NaBloPoMo Post 11: Since when did I become the confident one?

Today was the first day of my three day 'first aid at work' course. The course is being interesting and I'll likely do another blog on it at some point. My workmate Emily is having a less fun time of it, but I look forward to reading her blogform reactions nevertheless.

As a random aside, people at work suggested me as a possible backup first aider for the organisation in large part because I get myself covered in fake blood for fun:

So, in this course, I've found myself being one of the people answering most often when the teachers ask questions. This alone isn't that surprising ó the same was generally true at University, I think it comes from me having more of an assumption of engaging with learning than most. But beyond that, I've also found myself leading in smaller group discussions, turning the teacher's suggestion of us acting out the treatment for someone fainting into directing the rest of the group "You be the person fainting. You be the 'bad first aider', you be the 'good first aider', and I'll narate the first doing silly things and the second doing what was actually needed."

Whenever I end up doing that sort of stuff, there's still a part of me that goes "What the hell are you doing drawing attention to yourself! You can't do this!", and is probably part or all of the reason I still sometimes blush when the attention is on me. That part of me comes from years of being bullied at secondary school. Always verbal and not physical because of my size, but due to not responding with violence, it got pretty bad, which is why to some extent I still carry it with me.

But conversely, there's the stuff which has led me to being someone who does now speak in public, talk confidently on things to people I don't know well, and hopefully someone who has at least a bit of charisma/persuasiveness about myself. And that 'stuff' is my friends.

This somewhat comes back to my previous post on friendship, the long tail, and that I get to socialise a lot with good friends, that I get on well with everyone at my work, and that I have to do relatively little in-depth interacting with anyone that I don't get on with.

As well as this being nice for me, meaning I can surround myself (virtually and/or physically, depending on the moment) with people whose company I enjoy), it has other positive effects ó namely the aforementioned confidence. Yes, drawing attention to myself still feels a bit weird and worrying, but over the years, the supportiveness of my friends, the general openness and willingness to take people as they are that the alternative and geek subcultures have, and finally the ability to try it out behind a mask (literal or metaphorical) whilst roleplaying have all combined to make me much more outgoing, much more willing to suggest, to try and persuade, to lead at times, generally, to be confident.

And whilst I do still have those moments of "What am I doing?/Arrrgh! They're all looking at me!" (generally when interacting with the mainstream, though sometimes even in geeky company when there's particularly more attention/people), and I still have the occasional blushes when everyone's looking at me, I think they're both reducing as I do it more, as I take what I've learned among friends and apply it to the world at large.

Which is nice.

(This is also one of those things where I really have no idea how much of the internal is externalised; how much of any of the above that feels visible to me, is actually visible to others)