Well Hello There ....

When I was 18, I was incredibly shy.  Well to put it more correctly my shyness mainly revolved around my communication skills with  the opposite sex.

Actually I was always really shy. I  had never really had a boyfriend of more than a few weeks during  high school.  I  favoured building strong female friendships over having to deal with boy germs.

I thought boys were rather silly, somewhat scary and rather intimidating. Of course I had high school crushes  (who doesn't?) but never anything other than that. 

When I moved to Melbourne for university, it was blatantly obvious to all of my new friends, that I was lacking in confidence  when it came to speaking to guys.

In fact I could hardly string a couple of words together. Maybe a "hello" and if the poor guy was lucky, I would add a "how are you". I would get all tongue tied and then just end up standing in uncomfortable silence, before he walked away, never to be seen again.  Humiliating!!!! 

Oh and eye contact, what eye contact. I preferred to just look at my shoes. 

My very well meaning friends wanted to change all of this, they could see this may become an issue down the track when trying to find my prince charming.

So I suppose as part of my university orientation, for the first few months of they would lend me their boyfriends to practice small talk on.
I was to at least try and maintain eye contact and have a conversation.  Looking back now, it was probably rather embarrassing for both me and the boyfriends. In fact, it must have been and I am guessing I would have had a few drinks under my belt to actually have done this,  but it did work! 

Once I progressed from the boyfriends, my wing women, would encourage me to go up to just about anyone and start conversations! 

After a while they took my training wheels off when I felt competent and confident enough to make that awkward small talk on my own, unguided, unsupervised.

In fact I became quite good at it actually, I wouldn't go as far as saying it was easy,  but I got my  game down pat. It worked well enough to finally find a decent guy, settle down, move in together and have a gorgeous baby. 

Now that I am back to being single again,  I feel as though I am back to where I was when I was 18, needing  some of those lessons in small talk all over again!

I know my skills must be better, I don't shudder at the thought of speaking to guys,  but I do feel myself retreating and taking on some of those shy tendencies, that I worked so hard trying to change. 

Looking away when eyes are met.  Shutting down my body language, when I know I should be staying more open and receptive.

More than anything I want to available to  new things and new relationships, I just need a little bit of that coaching again.
Of course I am petrified of being hurt,  but I have realised, who isn't? Life really is too short to be worried about that.

I know I have nothing to lose, and I would hate to see potential relationships slip through my fingers because I was too timid to say more than hello. 

Any tips or tricks on how to talk to the opposite sex?   What worked for you? Any advice is good advice!  I'm all ears!!