This is a great question. I'll share a couple thoughts and experiences. 1. A great post was written by Paul Buchheit that called things like fear of public sp

This is a great question. I'll share a couple thoughts and experiences. 1. A great post was written by Paul Buchheit that called things like fear of public speaking, which may be an inflamed variation of fear of conversation, 'ego-fear'. While this may not be technically correct, it could be a useful psychological framework. See post here: http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/serendipity-finds-you.html http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/serendipity-finds-y.... 2. When I was young I was very nervous around girls, and hated public speaking. Along the way I became pretty good with girls and captain on my debate team. The key ingredients were a willingness to keep trying to improve and being willing to shrug off failure. The first times I approached women I was an absolute fool but I eventually improved by gaining a sense of what's socially viable. With regards to public speaking, I was very nervous when I started out. But, once I had looked like a quite a few times, I got pretty good and ended up being the leader of several organizations in high school and college. 3. A friend of mine who is quite brilliant but very introverted suggested the book "The Game," which basically describes how to hack romance. I wouldn't suggest applying this book to your love life, but some of its insights might be worth checking out. When you understand that your interactions with other people of the same sex are often as complex as those of the opposite, it becomes a fundamentally different (and often more tractable) problem. My friend read this book, saw some therapists, and was willing to look like a fool the first couple times as he talked to girls and publicly spoke. He's now dating a beautiful girl and gave something like 300 public speeches our senior year while the president of one of my college's biggest organizations. So, my experience has been that repetitive practice and willingness to learn are key ingredients to improving and conquering what may be related fears. Funny how this seems to be the formula for success with almost anything.