Unrealistic Ambitions

Introduction.

Despite wanting to do all sorts of things, I'm not particularly active, and I have crippling social anxiety. 

Strangely, I have a job that involves a lot of presenting, smiling, and general chatter. A good percentage of the time, I am the one talking, and when other people are talking, it is me who is the general conductor of the conversation (I'm an English teacher to Frenchies.)

Talking and engaging during a lesson isn't at all like to chatting to a colleague, or to a stranger at the bus stop.  

Most lessons are free of the social awkwardness that hangs around during every other human interaction I have. The reasons for this are obvious; I've prepared beforehand what we're going to talk about, and everyone has to do as I say. I'm not always terrified of the conversation breaking, because I always have something else to move on to.

While it's not devoid of a social side (it makes things a lot easier if the students like you), it's primarily a professional situation, not pleasurable one. Unless you have a group of underfed zombies to teach (it happens), it's generally easy to keep proceedings going by until the finish line.

And then the lesson finishes. And the change in atmosphere as soon as every closes their books and stands up is clear. I wasn't a popular girl at school, and I'm not exactly Miss Popularity now. But I can lead a fun lesson, I can explain grammar, and I can get people can use it. 

The puzzle is why I can't talk to people outside of that. 

Unrealistic ambitions are just a fact of life for me, and some are ridiculous, others aren't that unlikely. Some days I wish I could sing, so I can act like I'm in a music video. Some days I really want to write something half-decent. But the most infuriating thing for me is my inability to do something my students do with each other as soon as they stand up, and that is to turn to each other, and talk normally, easily, without the steady tracks of a prepared lesson to guide them.