Overcome party shyness with a few good tips.(Lessons I've Learned)

I spent my first college dorm kegger at WWU standing in a corner watching a gaggle of students talking, laughing and having fun. Too shy to talk unless spoken to, I was petrified. I lived off campus with only a rabbit for company, and was too terrified in those days to even answer the phone without choking.

I was sure that everyone else in the world but me knew how to have a good time at a party, and that I must be certainly too fat, stupid and unattractive to fit in. Alas, I was none of those things. I simply hadn't learned the skills to work a party. Now, 30 years later, I still have my moments of shyness, but rarely. And most people who know me cannot believe I was ever anything but gregarious.

It didn't happen overnight, for sure. I …