Even if you have been shy for 50 years, you can still learn a lot from ‘productive loitering’. Social gatherings are the ideal venue for this activity, and if your shyness precludes you from participating, the next best thing to do is to watch carefully how other men do it.
Instead of standing there feeling awkward and full of self-doubt, take the opportunity to do some ‘visual eavesdropping’. As you study others, you will notice that socially successful men employ numerous techniques to lubricate social intercourse. It’s in their body language, their small talk and their apparent self-confidence.
Shyness can isolate you. It can trap you into a solitary existence. If you consider that relationships are the basis of life, being cut off in this way is serious and lonely. The problem is that the more you fear and focus on your predicament, the worse you will become. The secret is to get out and have a go – but with appropriate support.
Being bright and at the top of your profession is no protection against shyness. Many men who are powerful and competent in the work sphere become wooden and incapable of conversation the minute they find themselves in a social setting. The best they can do is fight the temptation to run away. Such men are held hack by an inability to act spontaneously. They feel they have to live up to a certain standard and as a result become so concerned about the outcome of the social interaction that they lose track of the process. Control is a major issue. If they felt in control, their confidence would grow and they would manage the situation.
One technique for overcoming shyness is for men to learn to allay anxiety associated with social interaction and develop skills to cope with these interactions. Through this they will gradually build self-confidence in social settings.
Allaying anxiety is the easiest step. In an anxiety attack the heart thumps, breathing is shallow, the forehead is damp and the limbs shake. As individual symptoms, each one is fairly innocuous, but when experienced all together they can be extremely uncomfortable.
A systematic desensitisation procedure that involves learning to control the body and calm the mind can reduce almost any social anxiety. This is followed by visualisation exercises in which real-life social situations are imagined and followed through. Developing social skills is more challenging. To do this, shy men need to learn about body language. They need to observe how others communicate nonverbally using posture, facial expression, gesture, touch and eye contact and then practise these using video cameras and mirrors.
This done, they should learn the value of small talk by listening to the conversations around them. This will teach them how to generate small talk, which they can then learn to extend with devices such as personal anecdotes and open-ended questions.
Becoming socially confident and learning to deal themselves into a social interaction can take months. As meeting others is usually the ultimate goal for shy men, it is worth knowing about the ‘Fifi effect’, which draws its name from a dog that was originally used in a student’s experiment. The experiment was designed to test the thesis that while people on their own in public places are not likely to be approached by strangers and engaged in conversation, the presence of an attractive dog (or baby) increases the likelihood of such an interaction.
Rather than suggesting that every shy man rush out and buy a dog, the Fifi effect demonstrates that with the correct approach it is possible to make conversation with total strangers.
As men begin to emerge from shyness, some therapists send them on a mission of serious flirting. Flirting goes on in almost every place where people assemble. If they don’t know what to do, there are plenty of professionals for them to watch.
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