Can we learn to be shy if we're extroverted?

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I was wondering how all the other extroverted Aspie's here dealt with social interaction. I'm done being the village idiot and jester. Enough is enough. How do I become shy? How to I become mysterious? How I do I become inaccessible? I'm an actress so I can learn...

First step is to quit posting to my huge network right? Then what? How deal I deal with going out? How do I prevent myself from performing when I'm not on stage?

Why would you want to be shy? I wish I could be extroverted. I feel like a happy-go-lucky, outgoing person trapped inside the body of someone who is shy and melancholy. But maybe being an extrovert isn't all it's cracked up to be. Trust me, being shy certainly isn't that great either. As they say, the grass always looks greener on the other side. I think we should just learn to live with how we are, because we can't force ourselves to be anything but our true selves.

It has ruined my life and career. Nobody respects me. Everyone tells me what I want to hear but nobody will listen to me. People don't talk to me but about me. I'm seen as an annoying spectacle so nothing I do has any real value. Nothing I ever do will have any real value until I can step away from myself and act like a member of the audience for once.

I can relate. I was a performer and got so tired of feeling like everyone wanted a piece of me and, worse, everyone felt like they knew me and owned me because they had read my words in articles, my book, my blog, etc. Everyone thought they knew me but I felt like I knew no one and felt alone and felt like everyone wanted me to be something for them, not to just let me be who I am for me.

I dropped out completely. I was tired of being on stage all the time and exhausted from the demands of others. I became a recluse and still am. That stage persona was the only way I had ever found in life to be financially solvent. Working for someone else never panned out for me and I was always fired after a couple of weeks. But I had built something on my own that paid the bills and so dropping away from it because I coulnd't handle the demands meant dropping back into poverty again.

I'm in school now, working my way toward becoming a professional academic. I know I can stand in front of a classroom and teach because isn't that just another stage? Isn't that just another performance? But hopefully the demands of others will not be quite as pressing as before and I will be allowed to preserve the reclusive lifestyle that has been such a relief for me.

I don't think you would become shy, more introverted...IMO there's a difference. I'm not extroverted, so I couldn't really say. I also sometimes feel like a extrovert in an introvert's body. I feel like people don't listen when I talk very much, so my solution was: shut up. We're taught (in regards to social skills) to not be annoying or bore people to death, so if people don't want to hear I just shouldn't bother them.

I do things like if I achieve something I try to not say anything about it, and when someone talks about something in their life/a problem they have I try to keep them engaged instead of telling a similar story that happened in my life. (Of course I find this really boring, lol.) I don't bring up special interests or facts TOO much because they'll think you're a show off. But you have to comment (when you're in a group, especially with new people) enough or they'll think you're a snob.

There are so many rules that I find it a bit overwhelming, so I just pretty much either keep my mouth shut and get called a snob or talk about what I want and get called a know it all or a b***h

Why in the world would you want to be an introvert, if you aren't already one!? Be yourself!

Are there problems related to your extroverted personality? If so, why not work on those directly rather than blame them on being an extrovert?

People not taking you seriously--well, people take extroverts seriously a lot, and ignore introverts sometimes for that matter.

I think you ought to try to analyze where the break in communication is--what you're saying or doing, or what attitudes and opinions exist in your audience (could be both, actually)--that block the message from getting from your brain to theirs. Maybe, for example, you're dominating a conversation by interrupting or not checking for signals from others. Setting a limit on how much you talk can be helpful. Or maybe people don't take you seriously because they see in you some sort of stereotypical don't-take-me-seriously trigger (I've experienced this phenomenon when people help me with things; they don't take me seriously because I'm their "client", and thus less competent than they are--a fundamental misconception on their part that blocks communication).

There are probably things you can learn to do to channel your extroverted nature into more effective communication strategies, maybe even to the extent of knocking aside some of the prejudice (at least in those who aren't actively bigoted). People don't really get very far by pretending to be someone they aren't; they do best when they use what they are to its best advantage.

I would say that I periodically suffer from my extraversion. There are advantages as well as disadvantages to both personality types. While being an extrovert has enabled you to connect with more people and to be able to put yourself across to a larger audience, coupled with Asperger's, it also makes your differences more conspicuous. On the other hand, if you were an introvert, you would just settle down and not take much initiative socially.

One thing that has helped me to become come across as more shy and quiet is forcing myself to do solitary activities. I have taken advantage of the way my mind has difficulty transitioning between two completely different types of activities. This is my method: I force myself to do something introverted for two hours of so before going out to meet people, ie. reading a book or writing. When I go out to meet people, I usually act a bit more reserved, because my mind is still under the effect of that focused and calm state.

Some of my "learned introversion" came naturally from my shame at having made an ass of myself on too many occasions..In my youth I went through a brief stint of wreckless uninhibition..and youthful euphoria...maybe it was due to hormones...I really don't know....But I talked to a lot of people, and I could not read their reactions or intentions...and I did not really have a good "social filter"...I would get "hit upon" and not realize it...and not really ummm know what to do with myself...and I "got in trouble" with my "peers" and whatnot.....and alienated myself from people and gathered a sense of shame that allowed me to become more introverted..I guess it was good, because before that I did not understand the concept of "tact"....and I learned to monitor situations better...the bad part is that it set me up to allow my social skills to slide into the mess they are in today...where there are lots of people I can't talk to...

Sometimes I feel like my diagnosis messed up my social skills even worse because it made me hyper-aware of my deficits. When I was younger, I had a lot more chutzpah, partly because I just didn't know. And like you, PLS, my social blundering would trip me up every time. But it took years of that to lose my self-confidence and sometimes it feels like the diagnosis was the final nail in that coffin.

At the same time, my diagnosis turned my life around. It gave me a framework for understanding my life and getting a lot of my act together. But the more I learned about AS, the more I just wanted to go farther and farther into social reclusiveness and the more I began to realize that the social stumbling wasn't a series of coincidences but a pattern of awful that would only get better to the degree that I learned to keep my mouth shut.

Once you've endured enough pain it comes natural, at least it did for me. I shut everyone out because I was done with it.

Find someone better than you...someone you wish to emulate..Look..Listen..and Learn. That will give you true humbleness. It is not shyness that you wish...but humbleness.

Me...I'm still looking for a better......

I have this issue around certain people. Most of the time I'm very quiet but I turn into a jackass around my family...

IDK, it's really hard because when I don't put on the act)for me being extroverted is an act) I just go COMPLETELY mute and everyone thinks I'm a b*itch or tries to mess with me. I guess I'm usually somewhere in between, thought. I act very social when I need to and am very quiet the rest of the time, IDK how you would do it. I think if you feel best being extroverted you should just go with that. If you feel like you come off as an idiot sometimes just try to be more mindful and tone it down, I know what you mean because I can certainly appear to be obnoxious or just plain crazy when I don't pay attention to myself.

I've been messed with so bad that people encouraged me to make an ass out of myself for their own amusement. I am done though. I just want to observe. Exist. I am sick of this self destruction. I became introverted in school after the way I was treated. What caused me to be extroverted again was meeting people I thought I could relate to. Not sure how I did it but I became really popular amongst the counterculture. Until my music started selling and every interaction anyone ever had with me was scrutinized. Now I am nothing but a joke and even my fanbase has told me to quit saying so much out of concern.

I feel like never saying anything again. I don't see myself ever having a career in entertainment if I can't learn to have verbal breaks. I never want to talk again. I need to make up for all my years of talking which everybody ignored or mocked. I want to listen. That's it.

I guess I will miss people telling me I'm witty and genuinely laughing at how I phrase things. I will miss people quoting me. I will miss turning heads. Yet it's not worth all this hell. To be known as the annoying girl who can't shut up and says the same things over and over again is crap. I can't imagine anybody ever wanting this.

I know where u r coming from. It is hard to have that aspie lack of tact but also be talkative or outgoing. My 20s have been an incredible trainwreck in a way they wouldnt have been if I was shy or quiet.

I dated an incredibly social guy while being a complete introvert. I met people I got along with well, but fell flat on my face. Lots of misinterpretation, misunderstanding. In the end it seemed like they were all looking for things in me that just weren't there. When I spoke (I usually opt to NOT speaking in social situations unless spoken to) I was blunt, completely honest, and well again misunderstood. Took things literally, didn't get the social navigation or what I should have said or done until it was too late.

I'm still pretty noobish here, but being here you likely fundamentally understand what it is to be different? I think being shy and introverted is just different in the same capacity. If you're shy, you're just as likely to be misconstrued, misunderstood, have people talk about you. I walked into a room to find everyone was talking about me and how I was disruptive etc in a situation where I'd been trying to just wallflower and disappear into the group. I had deliberately been trying to not get involved, and found myself in that situation all over again. It's. Just a different train wreck. Sorry if this is kinda rambly. I'm not going to say I wish I had your problem, because well honestly I don't. At least I know to some extent how to cope with what I've been given, starting over on the opposite side would just be a nightmare for me.

Cutting myself off from almost everyone was just about the only way I could get away from the people that thought I was annoying, manipulative, bitchy, aloof, whatever they had perceived in me. Even that sucks. Just, sucks a little less.