#GrowingUpShy was trending on Twitter this morning - and if you're a former wallflower you'll be able to relate to the hilarious memes people are tweeting. But what if you're still the shy and retiring type, way after leaving school? Here are 27 struggles shy people will totally be able to relate to...
**1. **People think you are rude, when actually, you’re just too nervous to talk to them.
**2. **You never start a conversation – instead you skulk in the background until someone introduces you.
3. Networking brings you out in a rash.
4. So does public speaking.
5. And parties.
**6. **And that moment when everyone in the office sings ‘Happy Birthday’ to you and gathers round your desk with a giant cake.
7. Your default face colour is bright red. But you'll save hundreds of pounds on blusher in your lifetime.
8. The worst 4 words in the English language: “What do YOU think?”
9. You would put "Awkward silences" in Room 101.
10. You actively avoid the office kitchen if you see someone in there making tea.
11. You’ve had that nightmare where you’re naked at work and trying to give a presentation more times than you care to remember
12. In meetings at work, you doodle furiously on your notepad so you won’t be asked a question
13. When your housemate has people you don't know over, you hide in the other room, pretending to be REALLY engrossed in an episode of Location, Location, Location
14. You were always described as a “wallflower” growing up. And told you’d grow out of it.
15. Now you’re someone who “keeps themselves to themselves”
16. Your Mum used to physically make you go and ask for things in shops/restaurants so you could “learn how to be more assertive”. You hated her for it.
17. Your phone is your safety blanket at parties.
18. You’d rather let that person kick your chair relentessly on the train rather than ask them to stop. Same goes to that foghorn man talking REALLY loudly on his phone/and in your ear.
19. Your school report read "Should participate more in class".
20. You also never put your hand up.
21. People have pushed in front of you in a queue more times than you can remember.
22. You’re always asked to “speak up”.
23. When you make eye contact with someone by mistake you start finding floor patterns REALLY interesting.
24. All your friends are chatterboxes – because it means they can do the talking.
25. You won’t be making a speech at your wedding – or ever, for that matter.
27. You’re tired of 'being shy' being mistaken for being anti-social. You love your friends – you just find meeting new people hard.