Or Is It Freedom

Sometimes this deadly shyness hits me like a bomb. I know a fair amount of people now, but few of them well, and if it weren’t for the random associations of the workplace and of my kids’ rapidly disappearing family-related activities, I have the strong potential to know no one at all. I hate the shyness. I despise it. It is part of a broader sort of brokenness that stands between me and the rest of humanity, an Olduvai Gorge that has me more often than not watching the floor as I walk, watching potential acquaintances remain strangers, watching potential friends remain acquaintances, and watching friends evolve back into being strangers.

I fake it pretty well, though the fake-out is not sustainable. My 50th birthday party was a success, and certainly everyone got the impression I had a lot of friends. It was no doubt a surprise to all of them. I know it was to me. But I gather most folks have an instinct to remain in touch somehow, to manage all those relationships such that they remain alive and breathing, and it is that sort of social management that entirely escapes me. Not the mechanics of it – it’s child’s play to write down a list of things one should do. It’s the instinct that is missing, or that is too weak to overcome the fear.

What the fear is of, I can’t say, but if you are a shy person, you already know as well as me.

So anyway, the bomb hits when I realize that my instincts to focus on my own work and not make continual little investments in human relationships not only augurs a life that will never be a less lonely one, but is the number one reason why my career has never really taken off. Yes, I’ve raised a family, have a good house, got to travel the world a little on the company dollar, might even be able to put the boys through college. All of that is good stuff for which I am thankful. But that’s about the limit of it. In this competitive industry, staying on track and going fast enough to avoid being run over by the train still isn’t enough. Taking the long view, if further contractions and other workplace turmoil costs me my position, the ultimate cause clearly will not be from being less valuable through misbehavior, insufficient smarts, or lack of productivity. It’s a given that one should get mustered out for any of those. If I am vulnerable it is because, just as in the social context, I am not plugged in to the crowd. I don’t swim with the school. When in amongst the herd I either edge to the outskirts or keep my head down in the grasses. People don't always know what I really do, therefore, and that alone is recognized as a weakness. This lack of managing impressions allows for poor impressions where a whole lot of solid and valuable work may not be so visible.

The above is the sort of thing I write and then delete because it looks like a bunch of whining. This time I’ll post it instead because I’m brave like that, brave being another word for nothing left to lose.