The Question That Nags

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Ebb and Flow.

I am observing someone, and apparently I’m as flummoxed as the person I’m observing.

The person  I’m observing  seems outgoing,  friendly, carefree.  He  is  always  surrounded  by  friends  and  colleagues, never a dull moment in his social circle, though he might not think so. It’s not who he is on the  inside, though.  Inside,  there’s  intense  passion  but  it’s  tightly bound by his shyness in personal situations. In matters of the heart, he is terrified to make a move…or a mistake.

I’d love to give him a hug—the kind I might give a shy little  boy—and tousle his hair and tell him he’ll be fine,  just  fine,  but  he  has  his  pride  and  I  would  not wound him. So I watch, I observe, without ever yelling at him to buck up or chiding him for his feelings. I understand better than he might think.

I observe the shyness, find it endearing even. There’s a charm to it…or would be if he would get close enough for me to see it better.  That’s the paradox of it: such a sweet  and heart-warming  shyness  that  colors his affections and yet it paralyzes him when so much warmth is waiting for him in the world.

So the question nags at me. How does one become more aggressive  in his own behalf? Particularly  when he would not be left wanting?