\'t mind."
Who would you rather spend a fraction of a second with? Interacting with one of those angry, loner, shy people, who are only quiet because everything they want to say is an unacceptable, violent fantasy, would be better than a moment dealing with that kind of demented ego.
I could set up and knock down straw men all day, but it\'s astounded me that shyness could be an acceptable, worthwhile, or tolerated target for hatred. And it upset me slightly more, when I began to question my own motives, only to realise that my own attraction to shy people is based on the idea that they might secretly be wizards.
There are too many kinds and degrees of shyness to have a single point. I suppose I just want to let the amorphous mass of shy people know that behind the loud-mouthed dummies who write you off as losers, there\'s a bunch of patronising idiots like me who want to adopt you and introduce you as their shy friend. "He\'s beautiful on the inside, such a poetic soul," I\'ll say. And if that\'s not a powerful incentive to snap out of it and start talking in meetings, you\'re probably beyond help.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]t-shyness-extroverts-jon-blyth
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