Social confidence: how to stop fearing new people

She is standing by the fridge in the office kitchen, holding a mug she finished long ago. Her new colleagues are chatting two metres away. In her head she keeps rehearsing a line that would let her join in — “I was there last summer too” — but by the time she has shaped it, the conversation has moved on. She looks at her phone as if an important message had just arrived. Then she goes back to her desk and spends the rest of the day telling herself off for being “weird” again.

If you recognise yourself in this, you are not alone. The fear of new people — of saying something stupid, of being seen blushing, or simply of not being liked — is one of the most common human fears. In this post I will write about what social confidence is, where the line runs between shyness and social anxiety, why the very things we do to protect ourselves often harm us — and what you can do differently.

Shyness is not a flaw

First, something that seems important to say at the outset: shyness is not an illness and does not need to be “fixed”. Some people are by nature more reserved in new situations. The developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan described how some babies, already in their first months, react to new people and objects more cautiously and with greater physical arousal — he called this behavioural inhibition. Many of these children later become shy, but most of them live perfectly full lives.

A shy person needs a little more time to warm up. At a party they prefer a smaller group. They do not like being the centre of attention. But once they have warmed up, they talk, joke and enjoy themselves. Shyness can even be an advantage: shy people are often good listeners, notice details and are thoughtful in relationships.

Introversion is not the same as shyness either. An introverted person needs time alone after socialising because company tires them, but they are not necessarily afraid. A shy person is afraid in company, even if they long for it. So social confidence does not mean being loud, popular or comfortable in every crowd. It means that fear of other people’s judgement does not stop you from doing what you want. I have written more about why confidence is not loudness in Confidence isn’t volume: what trusting yourself really means.

When shyness becomes social anxiety

At the other end of the spectrum is social anxiety. A large American epidemiological study led by Ronald Kessler estimated that around 12% of people experience social anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. That is no small group — in a class of thirty children, it would be three or four.

The difference between shyness and social anxiety is not whether you are afraid, but how much room the fear takes up and how much it costs you. In social anxiety, fear is not just unease in the first few minutes. It is intense, lasts longer, often starts days before an event and does not stop when the event is over — the person goes over it for a long time afterwards, replaying every sentence. And above all, the person starts to avoid situations, even when that harms them. They skip the job interview, don’t ring the doctor, don’t ask a question in a lecture, don’t go to a friend’s wedding.

I am not writing this so that you can diagnose yourself. Only a professional can make a diagnosis, after talking with you. I am writing it because many people spend years telling themselves “I’m just shy”, even though fear is shrinking their lives more than it needs to.

What happens in your head

In the 1990s the British psychologists David Clark and Adrian Wells described a model that still best explains why social anxiety keeps itself going. One of its key findings is surprising: in company, a person with social anxiety does not watch other people — they watch themselves.

When they walk into a room full of strangers, their attention turns inwards. They monitor whether they are blushing, whether their voice is shaking, whether their palms are sweaty, what to say next. And from these inner sensations they build a picture of how others see them — often as if watching themselves from outside, through a camera in the corner of the room. If I feel red, then everyone sees me as red. If I feel awkward, I must look awkward.

The trouble is that this inner picture is almost always worse than reality. Others often do not notice the blushing at all, the shake in the voice is barely audible, and a pause in conversation is nothing unusual. But because attention is turned inwards, the person has none of the information that might reassure them — they do not see the friendly faces, they do not hear that someone else also slipped up. I have described what happens in the body and brain during anxiety in What happens in the brain during anxiety, and the thoughts that predict the worst in “What if …”: why the brain would rather predict a hundred disasters.

Safety behaviours: protection that keeps fear alive

When we are afraid, we do something to protect ourselves. That is natural. In social anxiety these protections are often very subtle, and people do not even recognise them as part of the problem. Psychologists call them safety behaviours. A few examples:

• You prepare in advance and rehearse in your head what you are going to say.
• You speak little and fast, to get it over with as soon as possible.
• You hold your mug with both hands so no one can see them shaking.
• You avoid eye contact.
• You look at your phone when you don’t know what to do.
• You stand next to someone you know and stick to them all evening.
• You have a drink or two more “to relax”.

Adrian Wells and colleagues showed what happens when people with social anxiety drop these protections during exposure: anxiety and the belief that something terrible will happen decrease more than when they face the situation with their protections in place. Why?

Because a safety behaviour prevents you from learning that the fear was unnecessary. If I prepared a line and it went well, I tell myself: “It went well because I prepared.” I never find out that it would have gone well without it. What is more, safety behaviours often produce exactly what we fear. Someone who avoids eye contact and gives short answers comes across as distant and uninterested — and people really do approach them less. And so the fear is confirmed.

Avoidance: relief that comes at a price

The strongest safety behaviour, of course, is not going at all. You cancel the dinner. You don’t sign up for the course. You send a message instead of calling. And you feel instant relief.

That relief is exactly the trap. The brain remembers: “I avoided it and the fear disappeared.” Next time the urge to avoid will be even stronger. You can read more about this mechanism in the knowledge base under avoidance. Over time the world narrows — not because you have chosen a quieter life, but because fear has chosen it for you.

Shame is often present too. Not just the fear that someone will see I’m awkward, but a deeper sense that there is something wrong with me that others must not notice. If you recognise this, you may find it helpful to read Shame: the emotion that whispers “There is something wrong with me”.

Gradual exposure: moving closer, not jumping in at the deep end

If avoidance is what keeps fear alive, the way out is approaching. Not in the sense of “force yourself to go to the biggest party in town”, but gradually, from easier to harder. This is called gradual exposure, and it is at the heart of cognitive behavioural therapy for social anxiety.

Exposure works because it gives the brain a new experience. You do not convince it by explaining that people will not judge you. You convince it by going, staying and seeing what happens. Two things matter here: that you do not run away when anxiety is at its peak, and that you drop your safety behaviours — otherwise you will tell yourself once again that you only got through because of them.

A good place to start is an exposure ladder: a list of situations ranked from those that trigger a little fear to those that trigger the most. At the bottom might be asking a shop assistant a question; at the top, giving a toast at a wedding. You climb the ladder step by step. I have also written about why fear needs to be approached in Exposure: why panic has to be approached, not avoided, and about how self-trust grows from action in Small actions, real confidence. A particular form of the fear of being judged — the fear of performing — I cover in Stage fright.

A short conversation shows how such a shift might sound in therapy (a composite, not a real person):

“I was quiet at lunch, as always. They must think I’m weird.”
“What were you paying most attention to in that moment?”
“Myself. Whether I was red. What I’d say.”
“Did you see what the others were doing?”
“I don’t know … I think one of them was laughing at something on her phone.”
“So we don’t know what they were thinking. We know what you were thinking.”

Exercise: one safety behaviour less

You can start this exercise this week. It does not ask you to walk into a situation you cannot manage, but to do one thing differently in a situation you are going into anyway.

1. Choose one situation that you find uncomfortable but cannot entirely escape — morning coffee with colleagues, a parents’ evening, a group exercise class.
2. Write down your safety behaviours in that situation. What do you do to protect yourself? Be precise: phone, crossed arms, prepared lines, constant nodding.
3. Write down a prediction. What will happen if you drop one of these behaviours? How strongly (from 0 to 100) do you believe it will happen?
4. Go, and drop just one behaviour. Deliberately turn your attention outwards — to faces, to what people are saying, to the room.
5. Afterwards, write down what actually happened, and rate again how much you believe your original prediction. Has anything changed?

If it goes well, next week you can drop another behaviour or pick a slightly harder situation. If it doesn’t, you have done nothing wrong — you simply picked a step that was too big. Take a smaller one.

Where the fear of being looked at comes from

In relational family therapy, in which I am training, we are interested not only in how fear works now but also in where a person learned it. Often the answer lies in the family. Someone grew up with a parent who commented on everything — how they dressed, how they spoke, how they sat. Someone had to be “good and quiet” at home because the atmosphere was tense. Someone was the target of ridicule at school and learned that the safest thing was for nobody to notice them.

Experiences like these do not mean the parents are to blame. They mean that the fear of being looked at once made sense — it was a way of surviving in an environment where being seen really was dangerous. Today, though, the person carries it into situations where it is no longer needed. Once they understand this, it becomes easier to approach the fear with more understanding and less self-judgement.

When to seek professional help

If shyness does not get in the way of your life, there is no reason to do anything about it. But if fear of people affects your studies, work, friendships or relationship, if you have been avoiding it for years, or if you ease it with alcohol, it makes sense to seek help.

There are well-researched forms of help for social anxiety. Cognitive behavioural therapy based on the Clark and Wells model has proved highly effective in studies, and a large comparative meta-analysis by Evan Mayo-Wilson and colleagues found individual cognitive behavioural therapy to be the strongest of the psychological approaches. Other forms of psychotherapy that work with relationships and emotions can also help, especially when the fear stems from early experiences.

In Slovenia the first step can be your GP, who can refer you to a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist, or the adult mental health centre at your local health centre. With severe anxiety, medication is sometimes worth considering too — talk this through with a psychiatrist rather than deciding alone. If thoughts of not wanting to live appear alongside the anxiety, call the Crisis Line in Slovenia on 01 520 99 00 (every day from 7 pm to 7 am) or the Samaritans helpline in Slovenia on 116 123 (24 hours), and in an emergency 112.

Where this approach falls short

I would like to end with a few limits, because social anxiety can be talked about as if every fear of people were simply a mistaken belief.

Not every fear is distorted. Some people really do face rejection, ridicule or discrimination in company — because of their appearance, origin, sexual orientation or disability. Their caution is not a thinking error but a response to real experiences. Here exposure does not mean forcing yourself to stay in an environment that harms you. It means finding environments that are safe and checking there whether the old fear still holds.

You don’t have to become sociable. The goal is not for everyone to enjoy big parties. An introverted person who finds socialising tiring has nothing to fix. The goal is that you make the choices, not the fear.

Sometimes it is something else. For some people, difficulties in company are linked to neurodivergence, for example autism, where social situations demand a lot of energy for reasons other than anxiety. For others, withdrawal is driven by depression or the after-effects of trauma. That is why, with long-standing difficulties, it is good to have a professional make the assessment.

What to remember

• Social confidence does not mean never feeling awkward, but that fear of being judged does not stop you from doing what you want.
• Shyness is part of temperament. Social anxiety is when the fear lasts longer, is stronger and shrinks your life.
• Safety behaviours bring relief, but keep alive the belief that you only got through because of them.
• The way out of fear is gradual exposure without protections, with your attention turned outwards.
• If the fear affects work, school or relationships, cognitive behavioural therapy or other psychotherapy is well-researched help.