Shyness and the Internet: an informal study.

[badboy_fangirl]

Hey y'all. So after my big meltdown the other day about not making friends anymore, a lurker came out of the LJ woodwork to befriend me. We've been chatting a bit the last couple of days and she mentioned that she's shy and that's why it took her so long

Comments

[upupa_epops]

I'm hardly a lurker for you, but there's one thing I can contribute, because I DID lurk on you for over a year before officially meeting you. See, for me, language barrier was a HUGE thing. I didn't dare to interact with people until I felt secure about my English, and I know that many other ESL people feel/felt the same.

[badboy_fangirl]

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Because back then you weren't speaking English in your every day life? How long did it take you to feel proficient?

[upupa_epops]

I was reading/listening in English almost every day, but I didn't have a lot of opportunities to speak. I think it took me a few months to feel fully comfortable with how I speak/write in English. The catch is: I only could've started feeling confident AFTER I started interacting with you guys, so there was no easy way to do this.

[badboy_fangirl]

Right, you needed people to practice with! If it's any consolation, there have only been a handful of times that I could *hear* your accent in your typed words--and those times only endeared you me. It was never negative, at least on my side :D

[badboy_fangirl]

Oh, see, I'm such a yakker! My whole life I've gotten in trouble for talking TOO much. I was still getting sent out into the hall at school for being naughty all the way to 8th grade. LOL.

That's really interesting about feeling MORE comfortable in English. Maybe you were born in the wrong place ;-)

I remember that overwhelming feeling about fanfic....it still happens to me once in a while, but not like it did when I first got on LJ. The good ol' days!

[upupa_epops]

That's really interesting about feeling MORE comfortable in English.

This makes sense though. Once I got over freaking out that my English isn't good enough, I also started feeling more comfortable with English. I talked about this with other ESL people, and we decided that we have a lower embarrassment threshold in English. Our social interactions in English are by necessity limited, and also our experience of learning what's good and what's bad taste in English is less personal. In simpler terms: I learned which words/expressions are bad/cliche in Polish, because I remember them being mocked when I was a kid. I learned which words/expressions are bad/cliche in English, because I wrote it down in a notebook.

[badboy_fangirl]

LOL, I just had a mental image of you checking your notebook for the appropriate meaning on certain phrases.

[fairwinds09]

As the aforementioned lurker, I think I just realized something kind of strange--I posted on fanfiction.net for years (still do), but it took me forever to talk to anyone on LJ. For me, at least, this kind of thing is much more personal--people may not know each other's real names, but they post about their lives, their fandom obsessions, their opinions on last week's episodes, and these informal but tight-knit communities begin to coalesce out of the howling wilderness that is the internet. ff.net is nowhere NEAR that communally-oriented. You post a story, you get comments, the end. And so I felt a lot more comfortable in that kind of detached interaction and was therefore too scared to dip my toe in the waters of LJ for quite a long time.

Apparently this means I have DEGREES of internet shyness. I didn't even know that was a thing. Lo and behold.

[badboy_fangirl]

Oh, what an interesting conclusion! I have never posted on ff.net, although in my early days of fanfic posting, the boards I posted on were very interactive, so that conditioned me to the process. In fact, if I don't get to be interactive about my fic, it makes me terribly sad! Not just the feedback in general, but the discussion that can often ensue from thoughts people share. I live for that stuff!

That just makes me even more glad that I never posted over there!

[fairwinds09]

Yeah, it's a really strange difference. I will fully and freely admit that sometimes when I'm lurking on someone's journal I will read through the comments section on a particular fic just to see the strand of thought that developed as people read and gave feedback. It can foster these really amazing discussions, and I wanted that on ff.net but couldn't figure out a way to get it. And now I fear that I am too far behind the times on LJ to have that experience. :(

Ah well. C'est la vie.

[badboy_fangirl]

I've had some interactions like that on AO3. Do you post over there? I hear that VM fic in particular is popular over there.

[distant_lines]

I definitely feel more comfortable on the internet than in person. I have some social anxiety and feel very self-conscious when around new people. I tend to be quiet and guarded until I know someone. However, because of that, it can make it hard for me to make new friends. Pretty much all of my friends said they thought I was a bitch before they got to know me more. On the internet, I feel more comfortable opening up about things, cause if I get judged, it doesn't feel quite so personal. Also, sometimes I share more things on my journal than I would elsewhere because not many people are on my journal. I don't say things to necessarily get responses or for people to read things. I say them to be able to say them, cause it's cathartic for me. I don't know if that makes sense. lol

[badboy_fangirl]

Oh, totally, I get it. I'm very communicative (a condition I blame on my non-communicative parents, I've been over-compensating for them my whole life!), and often writing out my feelings helps me sort them better, too. So I totally understand.

I think because of social anxiety, especially as it wasn't discussed much until recently, the Internet has allowed a lot of people to have some social interaction they didn't used to have. It's also reconfigured the way people interact at all. Sometimes I talk to people on the phone and they have no phone skills, and I finally realized it's because they've only ever IMed, or texted people. They actually don't know how to converse, traditionally! It's a double-edged sword!

[distant_lines]

I think the internet is definitely a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's helped people with social anxiety, but I think it's also given people social anxiety that might not have had it without the internet. I love that it allows someone like me, an introvert with social anxiety, a chance to feel like I'm getting a shred of human interaction without totally draining me.

Oh, do you ever have the problems where you go to dinner with someone and they check their phone constantly? I feel like the internet and technology has seriously ruined some people's manners. In my family, it gets pointed out if the phone is even on the table, so there's no way any of us check our phones. It drives me up the wall when I'm out and people check their phones. If you want to hang out with your technology, that's fine by me, but don't go somewhere with me.

[badboy_fangirl]

It doesn't bother me if people check their phone--since I took this new job I find that for work I need to check my phone a lot, but I never leave it on so I have to look at it since I don't hear it. It does bother me if someone takes an unimportant call, though. I've had that happen lots of times, I'm somewhere with someone and they answer some dumb shoot-the-breeze call, and I'm like WTF are we even doing here if you want to talk to SOMEONE ELSE? So, I have levels, I guess, ha. And I never even had a cell phone until about two years ago. It's funny how quickly it can change when you actually need it for something!

Re: hii

[badboy_fangirl]

Oh, what a pretty icon. Best first kiss EVAH. <3 <3 <3

Thanks for responding. I think because I started on LJ, it makes me biased and I hate other sites, like tumblr, because I like the interface here quite a lot. But I get it, if you start elsewhere, that's what you grow used to, and it becomes your preference.

I'm happy to know some of my stories brought you joy! Thanks for sharing!