Hi Marilyn,

You must forgive me as i am quite new to the whole forum scene however am extremely good on the building confidence scene.

It is all a very common experience that we feel intimidated and shy in new company however I have moved countries 5 times not to mention the infinate city moves and I have a great plan to overcome these things.

Firstly all your fears are comfort zones, people are never comfortable doing things that they have never done before, so until you do them you will always live in your comfort zone. So the solution is to push your comfort zones slowly but actively push them.

Moving from city to city and country to country i had to always meet people despite one day being fairly shy. I began pushing slowly by joining interest groups, this forum is a great example! I found a group that was interested in something i knew or wanted to know and joined it....in the process hopefully making many new friends (or at least i hope!)

Now I think this is something you are great at from what i can see in a virtual world but in a physical world you have not pushed yourself fully which is the same as most of us.

Personally when i moved to a new place, i joined salsa classes, martial arts classes, group gym classes, ameture theatre societies and more...

You will not only meet people in a relaxed environment (thereby slowly pushing your comfort zone) but you will also learn many new skills.

I for one honestly started learning salsa just to meet people and i liked music... I now give beginner classes through that social process that i have repeated over the years.

Dont focus on meeting people of the street, once you have met people through various things you try, you will feel more comfortable in a social networking environment and therefore gain more confidence (and possibly a dancing skill or otherwise!)

To your confident success,

Muneer