I don’t really talk about this a lot, but I suffer from social anxiety. It makes interacting with people tough. I am always so afraid of saying the wrong thing or coming off stupid. I often avoid people I know in public because I don’t know how to talk to them. I practice a plethora or mundane answers to mundane questions I might get like “Oh, this shirt? Yeah, it’s new.” just so I will have a well rehearsed answer if I get the question. Standup helped me get more comfortable with talking, but I found I was still just doing painstakingly rehearsed material and praying I never was put in a situation where I had to adlib. The other day I was hosting a show (which was terrifying) and the comic I was about to bring up said “I gotta go to the washroom real quick, do like a minute before bringing me up” and I had exhausted all of my current material, so I had a bit of a panic trying to adlib my way through a story about my wife snoring.
I am very happy to say that as of 10 minutes ago I am registered for Second City’s Improv For Anxiety to try and curb some of these fears and behaviours. I spent my first 30 years terrified to talk, hows about I spend the next 30 not so scared?
I am hoping to blog more on here, so I will definitely blog about the class!