human contact
It must be silly for a normal person, but almost every kind of human interaction makes me nervous. Preceding it I worry about how it might go and anticipate it going wrong in some way.
You might expect this to have a plus side: to be well prepared should it go wrong. But in reality it seldom serves me right. Mostly it doesn't go wrong, so I'll have worried in vain. And when it does go bad, it rarely does the way I anticipated. But even if it does, I most likely will be stunned to have been right, and not react soon enough, letting the moment pass to profit from my anticipation.
I do initiate human contact, and sometimes maybe even easier than most people. When travelling abroad, for instance, my girlfriend was amazed at how easy I could walk up to a total stranger and ask something; directions for example, or explanation of what we were looking at. In English speaking countries I had no trouble with that since I felt comfortable enough speaking the language. In France however...that's an entirely different matter.
But in my home country the nervousness is hardly any less.
When I have to go up to someone to discuss something that may affect me, I dread it long before I get to it.
Hours beforehand I can ponder on how to go about it. Even on how to get to see the person in question. Where will he or she be? How will I address him or her? How will I start the conversation? Do I need to precede the business part of our discussion with small talk, and if so: what about? How will I formulate my question or remark? As a plea, as a demand, as a favor? How subservient do I think I need to be to get the best result? Or should I not hesitate to take the upper hand and try to override any possible resistance on the part of my opponent by raising my voice and keep talking? And what if things go different from what I anticipate, as they often do?
And then there's the small talk with total strangers, like in the queue for the cash register in the supermarket.
When first confronted with this, I was stupefied. How could you strike up something like a conversation with people you not only not know at all, but do not have any dealings with, or would want to? But then it dawned on me that this was probably a kind of human contact that had very little chance of turning against me, as long as I made sure there was no issue between the one I would address. Since then I have on occasion started some kind of conversation with someone waiting in line at the supermarket checkout. For instance when things aren't moving along, a computer fails, power is lost, a product can't be found....whatever. Something which affects those waiting in line in the same way. And mostly there has been some kind of positive response. I make a remark and the other person says something back in support. That might open an opportunity to say something else, make light of the situation or the opposite. With a second reaction from the other person the matter is almost always closed. I know that socially talented people can go on in situations like this. I have a neighbor who is great at that sort of stuff. He can build a party like atmosphere in almost any situation. For me two interchanges of lines is about it. To me it constitutes social exercise. Like when exercising your body is better for it than not moving at all, I feel this kind of small talk is better for me than moving along silently.
It does, however, not diminish my fear of interaction when there is something at stake, little though it may be. Maybe it has been less in childhood, I don't know for sure. But as an adult I have always found it to be hard. And experience hardly makes it easier. Because there are always those who unexpectedly turn my human interaction into something dreadful. This always gives me such a fright that they will haunt me for years.