[nilkn]

This happens to me as well. I sometimes avoid speaking in meetings because the act of drawing the attention of the whole room on me tends to compromise my ability to think and speak clearly. So I can start with a completely coherent set of points I want to make, but when I start actually talking I can no longer “remember” them, which in the worst case could make me seem incompetent. I use quotes because I don’t believe it’s a legitimate lapse of memory so much as it is a sort of social overload that shuts part of me down.

This doesn’t always happen and I’ve found the exact conditions that trigger it to be complex. A huge factor is definitely whether I know everyone in the meeting in advance and feel comfortable with them. This is partly why I choose to stay at a job for years instead of job hopping — once I feel comfortable and stable with coworkers, suddenly I’m not only able to speak coherently in meetings but in fact I can even enjoy running large meetings with no issues.

[retsibsi]

I have a similar experience -- I was going to say that my intelligence seems to vary inversely with my level of social anxiety, but I don't think it's quite that consistent. Sometimes my intellect really seems to shut down for no particularly good reason. If I may lapse into bullshit evo-psych for a moment: I guess my brain sometimes decides that I'm in a social emergency (perhaps if I say one more embarrassing thing I'll be ostracised from the tribe and left for dead!) and it needs to devote 90% of its cognitive resources to that problem.

[bitcoinmoney]

I have similar experience? Am I autistic?

[retsibsi]

> Am I autistic?

I wouldn't assume so, unless you have other reasons to think so. I'm not diagnosed autistic, and I wouldn't self-diagnose either, though I do think I'm on the autistic side of 'normal' for some traits.

[hnick]

Seconding that. It sometimes happens to me even in one on one situations, I find eye contact extremely distracting and over-stimulating and I often have to look away to focus on what someone is saying or I get lost. Apparently this is weird.