shy

so when you are sitting on the bus and the boy you have been staring at on this very bus ride for six straight months, the boy you have actually started taking pains to sit infront of so you can't see him and stare, the boy you suspect might be, oh, you know, creeped out about your staring comes up to you, sits next you, and is extremely friendly for almost an hour, and then mentions he is moving to another state for work soon, you know the universe is telling you something.

at 31, it is not longer cute, or charming, or enigmatic or very useful to be shy

and jesus, was it ever, really
the nice thing is, as we get older, we get to get better, if we so wish to make the effort
perhaps this is because time affords us an opportunity to witness the outside world and in the process to move outside our own little heads. that is, we get the chance to get OVER ourselves, to see the people and places around us and not just wonder at our reflection in other's eyes

sure, there is a certain charm in reticence and one can have a certain private quality that might work to their advantage....

but in general, shyness is just a crippling inability to deal with one's own discomfort
an inability to look away from our own warped image in the mirror

and it's self doubt and insecurity and it went out of style with grunge

and it can deprive you of chatting with the cute AND nice boy for 6 months