Speaking to Strangers

I have confidence issues which I have discussed before on this blog; but following some people on twitter I can honestly say I don't think there are many people that don't have some form of issue with self confidence.  I say this because the amount of people I see on twitter who are actually shy in real life is quite high.  There have been many tweets about people they have seen in passing and taken a liking to but never even spoken to because they didn't have the confidence to do so.  Random people in the street, Gym crushes, Tube crushes, - that last one actually has an entire website devoted to it.

How different would your life be if you actually spoke to everyone you took an interest in?  If you discarded the fear of rejection or the possibility of judgement and just went for it how different would your life be and how many people would come into it who you would otherwise never have met?  Going up through my family tree there have been a number of people including my mother and my grandmother who have all had what some people call "the gift" where random people find you approachable for no apparent reason.  I have discussed this before on this blog but the things I have been told by random strangers about their lives would make many peoples' eyes pop.  Despite all I have been told and the random people that approach me I don't find it weird at all and I've never judged anyone who did it.  With that experience in mind I have no reason at all to believe that anyone would react badly to randomly talking to them in public without ever having met before.  Still the idea is a bit unsettling.

We live in a world that is becoming more and more connected every day.  The Internet is a marvellous invention and the freedom the online world gives you to express yourself is underpinned by anonymity because people feel like no-one online is going to know them in person so they can be a lot more open and honest than they would offline.  You are much more likely to respond to a random tweet than approach someone in public and start a conversation about the same thing.  What if you behaved offline the same way you did online?  What if you didn't have that inhibition and you had the confidence to approach people and talk to them.  I realise there will be many people out there who have no problem with this at all and they do this regularly, to them I simply ask how many times have people reacted badly?  Is there any foundation in reality for the fear?