One of the goals that I’ve set for myself for 2009 is to be a more social person. I’ve always had a problem making “small talk” in situations where I’m not entirely comfortable. If the topic or situation is one that I’m extremely interested or discussion is in an area I consider to be myself well versed in, I usually don’t have a problem speaking up and being heard. However, if I’m in a completely social situation or there are discussions of a topic that I don’t know very well I tend to clam up and just listen.

This tendency that I’ve noticed in myself also extends to online conversations. I tend to be more of a lurker and rarely jump into the conversation unless I can speak with absolute authority on a subject or I know lots of people from the community really well. Out of the dozens of forums I formally belong to, I post on two of them with any regularity. The same goes for Twitter and Friendfeed; I lurk and rarely jump in with my own comments.

I have sat down to write a new post at least a dozen times since my last post and probably a dozen times before that. The main reason I never did it was because I found myself wanting to discuss the election or politics since that was what was mostly being discussed anywhere. I am very confident in my beliefs and thought processes about politics, but that is the area I feel the least comfortable discussion with total strangers. So, I opted to keep quiet and just listen instead.

It’s not that I’m shy, if someone asks my opinion I’m glad to give it. It’s more of a control thing. I want to know how each person is going to react to what I say. If I know the subject really well or I know the people really well, I can gauge their reaction and make my response as non-controversial as possible. Otherwise, I feel out of control of the situation so I’d rather not saying anything.

I’ve come to realize that I’m probably missing out on some great opportunities to learn new things, explore ideas I’m not familiar with, and most definitely I’ve missed out on some great networking opportunities.  I attended a training class in December and won a book on breaking the ice. The book made some great points on what can come out of being bold enough to break the ice and talk to total strangers.

I plan to start slowly and working to increase my comfort level with jumping into the fray with people I don’t know. I hope that will translate into blogging more often (maybe starting a new blog), posting more meaningful posts to twitter and friendfeed, and even striking up conversations with random people I meet on the street. What trouble could that possibly get me into?