Being shy might work more smoothly for a cute, little woman, but for a guy in particular it is a severe hindrance. Any kind of lack of confidence is not a good thing at all. That’s not to say the other extreme, overconfidence, isn’t bad either.

I completely disagree with this article. It’s patronizing. Okay, so it’s trying to see the lighter side of the issue, but it’s not realistic. If you would rather side with Denial over Realism, believe this nonsense.

Extroverts are always on output mode, they are engaged with the outer world and that’s how they experience their reality. It’s inconceivable to them that not everyone operates this way. This attitude that quiet individuals think they are better than everyone else because they choose not to engage with every human being that crosses their path is relfective of the attitude that quiet is strange.

Lastly, I just want to say that on the dark side of extroversion collecting acquaintances can have little to do with liking people for who they are and everything to do with using them for what they can offer whether that’s simply social stimulation or something more tangible. I learned this lesson in junior high school when a girl hung around me simply to get close to my popular best friend.

That being said, they still show true intimacy possibly faster than a shy person would. Being shy one is often slow to warm up to others. I know that’s true of me. But I wouldn’t say my extro significant other does not show he is closely to some people than others or that he is incapable of deep meaningful intimacy.

Even extroverts don’t tell everything about themselves and hold back some for those who are special to them. You may know a lot about them as an acquaintance, but you’re seeing a persona. A public face. Hope this post made sense!

But you know some of us are so shy that we can’t have a relationship in the first place!

I had to go to Social Anxiety Anonymous support groups to get to where I could start dating.

Constant, how do you explain widespread homosexuality?

However, lesser freedom of choice can sometimes be a good thing. Being naturally shy may be an advantage in that it tends to prevent you from “wasting your time in clubs” and such. Shyness can thus make you “do the right thing for the wrong reason” (which is said to be the highest form of treason).

Those out-going persons, who have never experienced as deep a bonding with another person as most naturally shy persons have at least once experienced (I’m sure at least some such out-going persons exist), miss out on something, but since they don’t think they do, they’ll go on being only out-going and never try out the behavior of acting shy. This is the most clear way in which I can see “inevitable” shyness being an advantage to “inevitably shy” people (given that some naturally shy people are indeed inevitably shy). Yet, it seems to me the “inevitability” of these people’s shyness is, by itself, not only an illusion, but also mainly a bad thing. A naturally out-going person can be out-going when his wife or girlfriend isn’t around, and act shy in her presence, and thereby “reap maximum benefits” from both behaviors. It seems the ideal is to have the knowledge and ability to display shyness whenever this is more advantageous and be out-going whenever this is more advantageous. Perhaps in some areas of life, maximum freedom of choice is worse than lesser ditto, but is this really one of those areas? I would suggest not.