My shyness would have ruined it.

I never wanted to rush on this one. My shyness would have ruined it. I've been fighting for this one for a long time. I never said no to an improvised appointment for a beer, to meet old friends, to attend to parties or dinners, etc.

Through the past years I've met a lot of new people, I've gathered with old school mates, attended parties or appointments with people I didn't know much, but I was perfectly able to enjoy it, to feel free and be myself, as long as making the others comfortable when socializing with me.

It was a long fight, but I now feel richer inside, more confident and able to do almost anything related to human relationships.

Probably, the most important change I had to do to achieve it was to avoid judging the others with my rules and morale. We are all imperfect, and my imperfections are equal (when not higher and worse) than the ones that I see in the ones that surround me. So I started approaching them as equals and so I learned that I could perfectly bear some particularities of people and enjoy their great parts.

Another great chance of mind that I had to do was to realize that one can not make a great friend in a couple of days, weeks or months. It takes time and you cannot force it. It's a two lane highway, and you need a particular stat of mind (and so does the other one) to feel this kind of friendship.

The greatest obstacle I had to overcome was to accept that, even if I'm now more sociable, I still dislike many social scenarios. For instance, I don't feel comfortable in a room full of lots of strangers who know each other (and I do not know them). I'm not good at starting conversations with a complete unknown. And I'm not good either in some other scenarios, but I accept it and don't feel it as a flaw or let it completely destroy the sensation that I'm a sociable person.