Not sure of your past...but my upbringing...growing up in a very dysfunctional....anxiety based environment...made me a very shy adolescent and young adult...the ultimate "people pleaser"....wanting everyone to like me so do almost anything to make that happen...feeling like I had no life....so lived through other peoples" stories...awkward! Extremely...no ability to communicate especially with females...

I remember a good college friend of my wife years later telling me how she thought I was a "snob"...just looking too cool....little did she know I was just scared out of my shorts around women...

My first date was a disaster...assumed that all girls were good talkers...lol...my date was quieter than me...and of course...I locked my keys in my car so had to take a bus back home and wake up my mother to get my date home!

Somehow I managed the courage to continue to go to school and even date again...years later...saw my first date at a HS reunion and had a good chuckle over that whole thing...

However...it has taken years of "programs" mixed in with therapy to find my voice and get comfortable with me as me...still a natural introvert...but enjoy life a lot more today...thanks for the topic.