My entire life I have been shy. I have always envied the people who could talk to others like it was nothing. I guess I've always just lacked the communication skills that most others have. There's just something about new people that makes me nervous, and I don't know why. Out of all this though, I think the worst part of being shy is when people take offense to it.

I am not being rude. It's not that I don't like you. I'm not antisocial. It's just the straight fact that I am not very good with people. It's not just with strangers either. Even around people I have known my entire life, I still get shy. Talking is just something I don't enjoy doing. I prefer to keep to myself most of the time. I'm not always like this. One day I might be a social butterfly, however there are still days when I don't know what to say. Please don't take it personally.

I'm tired of people thinking I don't like them. Unless you give me a reason not to, I like you. I know it's awkward when we're having a conversation and I'm not giving much input, but it's not my fault. It's not my fault I think something through a million times before I say it, it's not my fault I have trouble making eye contact, it's simply just not my fault. It's no one's fault. No one made me like this, I didn't choose to be like this, it's just something I deal with. The worst possible thing you can say to a shy person is to get over it. We can't. Of course we wish we could get over all of our fears of talking to people, but we can't. It's just not that simple.

I have my people I am not shy around; however, it took a long time for me to get comfortable around them. Shy people have trouble trusting, because of the fact we are afraid of what people may think of us. I didn't just automatically start talking to my best friends or my boyfriend. It took months and sometimes years. I may talk my friend's ear off but as soon as someone I'm not comfortable around walks in, I don't say a word. You would be surprised at how long we can go without saying a word. We kill it when it comes to the quiet game.

Now that you understand a little bit of what shy people go through, maybe you can understand why we may seem like we are being rude at times. I understand the silence, lack of eye contact and dirty looks can seem hateful, but its not that at all. I can promise you though, we want to talk to you. It's just hard. Start up a conversation with us. Once we feel like people want to hear what we have to say, we could go on for hours. We're nice people, I promise.