Your insecurity is obstacling you in the social life and you are 25, you had many chances to get situations where you could dare a bit more and test the waters to then progressively open yourself, but you didn't. So at this point I think beside suggestions we can give here, you might get some online sessions with counselors (much cheaper than psychologists). They would give you suggestions about what you could do as first steps that fit for you, and in your surrounding.
Anyway, as suggestions from me, I could say that you should start considering how deeply people around can be insecure too, but they cope with layers of workarounds. Pick a random hot girl on the street with makeup and stuff. Remove her all the makeup, give her basic pajama-alike large clothes, natural hair without conditioners and put her to suddenly rely on herself managing customers in a pub, without all the "workarounds" she puts up everyday. She would be probably mortified and would behave way way way less confident than her usual.
This is an example to say that deep inside, few people are confident "for real", if you remove their coping techniques. The difference is that you didn't put up any "mask", but you probably should because it actually helps, it's like a proxy to gain confidence later. So, no hesitation in becoming cool looking by any means, first of all (body shape, smiles, good hair and beard, clothes etc).
Nonetheless you're not alone in that because those confident people lived, for sure, also a big number of very embarassing and humiliating, or pathetic, situations, especially while having crushes on someone. So they know how it is, they just move on, but they have been there at least once.
Second, when you see people in public, keep focusing on how fragile they could really be, underneath, and how hard they are trying to stay up. The absolute most of people is mad scared of being judged negatively by the others, even if they claim otherwise.
Third thing: keep in mind that most of people you interact with briefly or who sees you on the street, will never remember you after a short time, at all. So you can have a shaky voice at phone or you could say slightly strange things, but if you don't do something iconically remarkable, they will really not even remember about the conversation. Only you. So you can take it easier because any small mistake you make, time will anyway completely bury that. Trust that.
The more you expose yourself to these experiences, the more you will collect facts to convince your inner self that it's safe to proceed further. The more you avoid, the more you will be delayed in becoming confident. No escape around that...
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By talking to anyone. It's a cliche response, but that's only because it works. The more you do it, the more used that you'll get to talking.
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I was even worse than you, and I still struggle to talk sometimes in some situations.
I became more comfortable by having a job that puts me in contact with people, so I have to speak to sell stuffs.
I'm fine now, even if I didn't stopped be introvert.Introvert does not mean shy. The only way to get over anxiety is to face that anxiety until it goes away. You may find out once you've overcome your obstacle that you were an extrovert all the time.
www.meetup.com until it gets easier to talk around people
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