[RAdrien]

I was extremely shy and awkward when I was young. I even bought a cognitive therapy book called Overcoming Social Anxiety in my early 20’s. As you get older, a few things happen: - Your social confidence grows. You focus on just being polite and respectful, which are easier rules of behavior to follow, rather than saying or doing the “right thing” to be socially graceful, fluid, and open - You recognize that you have no obligation to be anyone’s entertainment and that you don’t have to try to be interesting or entertaining to others - You develop your repertory of filler words and questions to avoid the so-called awkward silence. You get better at small, filler talk in general, and no longer dismiss it as fake or unnecessary but merely as a functional means to grease our interactions - You focus less on social interaction as the measure of life and focus more on objective accomplishment - You have more power to avoid unwanted social interaction - Your “fight or flight” response tends to calm down when you are speaking to others - You gain confidence once you begin to recognize how tremendously insecure other people are, when you used to assume you were the insecure one, because they seemed so socially comfortable and graceful compared to you. - You realize that much social interaction is status-seeking over status metrics that perhaps you don’t even care about.