the banes of technology

You may not believe me when I say I am highly introverted by nature. That's probably one of my biggest inadequacy. Within a group setting, it is not unusual for people to miss my presence because I practically blend into the surroundings. Come a small group meetup, people notice I don't contribute much to conversations. And when I'm alone with just another party, words are stucked in my throat and I'd rather have awkward silence than to voice out everything in my mind. I am so conscious of my actions and what people would think that I hold back. Behind the facade of my screen (be it skype, blackberry or anything), I can chat freely and say absolutely everything and anything and amuse people with my jokes. But take away the screen, meeting people in face is yet another story. I can almost say I am verbally handicapped without my technologies.

My uncle always reminds me how chatty and bubbly I was in my younger days. I was the apple of everyone's eye because I made everyone around me happy. My uncle goes on to tell me that I am the only one who can make my younger male cousin (back then, we were really close) laugh. But when did things start to change? I'm not entirely sure but I daresay it has a lot to do with esteem issues and how I felt I could let my mask down behind the screens. I got too comfortable with my persona behind screens that it practically becomes my alter ego. You have no idea how good (in comparison to face values) my articulation is behind the screen.

I didn't see a problem until my uncle started reminding me how reserved I am now as compared to the past. My sister told me I sound like an entirely different person on FB and in reality. In my previous relationship, the guy actually took out a pen and a paper during one of our quarrels for me to pen down my thoughts because he was too frustrated that I was keeping quiet. My leader says I need to speak up more , be it in group settings or anything, ever so often. People are often prompting me to talk during meetups. Yesterday, during my meetup with A, he said 'now i understand why your leader tells you to speak up more' and when we resumed our chat over BBM awhile after we parted, he said 'next time when we meet, we chat over BBM ok.' Now, that's a serious issue. I most certainly do not want people to see me as the girl behind her handphone and neither do I want to confuse friends of my 2 seemingly different personalities.

I need to be able to chat freely on and off screen, to the same extents. I need to make conversations independent of my gadgets. I need to master the art of communication once again.