Are you a talker? A pacer? A shaker? A loner? Do you draw, sing, dance?

Do you drive people crazy or do they all say to you, "How can you stay so calm?"

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

Answers

When I'm nervous around people, I miss whole paragraphs of conversation because I'm too self-focused. I talk too much and reveal things that in retrospect I should have kept to myself, and I talk too fast. I work hard at remembering to ask others questions so I can get some relief, but when they answer, I blank on great chunks of the info because, well, I explained above. So as you might guess, I feel inept at certain parties and social things, and I end up fleeing as soon as I can. Sometimes I can psych myself up and have a perfectly great time, but other times, I barely make it out alive.

When I'm nervous by myself, I rip my nails and fingers to shreds.

I'm a piece of work.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I do exactly what you do. I can't even add anything, because that's exactly what I do. Well, okay, it never involves glitter. But that's what I do.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I always babble when I'm nervous.. and I know I'm doing it too, which is worse. Inside my head I'm going, "shut up, Shut Up! SHUT UP!!!" and my mouth keeps talking and gong on and on like some verbal diarhia (is that how not to spell it?). If I'm home, I pace around the house, while babbling, and my arms waving wildly, and I shuffle things around. Then I clean. Which does come in handy.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I usually just pee right down my leg. Ok, I'm kidding, but I'm probably not too far from doing that sometimes. I, too, am a nervous talker, especially if I'm bearing bad news to someone. I say the bad news, then hit them with a barrage of sorries and overly detailed explanations of why the bad news happened, or whatever. I can't bear silence from the other party, so if they don't respond immediately I just keep going, and going and going. Really fast. Like I'm on speed.

And I also do the checklist thing a million times. You are not alone Pamie, not at all.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

i talk. to anyone who will listen. and when i get on stage, i shake uncontrollably. not my voice, but my whole body. my knees do, in fact, turn to jello. i'm always afraid i'm going to pass out or collapse because my jello legs are just going to give way. it's terrible.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

When I'm nervous I'm a shaker and a fidgeter. I can't stand or sit still. Either I'm tapping my feet or moving my fingers or pacing, anything that'll keep me moving. A lot of times I'll force myself to be still and take a deep breath, but that usually helps for about five minutes, then I'm fidgeting again. Then my face feels flushed. I can't even keep my eyeballs still.

Oh yeah, and I have to pee a lot.

Strangely enough (or not), once my reason for being nervous happens, I'm fine. Once I'm either on stage or actually meeting someone or in the middle of an job interview, everything calms down. Thank heaven for that.

(See here and here for my accounts of my nervousness when meeting one of my favorite actors of all time. [Um, no, that's not a plug for my journal, no, not at all. ;D])

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

....i'm a talker, a pacer, a nervous twitcher...exactamundo...and sometimes it does involve glitter...

cheers [and break some legs or something...*smooch*]

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

Pamie, you're going to rock like a hurricane, so don't worry. When I get nervous on stage, and I don't really anymore, once I start singing, I am totally fine. I have superior powers of denial.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I don't get nervous. Seriously, I don't.

Even when I use to perform. It wouldn't matter if I was dancing in a group, or a solo performance. I was never nervous. Just excited.

When I got married, all my bridesmaids were running around crying, some of my bridesmaids spiked their cherry slurpees to make it through the ceremony they were so nervous. My mother-in-law was taking xanax, like it was candy. Me? I was just sitting in a chair calm as could be, taking it all in.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

i count things. swear to god, i will sit there and count floorboards, the number of window panes, those little dividing lines on the highway, anything, really... and i hate math. i also have this rolly ring that is three interconnected silver rings that i roll up and down my finger. i twitch, bob my feet up and down, flip my sandals on and off. but wait. i do most of this stuff even when i am not nervous. just not as much.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

OH boy! i'm a talker. well more like i babble endlessly. i'll just go on and on and on about things that i find amusing. and if i have been drinking and i am nervous.. whoa! i suddenly become trivia gal and can like recite useless facts about just about every 80's sitcom you can think of. YOU HAVE NO IDEA just how much there is to say about The Facts of Life!

just sayin...

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

I clam up when I get nervous. For a while. However, then suddenly, I'll say something semi-coherent which might have related to a conversation held minutes (or even hours) before, and the people I'm talking to will go, "Oh. Well, there you go."

Which is the generic response to someone you didn't hear correctly, and don't really want to go to all the trouble of clarification.

At my worst I get cold, too. My Northumbrian skin gets splotchy. And of course, sweaty pits.

Luckily, I'm a teenager who does studio arts.

I get to be jaded and aloof 100% of the time.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 1999

When I'm nervous, I yawn. I can't stop yawning. I sit and fidget and look around . . . and yawn. Oh yeah, and I just commented on it from the stage last Saturday night: where are those bowling machines with the little hand-sized air blowers when you need them?!

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

oooooh, i do that ring thing, too! i have the same ring, a gift from a high school friend who had one that i admired. and i roll it up and down my finger all the time. when i'm nervous, when i'm excited, when i'm bored. all the damn time.

and it gets on my nerves, too. that noise? eek. sometimes, it's like fingers on a chalkboard.

i also rub my finger along the bridge of my nose when i get nervous. see, i broke my nose when i was little, and there's a bump on the bridge from it not healing perfectly straight. and i just rub my finger over the bump constantly.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

I babble, I fidget, I doodle, I fall, I sing, and I count things. Heh. Call me multitalented; I even come up with combinations of nervous habits -- I count the number of times I've fallen down, I babble about whatever artistically unrecognizable thing I'm doodling, I sing a little song to go with my fidgeting, I doodle pictures of me falling while belting out a song.. I'm never more creative than when I'm nervous.

Or maybe that's when I've had too much caffeine.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

well i have phases, first i wont talk for a looong time..then i get really really fidgety, and my hands do a lot of moving around my torso..unfortunately the hands usually gravitate towards my breasts because im very self concious about them so it looks as though im feeling myself up..then i start mumbling..mumbling and mumbling to myself til someone says WTH ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? and then i get really really hyper and basically bounce/dance in my seat until im almost hyperventilating. its a horrid horrid thing.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

I eat when I'm nervous. While my son was a-borning, I ate my wife's entire fruit basket. When she came to, she questioned me about it (somewhat testily, as I recall): "Don't you think that was really meant for me?".

Humbly admitted she had a point. Couldn't help it, though.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

I just giggle and giggle and giggle some more. Then it develops into a full fledged belly laugh.

Unless I'm nervous because I don't want to be where I am.

Then I get sweaty palms and shut the hell up.

-- Anonymous, October 07, 1999

I'm a pacer/mumbler. I'll walk around talking to myself about everything that I have to do. Unfortunately, I'm so caught up in my mental list-making that I don't concentrate on what I'm doing and I end up having to go back to the same task 3 or 4 times. I also tend to ask annoying questions to everyone around me: "Where's the troupe that's on next? Who's idea was it to have the show here? Has anyone seen my dwarf hat?"

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1999

I do almost everything everyone else here has mentioned! Blathering. Stammering. Clamming up. Forgetting stuff. Sweating. Laughing. Turning purple. (Except with counting. Or glitter.)

However -- there is one thing I used to do (before I totally gave up on the idea of acting -- not that I ever really wanted to, but when you're a theatre major they pretty much force you to sometimes) and probably still do, but I try to keep myself out of these kinds of situations now: I shake uncontrollably. And I don't just mean my hands. OK, you know how your hands can shake when you get nervous? Imagine that transcribed to your face. I would try to smile onstage, and my facial muscles would tremble so hard people in the back row could see my smile twitching. I'm sure I looked demented -- it must've been really frightening to watch, like I suddenly had Early- Onset Parkinson's! Then I would become so self-conscious about the shaking that I would forget all my lines. I don't care if my next line was something I could say in my sleep, like the Pledge of Allegiance or something, there is no way I could remember it. Ugh. I'm starting to quake a little just thinking about it. I think I need to go now....

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1999

I bite my nails. I know I shouldn't. God knows they look awful. My mom used to yell at me for doing this, but she probably figured that there's no getting through to me, so she pretty much gave up. Also, I talk to myself. Alot. Then I worry that the people who live next door to my apartment are wondering "What the hell is going on over there?"

-- Anonymous, November 22, 1999

I'm like Mis. I don't get nervous-just VERY excited! I sing in a choir, and before a show, while all the other members- including 1 man who's been in choirs for 30 years- sit and get nervous before a show, I'm usually to be found behind a post or similar out of the way place, breathing and saying to myself "Almost time now. Just enjoy this"! And I always do!

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001