Don’t Be Shy
by Estim20, HSM guest contributor
“Scientists have found the gene for shyness. They would have found it years ago, but it was hiding behind a couple of other genes.” – Jonathan Katz
Imagine for a brief moment being a shy individual in real life. You are the wallflower of the physical world, content on remaining inconspicuous, blending into the wallpaper like a penguin in a tuxedo parade. You may speak but to only a handful of people, if that. You don’t know many people in real life, thanks to mitigating circumstances, and restrict your socializing exclusively to them. You find it enough of a struggle maintaining a relationship with them, let alone any work relationships you may possess while everyone else around you seems to just glow with motivation and sheer chemistry. You can’t seem to win.
Now imagine transferring yourself to Home. Did your heart skip a beat?
If not, let me explain why I prefaced this article with a mental picture of shyness. Part of the reasoning is I’m shy.
Hey, stop laughing – I’m serious! In real life I don’t have a gaggle of friends at my beck and call – partially because I hate to think anyone could be in control of other human being, but also because life’s life. Not everyone is comfortable with large groups; if they even see themselves as skillful in being in groups.
This provides a unique foundation for Home. This, of course, is stated with the implied caveat that real life and digital life don’t correlate perfectly. Any online community that stresses communication and the power of friendship – even as the corporation who owns the software reminds us there are purchasing options for entertainment – is bound to develop a few unique idiosyncrasies before it reaches its one-year anniversary.
As such, here is my perspective on the whole issue, as someone who is more circumspect in real life, and my recommendations to anyone in overcoming their diminished social capacity.
Of course there will be outliers but rarely is data all-inclusive.
First, do remind yourself with great anonymity comes great temptation to screw the proverbial pooch and act like Rath Starblade’s fouler personality archetypes. This is as much a warning for you as it is one for those around you; you don’t have the safety net of face-to-face cultural expectations to save you from inanity and insanity (though even in real life, that isn’t fool-proof – pun intended). Follow that list to heart and expect to find everyone on that list at least once. It really is a fantastic read and should be the personality chart; if only we had hard data on the percentages on each personality.
Either case, so you will meet anyone from the Don Wannabe who finds it appropriate to misspell standard pick-up lines, to the Home Snob who won’t even look down his recently procured nose to condescend the rest of us.
I’ll admit at this point that I have some experience dealing with the fashionably foolish element online; not enough to catch every instance but what can you do? No one’s perfect, right?
It perfectly illustrates the initial challenge a socially awkward individual must face when entering any new interaction, whether online or off. You will be a fish out of water for a brief period of time; rarely do exceptions exist in this. Even the most charming, socially effectual human being will spend his first moments adjusting to the new environment.
However, some people are able to pull up their bootstraps and meander through the pixel-laden masses and instantly start a conversation. They are the eloquent speakers – or typists if only keyboards are available – with such an amiable personality that it seems someone could lead the audience in an impromptu show tune by this breathing the right way.
Or at least three other guys with discouragingly matching outfits.
Home also presents another challenge, in the form of encouraging magpie behavior. By this, I mean jumping from one instance to the next, looking for a method to cure boredom, occasionally at any cost. Why develop a relationship with someone – even on a friendship level – when there’s so much shiny goodness to consume? Home updates every Thursday, prompting some people to think it’s all about what you wear, not who you are.
It thus mirrors a concern in real life: how you present yourself. Default and free clothes developed a stigma wherein if you’re caught wearing them, especially while spouting L1 commands, you’ll be castigated with the perennial term, ‘noob,’ as Rath Starblade mentioned.
For a shy individual, especially with intense social anxiety disorders, this is rife with anxiety material. Do I look okay? What clothes are new? Where do I start?
The personality archetypes mentioned earlier don’t help either; how can you tell initially who these people are?
Some of them, of course, are fairly easy to spot – they drop their intentions out in the open so quickly you sometimes don’t have time to react. Still, for a relatively new person who may want to get to know another human being as a friend, what warning signs should they know about? Some indicators are so subtle that you need the experience to cut the wheat from the chaff.
There are plenty of other issues, but they raise the same concern; is there a secret to the madness? How can one individual tame the darkness?
If these questions never crossed your mind, consider yourself lucky. Trust me when I say it’s hard to convince someone with crippling social anxiety that it isn’t that hard to strike a conversation. To them, it’s a mystical art controlled by the gods themselves; they desire a Prometheus to cast down this secret and let them live a little. To a shy person, seeing people converse with relative ease is equivalent to watching a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat or Superman punch a building so hard it feels it in its infrastructure, with real, actual pain.
"Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength."
I never had it that tough before – and I have significant enough depression that my motivation takes one for the team most of the time. It is, however, disheartening to watch someone struggle with this task when you know they are full of great skill and potential. Home becomes an escape from the real world as a result, a chance to socialize like they never could. Real life opportunities may thus disappear into the background while a terminally shy individual finds Home a respite from the pain.
If it were simply a matter of not knowing what to ask, the matter would be resolved with training. The problem is even that option is hampered by the underlying problem: they have to chat with someone – and that drives them insane. This is thus the complete opposite problem from pervs and Home Snobs: those two groups just won’t shut up. Getting the shyest person in the room to talk is just as problematic, if not worse.
Social anxiety, of course, presents a huge array of experiences; not everyone feels it as strongly as everyone else, which impacts how well they can cope. There are also numerous reasons it exists in the first place. There is a moderate probability of inheritance and some medication may affect the brain’s chemistry in such as a way as to bestow anxiety. Bullying is another possible source, of course; enough negative reinforcement and a child may take it to heart. They thus may expect everything to result in a negative outcome and rather avoid it whenever possible, rather than develop a long-term solution.
Is there a magic treatment to end all social suffering? I wish it existed as much as anyone else would. Home isn’t going to be that treatment, but it may offer some assistance, so long as we know where to start. As such, here are a few suggestions to anyone who wants to start the process:
- Most people that fit Starblade’s list aren’t going to care much about social anxiety, if they understand it at all (spoiler: they don’t). Read his list and know it by heart so that you may avoid them.
- If you know a friend who uses Home, network. That’s the majesty of Home, condensed into its purest essence (or nearly so condensed): you know someone already. Don’t be afraid to use this circumstance to your advantage. They are your friend for a reason; they like you and they’re more than likely willing to help you transition into Home and introduce you to people.
- In addition to looking out for shady Home users, keep realistic goals. It isn’t shameful to desire a full friends list (and Sony knows we want the cap increased) but take it one step at a time. Start with one person. As with the networking example above, sometimes all it takes to create a snowball effect is one person.
- Don’t give any personal information out. That’s a good general rule to abide by and Home is no exception. If anyone asks you about your location, age or name, it is your right to refuse to answer.
- Keep introductions simple. I know how difficult it is to start, so stay clutter-free. Say ‘Hello’ and ‘How are you’ – with appropriate punctuation especially – to kick things off. If you need a topic after that, ask about Home; most people are willing to give a few pointers.
Of course, each individual is different, and not everything will work for everyone. However, nothing will work at all if you don’t at first try. If there is a learning curve to a video game, there is also a learning curve to overcoming social anxiety, and it isn’t going to go away overnight. And who knows? Perhaps some of what you learn will transfer over into your real life, enabling you to go out and live a more enriched experience beyond the virtual. The trick is to not give up on yourself, and to know that you are worth it.
July 2nd, 2011 by Estim20 | 7 comments
Awesome read. trust when I say Home helps with a great many things
You did a wonderful job Estim, I knew you would. If you would have told me that you were a shy person before reading this article, I would have never believed it. I have know you for more than half a year, we love playing RDR together and bopping Nate
(private joke). I am so glad you decided to take the plunge and do this, I hope to see much more from you as we move forward together in this magical wonderland of Home.
Another good starter topic for conversations is games,everybody on Home is a gamer to 1 degree or another so this common interest is a great ice-breaker.Be it a game on Home or the disc-based game in your PS3 this is a good starting point,then just be prepared to ask follow-up questions to anything interesting that comes out of that initial topic and you should be well on your way to a good convo.Way back when I was a teen I was rather shy myself until I realized that the most socially popular ppl that I knew had the same awkward feelings I had about talking to new ppl as I did,they just didn’t let it show as much.So the perception that they were confident around new ppl became the reality while I as a shy person was letting reality form perceptions about me to others.It still wasn’t always easy but once I came to that realization things got better.Great topic and nice job.
Excellent article, Estim. Even if you do not win a prize in this contest, I really hope you will keep writing for HSM. You have some interesting insights into the social scene.
That was a great article. It hits home with me, since I suffer from a great abundance of shyness in real life and in PS Home (even at the age of 37).
I have managed to make a lot of friends in Home (thanks to a Home related chat room I lurk, at another site). But I still find it a struggle many times to keep conversations going.
It does seem almost magical how social folks can just converse so freely.
Thanks again for a great article and it makes me feel like I’m not alone out here.
Estim is a close friend of mine. yeah i totaly understand shyness. moving 14 times growing up so never developing social skills was tough. and now having multiple sclerosis keeps me grounded most of the time. Home has been a great way to learn how to comunicate with people. you at least have a common ground that helps. 1 having a ps3, 2 being on home to explore and meet people, 3 to play videogames. it has acualy helped me to talk to people in rl better. and it beats spending money you don’t have to go out.
Estim, a very nice article. As one who is “driven insane” by simple conversation, I can relate to your article. It does seem like “it is a mystical art controlled by the gods” and somtimes they impart a little bit of the magic to me. My safe haven is Hudson. Hudson provides a place when things are slowed down and I can go at my own pace. I can comment on a dolphy’s name if it strikes a chord with me or talk about racing strategy. Also Hudson is a big open space. I don’t do well in congested, fast paced, small enclosed spaces like Singstar. Again a very nice article. Hope to read more from you.