What It's Like To Be Shy

At the coffee shop:

I dress anonymously. I avoid color and fashion. Blue jeans and a dark (but not too dark) shirt.

I sit in the corner and face the window. I used to face the wall but one of my friends (all three and a half of them) told me it makes me look a bit crazy and kept me from blending in.

I scan the crowd but avoid eye contact. In front, I like to find a woman whose hair style attracts me (again, from the back) and imagine that on the dark side of the moon, she has a face with a beauty unique to my quirky aesthetic sense. Sometimes she turns and shatters the illusion, but more often than not, all I ever get is her ear lobe and the curve of her chin.

At the bookstore:

I head first for the magazine rack, but my time here is short, catching up on the latest computer news and reviews. Most of my time is spent among the Literature shelves, particularly the New Fiction section.

Some recommend meeting women in the grocery store but that seems wrong to me. How much can you learn about a person based on vegetables, meats, and starches? I find the bookstore much more telling. I mean if I see a woman smelling the rind of a cantaloupe, what does that tell me, that she likes fresh fruit? But if I see a woman flipping through Sylvia Plath, I know she's hurting something bad. If she's reading Jane Austin, I'm thinking she's probably got impossibly high standards. Jack Kerouac tells me she's probably too bohemian for me and Toni Morrison that she's too smart for me. And on and on. Much more informative.

Of course, being as shy as I am, all I ever do is watch. . .or what's the more modern word for it? I lurk, and if I see a woman reading Douglas Coupland or Michael Chabon I'll just dream about what might be if I had the bravado and the lines and the looks.

In my dreams:

I'm taller and better looking. I dress better because I know how to dress better. I'm smooth and suave. I have women at hello.

I had a phase where I dated casually and widely. I unintentionally stole a couple girlfriends from their boyfriends though I didn't know it at the time. However, I am now past all that exploration because I have found the love of my life. Warm, witty, sharp, and in possession of natural, effortless beauty.

We work at our relationship. We do our best to fight fair. We agree to never hold grudges and we do our best not to.

I enjoy spoiling my love with style and surprise. I send her random, gooey text messages while she is at work, things like, "all you ever have to be is you and I'll fall in love over and over again." I imagine her reading those messages in the middle of a meeting. I imagine her hiding her smile behind her hand, pretending to cough. After the meeting is over she shows the message to her girlfriends and they laugh while wondering why their boyfriends aren't as wildly romantic.

She finds surprising ways to return my favors. She sneaks a secret cup of pudding into my lunch bag. She draws a heart on the back side of my spoon so I don't notice it until one of my coworkers points it out. He laughs at me just as her coworkers laughed at her but he laughs for a different reason, though deep down inside where he'll never admit it, he laughs for the same reason.

In a group (say at a staff meeting):

People are often surprised at my insight and willingness to speak up. They think that because I am soft-spoken and reserved one on one that I would be more so in a formal group setting.

What they don't understand is that it's the personal part of personal interaction that I find acutely uncomfortable. Speaking in front of a crowd is easy because in a group, people become anonymous, impersonal, other. And when someone from the group responds to what I say, they are responding to the idea presented not to me, and that makes me feel safe.

I sometimes confuse people who, after a meeting where I may have been especially vocal, come up to me, ask me if I would be interested in discussing my ideas further with them, perhaps over lunch, and I decline because that's just too much.

Perhaps I miss out on promotions this way, and I'll admit that it's frustrating to watch people with an abundance of social skills but a dearth of intelligence work their way up the pay scale, finally settling in a position where their ignorance can flourish.

At the salon:

Please, please, just cut my hair. Don't ask me how my day has been. Don't ask me what I do for work or for fun. Don't ask me if I've seen any good movies. Don't ask me about the latest reality show.

Just ask me how I want my hair done (short and thinned out), ask about my sideburns if you must (just even them out), but overall, just let your scissors do the talking and I promise tip in return.