<p>I am an IB student and currently in the 11th grade. During my the first 2 years of high school, I spoke to people but not like on a friend level and I sit with a few of them at lunch. I don't want this year to be the same. Everybody seem so nice but its just the fact that Idon't know how to get over my shyness.</p>
<p>Try acting a bit. Pretend you are not yourself. Play a part when talking to people. =P
May work on the initial shyness</p>
<p>You shed a shade of shyness
You shed a shade of shyness
You shed a shade of shyness
Why can’t you be more cynical?</p>
<p>^^ I’m like the same. I sat with the cool kids once on invitation, but I was too afraid to cramp their style, though they probably wouldn’t have minded me eating with them, but my logical choices are always voided by my instinctive ones. </p>
<p>So yeah, don’t feel uncomfortable!</p>
<p>I’ve always had this problem, I just don’t know how to open myself up to other people.</p>
<p>^^I’m the same way with the whole afraid of cramping people’s style thing. 
But it’s not even with “cool” people. It’s with people I’ve known for years a lot of the time. I know it’s so stupid and irrational, but I just can’t help it.</p>
<p>I’ve had the benefit of overcoming this problem as a child because I moved 10+ times throughout my schooling career. Think about looking back onto your high school years and all that you could of done. You don’t want to have any regrets.</p>
<p>So “don’t take life too seriously, no one makes it out alive anyway” </p>
<p>and </p>
<p>“carpe diem”.</p>
<p>Join clubs where you’ll have to meet new people and talk to them. You already have something in common with the people, so that should help you. Debate Team is a good one, btw.</p>
<p>I agree with CranberryOrange. I used to be the shyest person you can ever know, but after I got a tutoring job with third graders, I became a lot more outgoing. Find an extracurricular that requires you to talk a lot in front of other people and eventually, you’ll be able to open up to people more easily.</p>
<p>Just act really cocky and narcissistic. Once you believe that you are ** better ** than everybody, you are magically unafraid of them.</p>
<p>^ It sounds bad, but for a while I could only be confident around people I didn’t know well by finding a way to look down on them. Anything from, “He must be stupid - I can’t believe he said that,” to “She has awful dress sense,” helped me. Now I don’t really need to do that anymore because my self-confidence has actually increased.</p>
<p>Sorry for the overuse of italics.</p>
<p>I have a problem with this too. Dual-enrolling is not exactly helping either, and because of that I can’t really join extracurricular activities. I want to be outgoing but I never feel that anyone wants to hear what I have to say, or that I’m too unattractive, or something stupid like that.</p>
<p>I use to be a little shy but every since highschool I’m not.</p>
<p>^Didn’t you make a thread saying you were going to leave?</p>
<p>Two new juniors came to the program, and they seem to have become buddy-buddy with everyone and its only been 3 weeks since school started. I have been there 3 years and I still haven’t gotten real close friends with anyone.</p>
<p>^ Just assert yourself more and build confidence.</p>