Doing the sociable thing

I was hit by a minor revelation the other day.  This left me somewhat concussed and possibly a little bruised... but mostly enlightened.  And the revelation goes a little like this:

I’m not shy; I’m lazy.

Well, I say “minor revelation”, but that’s probably understating it somewhat, especially when you consider I’ve thought I was shy my entire life.

On other hand, I’ve known about the laziness for quite a long time.  I just never thought to connect the two.  Probably because of the whole laziness thing...

I wish it weren't true, in many ways.  It’s incredibly easy to be lazy... and it’s equally easy to overcome it.  Shyness, not so much.  But now that I know it’s more laziness than anything, I feel beholden to do something about it.  Which really goes against the heavily-entrenched laziness grain.

And yet... I’m still doing it.  Why yesterday, I met up with the good bathmat and met two whole new people, the thought of which would have sent me running hastily in the opposite direction not so long ago.  And while I wasn’t as scintillating as I might have hoped, I didn’t make an utter idiot out of myself and even managed some conversation along the way.  So score one for me in my war against a sedentary life.

And tonight, I managed to spend much longer than I realised writing emails to three people - something I’ve been putting off for no good reason for ages.

After this, I even remembered to sign into msn... although due to the unexpected lateness, there doesn’t appear to be anyone around.  Of course this would be the case when I’m trying to be sociable...

I still feel a little lost, though, so I’m very much open to any and all advice on how to break out of one’s shell and stop being so damn shy and/or lazy.  Tricks?  Tips?  I’ll take them all, thanks.