Thanks Sexobon
The 'turning it on' is only with people I don't know, and particularly large groupings in places I don't know. Once I know people I am quite outgoing and confident.
So, the first couple of times I taught a class when I started doing the literacy tuition. Addressing striking workers on behalf of the local MP. First few classes at Uni. Turning up at a stranger's house to hear their problem.
I 'turn it on' and after a while I feel the confidence I portray. I have a dualism when it comes to confidence. I am both very confident and very lacking in confidence at the same time. My natural inclination, from being very young, has been to be talkative and self-confident in company. My actual experience of the world has at times conflicted with that (extreme bullying and during some periods total ostracism at school because of severe and disfiguring eczema) which makes me instinctively recoil at the thought of interacting with new people/full rooms/crowds.
I started the school year a few weeks late one year. By which time the kids in the classes i attended had all sorted out their seating arrangements before I got there. My French class was overfull, and every class I'd go in and try and find somewhere to sit. Because I was coming from a lunchtime music class I was always a couple of minutes late for the class. I'd walk in and the other kids would turn and look and then the muttering would start. And the giggling.
And I go from desk to fucking desk trying to find somewhere to sit, having picked up the spair chair from the back. I was supposed to attach myself to the end of one of the two people desks making it a three person desk. Each desk i got to the kids wuold say stuff like "don't fuckin sit here you dirty cow" or "ewww. Fuckoff you disgusting bitch". Said under their breath. Loud enough for me to hear. And each class, after I'd wandered round like some fucking tramp, the teacher wuold spin round and tell me off. For making a fuss. just sit down, she'd say.
Sorry. Bit of a rant. That one still gets to me if I think about it.
But anyway. That's why i don't like going into a room full of people or initiating conversation with groups.
Once I've 'turned it on' for a bit, I usually feel it. It's like all that natural confidence I used to have (before school kicked it out of me) comes back.