I’m A Shy Introvert… How Do I Get Other People To Make The First Move?
Cathy: One gentleman wrote and said how can shy introverts like myself encourage women to lead interactions. I think this is true for whatever gender you might be. It’s really nice to know how you can encourage other people to approach you if you’re shy introvert.
Reid: This is Cathy Vartuli from https://TheIntimacyDojo.com/.
Cathy: And Reid Mihalko from https://ReidAboutSex.com/.
Reid: I’m geeky about this kind of content. I’m an extrovert but I’m also very awkward and I have a lot of insecurities so I think in some ways though the things that stop me from speaking up are very similar. I think for a lot of human beings, fear and shame and embarrassment or saying wrong thing, those are human fears. The idea of figuring out ways when you’re shy, out let you speak as-
Cathy: I’m a shy person. Introvert.
Reid: A card-carrying introvert but for me like the tricks always like how can you make things playful and fun and get the message out there so whether it’s a post-it note with the thing you need to say I mean it can be very fourth grade like, here’s the note and then you run away.
Cathy: We had someone do that in camp. They actually had someone else pass it for them.
Reid: There’s lots of ways that you can overcome the shyness but what would your opinion or experiences?
Cathy: So one thing I’ve done is I announce that I’m socially shy like whenever I’m like an important conversation, I mention it and I lost so much shit from stage and then I like to be approached.
Reid: Or on the internet.
Cathy: Or in the internet. And then I like to be approached because I tend to be really shy that works pretty well but one time I was hanging out with this delightful human being and I told the story about how I once went out on a date, I didn’t realized it was a date until a couple years later because I was so shy and I didn’t realized that person like me. I was kind of telling the story hoping they would get that I was really shy. Well, this person was also very shy and told me that they had a similar experience. We spent the whole evening sort of pseudo-flirting with each other neither of us made a move. It was couple days later, I was like were you flirting with me and she was like yes. I was like Oh dammit.
Reid: Here’s the thing. Having done similar things when you both identified because this was not years later that you were both flirting, what happened then?
Cathy: Unfortunately that point we’re on the way out so there wasn’t really a room for us but we have connected after that.
Reid: She said with a smile and twinkling in her eyes.
Cathy: I do think that sometimes when you’re shy or introvert, I don’t expect things to move as fast as if I was extrovert like I don’t connect really fast with people like that.
Reid: I think the extrovert things just means we fail faster. It’s not like just because you’re extroverted while you could think of like I’m making more attempts so I must have greater success meaning there’s more attempts so there must be more successes. The impact of having it not go well still stings for me as someone who’s insecure and awkward. I just think what we think everybody else is going more confident than us and when you can have conversations, I don’t know how this impacts for shy introverts but when you can start the conversation about the meta-thing like hey you know I was on this date and I didn’t know it was a date, I think that’s like a side door into talking about the elephant in the room without having to talk to the person directly but because you both now talking about the elephant, it’s like you’re both now you can talk to each other. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Cathy: It does. I think that for the person who wrote in the question, one realize that there’s a lot of other introverts, you may be assuming everybody else like Reid said everybody has it together and they’re really confident, most people look that way on the outside but inside they’re just as messy as anybody else. Taking the first step yourself sometimes, I do push myself to try that like if I’m interested in someone. I’ll say I’m really awkward and shy about flirting but you’re really fun and would you like to practice.
Reid: How do you get to that point? Because that’s where I think people don’t know how to even get the ball rolling like that momentum to get over the hump and actually open your mouth and say something. How do you do that?
Cathy: I’m really lucky because I hang out with a lot of sex geeks and relationship geeks so people are like Oh you want to practice? Cool. Let’s practice flirting and see where it goes. In the regular world, it’s harder. I found that practice helps like with anything. If you don’t practice it, it’s not going to be easier. It’s scary to reach out and say hey I kind of would like to see if there’s anything between us especially if you had a lot of rejection on the past, you’re very shy like it was very hard so practicing is safe for people taking baby steps first. But also telling people, tell your best buddy you know how shy I am, I like that girl over there. Would you encourage me?
Reid: Would you pass this note?
Cathy: Yes. I think that when people are trying to pretend they’re not shy or they’re not introverted that comes across kind of creepy because whenever we try to lie or pretend, there’s something off about our energy and people be like what’s going on? But if we just say hey you know I’m super awkward with this and you seem like someone I’d like to know better, are you interested in chatting for a few minutes. You know just that vulnerability, the honesty is very attractive to a lot of people. You probably want to hang out with the kind of people that are going to need to involve even if they’re like hey I’m meeting someone but thanks anyway.
Reid: If you’re honest and vulnerable and they are mean to you that’s how you know not to flirt with them.
Cathy: Yeah. We don’t want to spend time with anyway.
Reid: yeah, meanies. Haters gonna hate. Leave them alone.
Cathy: But if you can.. but practicing invite, asking a good friend you can practice the words, they come out a little better. Make it just a little bit easier to go ahead and you can just invite people and say hey I’m bad at approaching people if you’re interested would you come and invite me to stuff and..
Reid: When in doubt while appropriate, walk up to people and gently go tag you’re it and run. What do you think? Leave some comments.
Cathy: We would love to know what you think.